THE COMING OF SCHADES

Two young brothers square off against predators both human and unearthly in Carlton’s supernatural thriller-series starter.

Ten-year-old Nick Emerson and his 5-year-old brother, Frank, feel like it’s them against the world. Dick Pickerd, their mother Lisa’s boyfriend and boss, regularly molests Nick, who vows never to allow Frank to be victimized. Frank, meanwhile, is harassed by bullies who like to toss him in the school dumpster. The boys are also beset by “schades”: ghastly, pale beings who skulk in shadows, shriek at light, and sometimes attack; two years ago, Nick and Frank saw their dad, Nick Sr., get killed by one of them. Things look up when school janitor Harry Armstrong gives Nick a pendant watch that catalyzes his ability to stop time for several minutes—which he uses to defeat Frank’s bullies—and a doctor and Lisa spot the sexual abuse and have Pickerd arrested. Nick and Frank reconnect with Nana Emerson and Uncle Howie, who reveal that people with the Emerson bloodline have used paranormal powers in a 5,000-year war against the schades, and they also help Nick develop his time-stopping ability and assist Frank with his burgeoning telepathic talent. Then Pickerd gets out of jail and aims to abduct the two brothers, closing in on them with the help of schades. This first book in Carlton’s Heroes of the Line series features monsters of several kinds, grounded in a compelling portrait of an abused child trying desperately to avoid his tormentor; Nick also has a psychic premonition that Lisa will die if she learns about the molestation. Carlton’s prose is eerie and atmospheric, with the schades a pervasive, macabre presence that heightens the boys’ panic and despair: “He dared a peek into the dim light just in time to see the gray peeling face fade back into shadows. It raised its dusty looking hand and waggled its fingers at him, but it was the sinister smile still hovering in the air while the rest of it disappeared that left him with shivers on the inside.” The result is an imaginative page-turner in which magic augments a tense psychological drama.

A frightening fantasy tale that mixes cosmic dangers with domestic terror.