Hidden City

The Unimaginables, Book 1

By: J.S. Furlong

Narrated by: J.S. Furlong

Length: 10 hrs

Publisher's Summary

Teacher and reader recommended YA series! The Unimaginables is addictive urban fantasy at it's best, mixing coming-of-age heart with supernatural action in an adventure led by a pluck-meets-grit heroine who will keep you listening on and asking for more. 

Stacy Goldman is a garden-variety Jewish girl from New York. Except, she's a chess champion. And she doesn't believe in anything she can't prove. Especially monsters. 

When Stacy moves from NYC to Richmond, Virginia, in the wake of 9/11, she enrolls in the academically aggressive St. Ignatius Prep in order to graduate early and get home to New York. At St. Ig's, she falls in with two other outsiders - Finder, the only Black girl and owner of the highest GPA in school and her white boyfriend Tully, a vegetarian fencer and rugby star with a secret even Finder doesn’t know. 

After Stacy interrupts a strange attack outside a diner, Finder & Tully reveal Richmond’s biggest secret: The city is home to a supernatural subculture run by a monster as old as the city itself. Ruled by logic and strategy but having seen something she can’t explain, Stacy struggles with what is real and what is not, including her own faith.

When an alleged supernatural creature comes to Stacy needing help to defend himself and his children from the city's cruel and manipulative vampire leader, she employs her undeniable chess prowess and must discover her own untapped belief in the unimaginable to save not only his life, but those of herself and her friends.

©2020, 2021 J.S. Furlong (P)2021 J.S. Furlong

Workout buddy

This story is great! I love the descriptions of the characters and you can completely visualize exactly what is happening as though you are a fly on the wall observing the whole story. I listen while on the treadmill and it kept me going since I didn’t want to stop listening to what would happen next.

Solid Adventure/Excellent Narrator

In my experience it's rare to find an author that is an equally talented narrator. J.S. Furlong hits the mark dead center. She's equal parts talented writer, skilled narrator. There's a performance in her reading that makes the story quite engaging and energetic. I hope she writes more and narrates more.

The book is a paranormal adventure thriller with vampires, werewolves and high school angst.

We meet Stacy as she's competing for a national title in a chess competition on her home turf in NYC. Unfortunately, it's 2001 just before 9/11. Stacy is soon forced to relocate from her beloved Manhattan to Richmond, Virginia, where she meets new friends, old enemies and (without giving away too much) an unimaginable underworld. Now the intellectual Ms. Goldman must choose between believing in what she can't prove or rejecting her new friends who may or may not be supernatural hunters.

The journey travels the dark spaces of Richmond as Stacy discovers the truth about monsters, friendship and herself.

A fun yarn. Recommended for teens, post-teens and all fans of paranormal vampire fiction.