The Shades

A Novel

By: Evgenia Citkowitz

Narrated by: Sarah Zimmerman

A year has passed since Catherine and Michael Hall lost their teenage daughter in a car accident, leaving them and their 16-year-old son, Rowan, reeling in the aftermath of the tragedy. After Rowan escapes to boarding school, Catherine withdraws from her life as a successful London gallerist to Hamdean, an apartment in a former manor, where she and Michael had hoped to spend their retirement.

When Catherine meets a beguiling young woman who appears at the house claiming to have once lived there, she looks to her for meaningful connection. But as their relationship shifts to one of forbidding uncertainty, the mysteries of the past collide with the truth of the present.

With the psychological tension of Patricia Highsmith and the emotional complexity of Ian McEwan, The Shades raises questions about the inescapability of human nature and speaks to our deepest anxieties: the safety of those we love and the sanctuary of home.

©2018 Evgenia Citkowitz (P)2018 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Really moving. Beautifully written.

The writing swept me away into this world. It wasn’t at all what I expected from a book about a grieving family. The characters were utterly complex, especially the mother Catherine. She embodied the ambivalence motherhood can evoke, and the regret for not being otherwise. It’ll stay with me a long time.