What do readers think of Beneath the Shadows by Sara Foster? Write your own review.

The setting is the moors, a village hamlet and a young widow who has mysteriously lost her husband and found their baby abandoned on the doorstep of their home. The elements are there for a good mystery with the typical quirky neighbors one might find in a small English town. The story builds to a climax just pages before the book ends and we learn the truth of the husband's disappearance.
For me mysteries or mysteries/thrillers fall into two categories. One type has so many twists and turns that you are not sure that the writer will ever get to the truth; the second slowly unwinds and the pieces of the puzzle start to fit. I think that "Beneath the Shadows" falls into the later. I felt the book grabbed my attention in the last 50 pages or so.
There may be the inevitable comparison to Wuthering Heights or Rebecca and there are certainly elements of the story which remind me of both of those books. I don't feel the story captivated me like either of those books do.
For me it falls into the category of a quick easy read that perhaps needed more depth to the characters?

Who doesn't enjoy a good mystery? That is just what Sara Foster presents to readers in "Beneath the Shadows". Into the story is embedded sinister shadows and quirky happenings starting with the very first page. Who left Grace's baby outside her door? Where did her husband go? Are the neighbors really what they claim to be? Are they part of a sinister plot? You will just have to read the book to answer these questions, but I assure you it will be an intriguing journey.

Sara Foster caught my attention from the very beginning. "Beneath the Shadows" has all the neccessary ingredients - windswept moors, a mysterious disappearance, a damsel in distress, an eccentric, rather snobbish family, a somewhat mysterious stranger. A gothic tale that's not set in the past but set in the present. A book I really enjoyed reading.

I very readable book, primarily because the characters were interesting, the plot believable, and the setting wonderful...I mean Yorkshire's moors, it couldn't have been better. This book would certainly appeal to the reader, young or old, who enjoys a good mystery.

Their move from the bustling city of London to the tiny village on the North Yorkshire moors seemed like a chance for a woman to start a new life focused on her husband and baby. But what begins as an adventure in a run down cottage quickly becomes a nightmare when the husband abruptly disappears, seemingly abandoning their baby.

"Beneath the Shadows" is a Gothic tale of mystery and suspense worthy of Daphne DuMaurier! The story pulls the reader into the cottage, out on the moors, and inside a manor house filled with eccentric family members who have secrets of their own. Things go bump in the night, the old grandfather clock stops at odd times, and a trip into the dark basement has deadly potential. Slowly, the mystery is peeled back revealing its dark heart. A touch of G-rated romance helps to offset fear and tragedy.

Dialog in "Beneath the Shadows" is a pitch perfect to portray each character, some of whom are not exactly what they seem. Sense of time and place are excellent. You can see the awe inspiring vastness of the moors, and feel the biting cold of the snow and wind. This books has been compared to works by leading Gothic writers. It will leave readers waiting for the next novel by Sara Foster!

All of the hoped-for geography of the English moors is here: windswept, desolate with a raw beauty, the ghostly ambiance of ruins. But the game afoot isn’t a spectral hound. The lurking danger is a web of inbred secrets, the kind that arise in isolation (it takes a village).

One part of good story-telling is timing. “Beneath the Shadows” is artful at the slow revealing of character and history. Relationships evolve, closeted skeletons rattle, and even the weather turns eccentric. More gothic than thriller, more romance than mystery, there is still enough narrative drive to keep readers turning pages at the speed limit.

I was pulled into this book from the beginning – loving the lyrical descriptions which set the scene and atmosphere. The author did a fine job of weaving in the threads of past and present and interweaving the different characters. I found the story compelling and read the book virtually straight through. A disappointment was that the literary tone with which the book opened was not carried throughout, settling for a more ordinary, somewhat choppy, approach as the story progressed. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the book and think lovers of mystery novels will be intrigued as the author sustained the suspense and mystery surrounding Adam’s disappearance until the very end.

I read this book to the end but I had several interruptions in my personal life so it was hard to get back into it.. It didn't completely hold my interest and I got confused with the many characters involved.