Shadowkin - The Orphan’s Mark

J. K. Maddox

Summary

Cass was adopted at seven, taken in by a family hollowed by loss. From the start, their rural house felt wrong too still, too cold, with corners that seemed to shift when no one looked. But Cass grew older anyway. Or seemed to.

At nineteen, back after their adoptive father’s death, Cass finds the house unchanged and unsettling in ways they know too well. Evelyn, once a gentle mother figure, now mutters about doors that shouldn’t open. A sister hides anger like a blade. And in the attic, rows of hand-stitched dolls point to a story Cass was never supposed to learn.

Then the diary begins writing on its own.

Childhood memories splinter into fragments that shouldn’t fit, dragging Cass toward the question that’s followed them in silence: Who am I and what was I brought here to replace?

Shadowkin: The Orphan’s Mark is a slow-burning psychological mystery of identity, grief, and inherited shadows. In a house where memory bends, every answer exposes another layer beneath.

What if the thing haunting you is the part of yourself you were never meant to keep?

***

This novel is part of SHADOWKIN: The Shadow of Death, a chilling series of interconnected standalone paranormal thrillers, where every shadow hides a secret and every story brings you closer to the darkness.

In the hidden alleys of forgotten towns and the broken edges of memory, the Shadowkin wait. They’re not just creatures in the dark they’re shaped from guilt, grief, and the secrets we can’t bury.

SHADOWKIN: The Shadow of Death drags you into a world where walls breathe, shadows whisper, and silence presses like a weight. Each tale begins with a quiet unease and ends with a truth you don’t want to face: the Shadowkin aren’t strangers at all, but the pieces of ourselves we fear the most.

Enter these standalone stories where every truth cuts deeper, and every ending opens another door.

Available since: 08/23/2025.

Print length: 65 pages.

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