The Nineteens and the Whispering Shadow [Fantasy Slice-of-Life High School Epic]

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

Bear a light and face the night. After you've finished your homework.

On her first day of high school, fifteen-year-old Megan O’Sadie has one goal in mind: reconcile with her three best friends from primary school—Angie McMillan, Evan Cadell, and Ryan d’Maughn—who she hasn’t talked to for all three years of middle school. However, when she makes the attempt, she is horrified to discover that something terrible has been happening to the three of them behind her back.

Still, reconciliation seems possible, and Megan is dead set on trying her best. But then all their lives get even more complicated when they meet Chris Gramyre, a new boy in the freshfolk class, and their class’s only Light Bearer.

Can Megan handle the truth of the past three years? Can Angie and Evan handle their anger over it? Will Evan get to hunt the dreadful Beasts Below? What is Ryan’s deal, even? What is happening with their birthdays? Can any of the four handle the aftermath of lunching with a Light Bearer? And who’s that kid that Megan and Ryan don’t recognize?

Set on the fantasy AU Earth ofThe World Between,The Nineteens and the Whispering Shadowis a medium-stakes, slow-paced fantasy YA/coming-of-age high school slice-of-life story with significant elements of drama, action, horror, and (eventually) romance. It might even be funny on occasion. It has four foul-mouthed view-point characters, many additional characters, occasional interludes, and is pound-for-pound mostly dialogue.

Updates Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and sometimes Saturday at 12:19pm, Pacific time zone (GMT -7/8, depending on the time of the year).

Notes:

-The story will get dark at points, but mostly is not. There will be occasional gore, mostly monster gore.

-There will very occasionally be frank discussions of sex and sexuality by teenagers, and some characters are sexually active. There are characters of a variety of sexualities and gender identities. If any of this bothers you this is not the story for you.

-If you don’t like profanity or vulgarity, this story is for sure not for you.

-Act 1 is complete. It is over 400,000 words.

-At the moment, the cover art is generated by DreamAI.

Information

Status: Hiatus
Year: 2023
Author: CaduceusIV

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.1/ 5.0
Followers: 17
Views: 24,146

Chapters(70 total)

Reviews

No reviews yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!

Community Reviews(3)

Kman890Royal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
This is a very dense work. This is so much information constantly being communicated about the world and each and every person that shows up in the story. This could be a bad thing if it was done poorly, but here it's done so well. Every character had so much, well, character. The writting style is different from anything I've seen before. I should mentioned the spoiler/footnotes, there are a lot of them. I'm not certain i liked intracting with them in the beginning, but I got used to them. It helps that they are often amusing. I would strongly recomend giving this story a try.
StainedGlassThreadsRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Have you ever had, for example, a backpack full of tangerines? You possess such an incredible number of juicy, delicious tangerines that you can't possibly zip the backpack shut, yet you try your best regardless. When you finally succeed, you have regrettably squished the tangerines. Some have burst and begun leaking through the fabric in a desperate bid for freedom.
That's what reading this novel feels like. The author has tried to include so much information about the world and characters that it comes bursting from every line and oozes everywhere. And that's largely working in the story's favor. Not often in alternate universe novels does the world genuinely feel like an earth separate from our own, but everything from currency, last names, philosophies on violence, units of measurement, and structures of countries has been adjusted in little ways in this novel. And they weren't just altered as window dressing--explanations and history are provided for many of these differences. If you loved the worldbuilding of Mother of Learning, you need to give The Nineteens and the Whispering Shadow a try, please don't let the high-school slice-of-life scare you away!
Though it has largely a high-school teen drama thus far, there is a somewhat bloody and disturbing aspect lying beneath, which bleeds in through the worldbuilding. In some ways, this feels more unnerving and disconcerting than a more grimdark war story, and I look forwards to both the developing plot and the exploration of the world.
That's not to say that this story is all thorns and no roses either, though. The author is also fully capable of humor and whimsy, and it puts it on full display in the prologue for a quite charming style. My one complaint would be the author's at times curious word choices, which sometimes feel a little off.
Overall, however, The Nineteens and the Whispering Shadow is a fantastic read, well-deserving of more attention, perhaps even a run of printed novels and professional marketin
julesvanRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I'm too old to be enjoying teen drama, but I am enjoying the hell out of this teen drama. It's got some good humor, characters with fairly distinct voices so far, and I really dig the weird, creepy opening. There are some fun fantasy elements already (just wait for the birds), and I'm looking forward to seeing else is coming. Keep it up!