The Shadows (Books of Elsewhere #1)

BOOK NAME: The Shadows (Books of Elsewhere #1)
AUTHOR: Jacqueline West

Do you like to draw elaborate pictures or paint vivid masterpieces? Imagine if you had the ability to enter paintings and make their scenes come to life in a parallel dimension. How would you use this remarkable power?

Eleven-year old Olive Dunwoody and her family have just moved into a massive, old house on Linden Street. The house is full of winding hallways, unusual antiques, and peculiar paintings. At first, Olive doesn’t notice anything particularly remarkable about any of the paintings that cover the house’s aged walls, but then she notices that some of the painted images move and shift ever so slightly. When her parents try to remove one of the paintings off the wall, it won’t budge. It’s as if the painting was attached to the wall with super glue. Olive doesn’t know what to make of all the strange happenings.

Things become much clearer when Olive finds a pair of spectacles in a drawer. When she puts the spectacles on, all of a sudden the paintings come to life! The trees in a forest painting sway in the wind as a faint white figure darts between their trunks. Olive becomes curious about this strange moving shape. When she takes a closer look, she discovers that she can enter the painting! She meets the moving entity, who happens to be a young boy named Morton. She also encounters several talking cats that can travel in and out of the paintings as well. However, Olive soon discovers that there are more sinister secrets hidden in the paintings. A blanket of thick shadows chases her through the forest painting where she found Morton. Olive also discovers a large, brown dog trapped in a painting in the attic. Olive wonders why Morton and the dog are in the paintings. What other secrets does the mysterious house hold?

I could not put down this fantastic book. The suspenseful storyline is what kept me interested. Olive is thrown into life threatening situations. She must also think quickly and imaginatively to overcome obstacles and unravel the mystery behind the paintings. Her curious and determined demeanor helps her overcome many of the challenges she runs into. The book’s ending was definitely the most entertaining to read. In the final chapters, Olive must face her fears and battle the evil being that haunts the house. Every chapter was filled with nail biting moments. The book also leaves a few cliff hangers to hopefully be answered later in the series. I thoroughly enjoyed The Books of Elsewhere: The Shadows.