My Shadow Oaks series are five YA character-driven novels of adventure in a mysterious fictional town in Indiana. When sixteen-year-old Brian Rees visits the hidden neighborhood of his deceased mother, a town that forbids modern technology, he underestimates just what lies in store. Each novel is a self-contained story detailing the adventures of Brian, his love interest Luna D’Claire, adversary Theodopolis Gond, and friend Katerina Loss. In a town where fires start spontaneously and trees move on their own, Californian Brian has his hands full.
Shadow Oaks blurs the line between reality and fantasy. Urban fantasy? More like rural fantasy but light on the fantasy aspects in the early novels. While each novel has a start, middle, and end, an overriding arc exists in all the books. Each book starts with the phrase “This is the tale of a boy, a girl, and a town.” The boy, the girl, and the town each have a secret, all inter-connected, that is explored in each novel and revealed in the latter novels. Readers get the satisfaction of reading a complete novel no matter which one they choose, but they also get clues into the larger secrets of the community.
Shadow Oaks is a setting with a mysterious past, hidden from the world but fully aware of it, and littered with surprises. Since it has outlawed modern vehicles, it has no need for what we consider a street. Bicycles are the only method of transportation through the village. As the town exists in a forest, the founders have allowed trees to grow haphazardly around the neighborhood. Trees grow on two properties, in the middle of streets, through the center of residences. And the dense foliage of Shadow Oaks provides a canopy that covers the town from a satellite’s vision. That canopy also provides another advantage…
Secluded townspeople in a town out of the 1800s have personalities you’ll find nowhere else. From an arsonist who sets fires every night though no one can find him, to a shy boy who may also be a werewolf, to a brilliant school teacher who is determined to shelter her daughter from meeting Brian. The people in Shadow Oaks make up a lot of the atmosphere of this intriguing town, and all of them have pasts and secrets, but none more so than…
Brian meets a number of people his age in Shadow Oaks. In the country store, he encounters Luna D’Claire, a red-haired beauty who finds Brian equally interesting. Another boy, Milton Cougar, quickly shares an interest in baseball with Brian but he is warned that introspective Milton is dangerous. Drummer and tomboy Katerina Loss believes Shadow Oaks is populated with people with abilities but can’t prove anything unusual is going on until…
Is there something supernatural going on? Brian’s a skeptic. He’s never believed in that “magic stuff.” His world is the Pacific ocean, baseball, school troubles, not poltergeists, invisible arsonists, or people who can summon birds with a whistle. Once he encounters these things, Brain is forced to re-evaluate everything he knows. And there’s no better start than with his own heritage…
If you’re a writer, you’re welcome to become a critique partner for any novel in the Shadow Oaks series. The tight community in Indiana, a little “west of October” as Ray Bradbury put it, would love to share their stories with you. Reach out to me at jim.doran.author@gmail.com if you’re interested.