A gripping historical fantasy horror steeped in mystery, romance and the macabre.
It’s 1904, and occult detection is no profession for a woman. That won’t stop Evie Winstanley.
When her father, a collector of occult books, dies in strange circumstances, Evie is determined to investigate. Her only lead: a cryptic mention of the ‘Circle of Shadows.’ From a chilling séance on the
lonely Yorkshire moors to the sinister, hedonistic halls of Oxford’s elite, Evie hunts for answers, stalked by whispers of an ancient monster and an ever-shifting, ominous symbol.
But when a young woman’s body surfaces in the Cherwell, bearing that same mark, Evie uncovers a truth far more terrifying than a single murder.
Now, Evie isn’t just seeking justice; she’s fighting to save her sister who she fears might be the next victim, in a dark and twisted adventure where gilded boys unleash hell and defiant women must pick up the pieces. Nothing will stop her investigation, not outraging Edwardian notions of female propriety, and certainly not offers of romance.
Blending historical fantasy with Golden Age classic crime, Circle of Shadows is a dark and twisty adventure through an occult Edwardian England where wealthy boys toy with powers they don’t understand, and a lone woman takes a stand against them.
Shoutline: Sherlock Holmes didn’t deal with the supernatural. But Evie Winstanley does.
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Marisa Linton is both a professor of history, and a prize-winning author of supernatural fiction.
In 2023 Marisa won the Times/Chicken House competition with her eerie young adult fantasy, The Binding Spell. Published by Chicken House, May 2025. She describes it as a mash-up of The Wicker Man and This Country. It’s set in a remote village, where witches and druids still abide in secret.
Marisa’s first adult novel, Circle of Shadows, is a gothic historical fantasy and dark mystery about a determined young woman in Edwardian Britain who becomes an occult detective and fights demons, both fantastical and human. Published by Hodderscape, October 2025, the paperback will be published 24 September 2026. The sequel, Domain of Darkness, will be published in December 2026.
It’s been described as ‘Enola Holmes meets Dennis Wheatley’ (Greg Mosse).
Instagram: @linton.marisa
Website
My thoughts: Evie Winstanley doesn’t believe that her father’s death was as natural as she’s been told, there’s something connected to his research into the occult that caused his death, and she’s determined to prove it.
But then her sister Grace is drawn into something dark and terrifying, something that might well be connected to their father’s work, his time at Oxford and a group of obnoxious dilettantes who are dabbling in the occult and trying to do something dark and dangerous underneath Talbot College.
As Evie attempts to unravel her father’s last mystery and save her sister, she has to put her trust in people whose motivations are a bit murky, to say the least.
Mixing crime with the occult, Evie must summon all her strength and bravery to carry out her investigation without her mother finding out or getting herself killed.
A clever blend of genres with a smart and capable protagonist in Evie and a potential sidekick in her new friend Kit.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
