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Shadow Of The Mothman: A Cryptid Thriller

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First There Was Dread and Death

In 1967, the town of Point Pleasant, West Virginia, was terrorized by a winged creature stalking the night skies, along with a host of other bizarre and frightening paranormal phenomena. It all came to an end with the tragic collapse of the Silver Bridge on a cold December evening.

Then It Returned

Ken Orsulak survived the Silver Bridge disaster, only to awaken from his coma sixteen years later. A man out of time and confined to a wheelchair now, he’s taken back to his childhood home of Remington, Massachusetts. By day, the bucolic farming town is just as it was when he left in 1967. By night, shrieks, strange shadows and unexplainable lights send ripples of fear throughout its residents. Something sinister has descended on the town. Has the terror of Point Pleasant come for Ken?

Now All Hell Has Broken Loose

The creature has a name – Mothman. The high strangeness surrounding the monster defies explanation. Ken and the town fight for answers, then find themselves fighting for their lives. Enter John Keel, the stalwart reporter who made the mysterious cryptid infamous. Has he arrived just in time, or is he too late to save Remington from the unknowable intentions of the Mothman? Remington is coming apart at the seams. Will anyone be left standing when…and if…the Mothman’s reign of terror ends?

A cryptid tale of existential dread unlike any other. Shadow of the Mothman will pull you into a world of mythical beasts, UFO folklore, men in black, and ghostly visions. The nostalgia of the 80s is plunged into the mystifying world of In Search Of in this love letter to the beasts and enigmas that plague our nightmares.

“Shea combines ancient evil, old-school horror, and modern style.” -- Jonathan Mayberry, NY Times bestselling author of the Joe Ledger series.

186 pages, Paperback

Published December 16, 2025

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62 people want to read

About the author

Hunter Shea

67 books1,008 followers
Hunter Shea is the author of over 25 books, with a specialization in cryptozoological horror that includes The Jersey Devil, The Dover Demon, Loch Ness Revenge and many others. As part of the new horror line at Flame Tree Press, his novel Creature has gained critical acclaim. His novel, The Montauk Monster, was named one of the best reads of the summer by Publishers Weekly. A trip to the International Cryptozoology Museum will find several of his cryptid books among the fascinating displays. Living in a true haunted house inspired his Jessica Backman: Death in the Afterlife series (Forest of Shadows, Sinister Entity and Island of the Forbidden). In 2011, he was selected to be a part of the launch of Samhain Publishing’s new horror line alongside legendary author Ramsey Campbell. When he’s not writing thrillers and horror, he also spins tall tales for middle grade readers on Amazon’s highly regarded Rapids reading app.
An avid podcaster, he can be seen and heard on Monster Men, one of the longest running video horror podcasts in the world, and Final Guys, focusing on weekly movie and book reviews. His nostalgic column about the magic of 80s horror, Video Visions, is featured monthly at Cemetery Dance Online. You can find his short stories in a number of anthologies, including Chopping Block Party, The Body Horror Book and Fearful Fathoms II.

A lifetime New Yorker, Hunter is supported by his loving wife and two beautiful daughters. When he’s not studying up on cryptozoology, he’s an avid explorer of the unknown, having spent a night alone on the Queen Mary, searching for the Warren’s famous White Lady of the Union Cemetery and other mysterious places.
You can follow his travails at www.huntershea.com.

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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
Profile Image for Peter.
4,091 reviews796 followers
December 31, 2025
One of the most spectacular covers of modern horrors! Inside you'll find the story of Ken, a survivor of the Point Pleasant Bridge catastrophe and his struggle back into life. But even after 16 years of coma the mothmen (you read correctly, plural) tracked him down and haunt him. What are they and what do those spooky numbers mean? Very strong storytelling from 1967 to 1983 with all the proper ingredients (e.g. video rental stores) right through to the middle. Then it gets a bit repetitive until the showdown. The explanation of the phenomenon and the ending are a bit too thin for my liking after the excellent start. Overall a very intriguing, creepy and fast paced book I enjoyed reading. Highly recommended!
Profile Image for TJ.
357 reviews12 followers
December 29, 2025
Hunter Shea (The King of Cryptids, IMHO) has added a terrific novel to Mothman lore with "Shadow of the Mothman". Shea has created a story that ties the Silver Bridge disaster from the late 1960s to a 1990s town in Massachusetts.
Ken Orsulak barely survived that ill-fated bridge catastrophe and has just awakened from a 16-year-long coma stemming from the physical trauma he suffered in the icy Ohio River as the story opens. As Ken slowly begins to put his life back in order and find ways to cope with his new "future" (while dealing with the tragedy from his past), a new horror emerges.
Shortly after returning to his boyhood home of Remington, MA, Ken experiences an unexpectedly close nighttime encounter with a winged man-like beast with glowing red eyes. Suddenly, memories of that tragic night in Point Pleasant, WV, come flooding back. He slowly realized that this beast was the same creature he had seen on that fateful December evening before crashing into the frozen Ohio when the Silver Bridge collapsed.
What is that creature doing in his hometown sixteen years later? Does he have a connection to the cryptid? To get those answers, and much, much more, you'll need to dive into this book as quickly as you can. "Shadow of the Mothman" is a thrill-a-minute, gut-wrenching, impossible story to walk away from. Like Ken Orsulak, it will haunt your dreams after you've read it!
Profile Image for Dale Robertson.
Author 6 books35 followers
January 5, 2026
Good story about the myth that is, The Mothman. Different direction than I thought it was going to take, but it was a well written, engrossing read.
Profile Image for Alan.
1,698 reviews108 followers
January 19, 2026
In 1967, Ken Orsulak saw the Mothman on the Silver Bridge right before it collapsed, and barely survived. Sixteen years later he awakes from a coma back home in Massachusetts. While he adjusts to his new reality, he has strange dreams and visions, and swears he sees the red glowing eyes of the Mothman again. But he's not the only one to encounter the cryptid and other strange occurrences that may be portents of another disaster.
I'm a sucker for anything Mothman, so I was on board for a story steeped in heart of its mythology. And the book was replete in all the Mothman trimmings - glowing red eyes, UFOs, men in black, strange number sequences on the radio, et al. It was decent b-horror monster story, a little more so than the usual more subtle aspects of Mothman lore, and a fairly quick read. There were aspects I felt were too over-the-top, and rolled my eyes at the inclusion of John Keel (author of The Mothman Prophesies) as a character, but liked it well enough.
Profile Image for Rhonda Bobbitt.
583 reviews44 followers
January 15, 2026
I love a cryptid story. The Mothman story has always interested me. And this little take on the story was very unique and thrilling. Character development was outstanding, you will feel the fear and pain they went through. I was absolutely not expecting that ending.
1,243 reviews60 followers
January 4, 2026
Mothman

Ken's life changes the night the Silver Bridge collapses. He thought he saw something as the car was falling but he wasn't sure. Now things are happening again. Are the Mothmen out to destroy the town or help? Action-packed creature feature.
Profile Image for Ziggy Nixon.
1,165 reviews36 followers
January 21, 2026
It was a beautiful night to see something potentially terrifying.

Despite its absolutely gorgeous and enthralling cover, I found Hunter Shea's "Shadow Of The Mothman" - his latest in a long line of terrific cryptid thrillers - to be a mild affair with very little actual horror to be found. I say this with more than a little dismay as I've been a fan of Shea's work for years now and he (usually) always delivers tales containing massive doses of thrills and chills. This includes many of his other cryptid or creature stories including "The Jersey Devil" (one of his very best), "Slash" (an absolute classic in the horror genre) and, well, "Creature", which was as an emotional and terrifying book as you can find owing to a delicious mix of true horror and excitement. My reaction to "Mothman", however, is really something akin to "meh" as it never even approached what I was expecting or wanting and certainly not from this author.

A shadow, a blur, a ripple in the night, swooped out of the ether.

Shea begins our story in December, 1967, as our main character, 16-year-old Ken, is heading back home after a long car trip with his mom and dad. Traffic begins to back up as they near Point Pleasant, West Virginia and well, to those that follow all things Mothman, we know that's when and where a whole lot of the initial Mothman sightings were happening. And on this night of all nights, the Orsulak family are in the wrong place at the wrong time as they find themselves in the middle of the tragic collapse of the Silver Bridge which spans (spanned) the Ohio River. Poor Ken almost dies in the resulting accident (I'll leave the fate of his parents up to the reader), instead falling into a 16-year coma.

We’re not going to make it! We’re going to die!

Now the presence of the Mothman leading up to this terrible event gave rise to a whole bunch of theories as to why he (it?) appeared at all, including from author and reporter John Keel (who is a co-star of this book, too) who theorized the flying creature - be it terrestrial, extraterrestrial, or even ultraterrestrial - was actually benevolent and just trying to warn us dumb humans to stay away from the area before disaster struck. I mean, after it all happened, well, no more Mothman sightings … and no, you can't count the statue with the well-formed tushy standing on 4th Street as a "sighting"! But goodness knows Keel's resulting book only opened the floodgates to many, many fictional (?) tales featuring this beloved "cryptid", even if no one with any sense in their heads would ever willingly go to West Virginia. Oops, did that slip out? Sorry, bad romantic experience, the state is lovely, truly…

They say the creature was a harbinger of doom. Or maybe part of an old curse.

Anyway, back to Shea's offer: yes, "young" Ken wakes up in 1983 to find himself in an adult's body with still very much his late 60's teenage understanding of the world ("Times surely had changed." Uh, yeah…). Luckily, his girlfriend from those days, Cindy, stayed true to him and even studied nursing so she could, um, nurse him back to health during his recovery in a hospital in Boston. It gets a bit gooey to be honest, which was among the many things that had my flabber utterly gasted in terms of the plot. Still, it is amusing to see how Ken begins to reacquaint himself with "modern society", including watching the more popular TV shows of the time, as well as a slew of horror films, and more, thanks in large part to the wonders of VCRs. Heck, his boss even has the swell idea to rent out videos to the general public for a small fee! It is a shame obviously that Ken remains paralyzed from the waist down but at least he and Cindy remain on good terms. Which I think could have been written with a bit more pizzazz to indicate that they were on REALLY good terms. But alas, not in this book!

The immense, flying shadow circled above them like a buzzard eyeing fresh roadkill.

And wouldn't you know it, but just about the time both Cindy and Ken leave Boston and return to their hometown, who - or what - shows up? No, not Bigfoot, you silly person, try to pay attention! It's the Mothman again and this time it seems like he (keep your eyes on the pronouns in the book, kids!) is accompanied by what folks think are them flyin' things, watchacallim, oh yeah, UFOs ("I’ve been seeing all kinds of lights in the sky at my farm."). So naturally, a bunch of folks report animals dead or missing and a bunch more folks start shooting at the sky with anything legal or illegal they can get their hands on ("Beer and fear and guns did not make good bedmates."), all of which does absolutely nothing to change the fact that everyone and their Uncles can see that the Mothman has returned. Heck, even John Keel is back (I mentioned that before) and he along with others is wondering just what is the reason for the creature's appearance this time? Is Mothman specifically following Ken for some reason? Or is disaster about to befall the local Remington, Massachusetts, just as it did obviously on that terrible night 16 years ago?

How long would it be until he became the mashed potato lunatic?

So yeah, we get a good dose of watching the folks in a small town in the boonies lose their collective minds and begin "descending into the depths of fear…into madness." And yes, many of these fine folks wind up paying the ultimate price for their foolish ways (vs. just getting the hell out of Dodge!). However, mentioning what finally happens during the big showdown(s) would be a gigantic (and unforgiveable) spoiler; but trust me, for a few hours at least, a giant ton of stuff hits the big ol' fan and I mean, but good ("This wasn’t minor. This was cataclysmic."). And just like far too many books I've read before, all this goes on without any input from or interaction with the local or national governments or military powers despite so much of what transpires having made the national news. Go figure. If you have an accent these days, the cops show up for no reason but if a town in the northeast is facing mortal peril, nada. OK, not fair, Reagan was President back then, and if he made it outside with his pants on, we all had to be happy with that much.

He still clung to a feeling of being watched. And of being weightless.

Anyway, getting back to my comments about the book itself, well, I found it to be a really really mild effort. I would call it much more suspenseful than anything horror-related, which also led it to being a rather slowly paced story. The execution is about typical for one of Shea's books, where the editing isn't disastrous by any stretch of the imagination, but his publisher (or whoever does the editing) could pay a lot better attention. This was especially true when Ken's boss, Ronnie, is described at one point as, quote, "A man who had spent seventy decades on this planet…" Well, color me purple and call me Barney, but a 700-year-old man is impressive! Anyway, all kidding aside, this was a good read if you love Mothman lore like I do but not the best Shea result in my opinion or among my growing collection of his books!
Profile Image for Catherine Cavendish.
Author 41 books424 followers
January 30, 2026
The King of the Cryptids is Back!

No one does legendary scary creatures like Hunter Shea and Shadow of the Mothman is his latest excursion into the realms of fantastical beings that have no place on this earth but whose presence is attested to time and again by apparently perfectly sane people.

In 1967, the town of Point Pleasant in West Virginia was rocked by the devastating collapse of the Silver Bridge. Lives were lost and the town suffered a legacy. People wouldn’t go there because they believed it was cursed. Before the disaster, it had been terrorized by a frightening, huge winged creature, and a host of impossible, paranormal phenomena. Everyone knew this was no ordinary bridge disaster. In Hunter Shea’s story, Ken Orsulak survived this but fell into a coma lasting sixteen years. He wakes up from it, partially paralysed but that’s not all. Wheelchair bound and trying to come to terms with the loss of so many years and the need to pick up his life in his hometown of Remington, Massachusetts, it isn’t long before things start to happen that have a horribly familiar ring about them. The creature flies by night, It has a name. It’s the Mothman – and it looks like it’s coming for Ken.

Hunter Shea has an uncanny knack of combining actual, documented, yet unexplained events with his own rich imagination. Shadow of the Mothman is testimony to that. Fast-moving without leaving you breathless, full of heart because you really care what happens to these people, this novel will grab you and keep you in a hold as tenacious as the talons of the Mothman itself.
Profile Image for Fred Rayworth.
454 reviews6 followers
January 4, 2026
Shadow Of The Mothman was an outstanding and addictive read. I finished it in a day and a half. It kept me glued to my seat. The writing was outstanding with short chapters and scenes that compelled me to go on to see what happened next. I could relate to the Mothman in particular because I not only lived in West Virginee for a few years, but have family there. I knew all about the tragedy at Point Pleasant and some people in town would never go there because they felt the town was cursed, and not just for the bridge collapse. The way this one turned out, long after the bridge disaster and many miles away in Massachusetts, it brought up a possibility few ever think about in the northeast. Sorry, no spoilers. I had a great time right to the satisfying conclusion. Hunter Shea is one of the best icky bug writers out there. Highly recommended.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews

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