Shadow Girls

by Carol Birch

Combining psychological suspense with elements of the ghost story, Shadow Girls is a literary exploration of girlhood by Man Booker Prize-shortlisted author of Jamrach's Menagerie
'It's just a story, I thought, it's just a story, everything is just a story, silhouettes, ghosts, that girl stepping off the roof.'

Manchester, 1960s. Sally, a cynical 15-year-old schoolgirl, is much too clever for her own good. When partnered with her best friend, Pamela – a mouthy girl who no-one else much likes – Sally finds herself unable to resist the temptation of rebellion. The pair play truant, explore forbidden areas of the old school and – their favourite – torment posh Sylvia Rose, with her pristine uniform and her beautiful voice that wins every singing prize.

One day, Sally ventures (unauthorised, of course) up to the greenhouse on the roof alone. Or at least she thinks she's alone, until she sees Sylvia on the roof too. Sally hurries downstairs, afraid of Sylvia snitching, but Sylvia appears to be there as well.

Amid the resurgence of ghost stories and superstition among the girls, a tragedy is about to occur, one that will send Sally more and more down an uncanny rabbit hole...

Genres: Historical Fiction, Psychological Thriller, Literature, British Literature, Fiction, Suspense

352 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 14, 2022

About the author

Carol Birch is the author of eleven previous novels, including Turn Again Home, which was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize, and Jamrach’s Menagerie, which was a Man Booker Prize finalist and long-listed for the Orange Prize for Fiction and the London Book Award.

Reviews

[Roman Clodia · Rating 3 out of 5]

The brutalities and anxieties of adolescence girlhood have been served well in contemporary fiction and while this adds a slight supernatural edge, the whole thing didn't quite come together sufficiently for me. I also found this very slow: we know from the start that there will be some sort of Carrie-esque public humiliation but it's a long time coming, though the pay-off is suitably traumatic.

What is interesting is the 'aftermath' part of the story in the final third - though, again, there were some logic misses. And it's here that while the ambiguities of haunting versus mental health come to the fore, this elusiveness gets closed down quite definitively in the epilogue section. So a little disappointing for me but still a page-turning exploration of female friendship - and its opposite.

Thanks to the publisher for an ARC via NetGalley

[Ends of the Word · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shadow Girls, the latest novel by Carol Birch, is divided into three sections which, in a play on the title, are named after the three parts of a shadow: penumbra, umbra and antumbra. The first two segments of the novel are set in a girls’ secondary school in mid-1960s Manchester. The narrator, Sally, is a fifteen-year-old student preparing for her O-Levels. Like her schoolmates, she is also navigating the challenges of growing up, including recurring doubts about her first serious relationship (with the dependable, level-headed Rob). Sally’s best friend is Pamela, a troubled troublemaker whom no one really seems to like. Under her influence, Sally indulges in rebellious acts. They play truant and venture into areas of the school which are out-of-bounds for students, such as the basement and the greenhouse on the school roof. Their nemesis and long-suffering “victim” is Sylvia Rose, an only child hailing from a posh background, who is also a promising classical singer. In the second part of the book, several uncanny – possibly supernatural – incidents herald a horrific, although not entirely unexpected, tragedy that leaves a mark on the school and on Sally in particular. The final segment in the book is set around twelve years later. After having worked and lived in different parts of England, Sally returns to the area where she grew up and reconnects with several of her old schoolmates. Her past starts to haunt her, leading to a terrifying conclusion. A brief afterword – aptly titled “After” – clears up some of the ambiguity of the final pages.

I was drawn to this novel because of the blurb that describes it as having “elements of the ghost story”. However, Shadow Girls is rather atypical of the genre. Its first part is closer to the “girls school” story. Birch does an exceptional job at recreating the 1960s atmosphere, the (authentically “dated”) expressions used by the students, and the rivalries, friendships and bullying typical of the school environment. However, possibly because that particular world seems alien to this middle-aged male reader, I found this initial segment, well-written as it is, very slow and occasionally downright boring. Indeed, I was sorely tempted to abandon the book. I’m glad I didn’t. The pace picks up steadily in the second segment and, in the final part, we’re more decidedly in “ghost story” territory with Birch pulling out the stops and relying more heavily (and effectively) on the tropes of supernatural fiction. In particular, she makes good use of that ambiguity typical of some of the best ghostly tales. Is there a prosaic explanation for the supernatural events portrayed? Should they be taken literally, or are they the product of mental health issues affecting an unreliable narrator?

Shadow Girls is a book I would recommend, albeit with a warning that whoever reads it for the thrills and chills should be patient and perseverant.

https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/20...

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

(3.5) Sally and Pamela are best friends at a girls’ school in 1960s Manchester (a refreshing change from a London setting). Pamela’s troubled background leads her to bully Sylvia Rose, an apparently conceited girl with a talent for singing, and Sally goes along with it, even when it involves sabotaging her star performance at the concert by putting pepper in her handkerchief. The slightly creepy atmosphere of their Victorian-era school, with its hidden doorways and secret basement areas, comes to the forefront when the girls start seeing apparitions of Sylvia in high windows and towers where she couldn’t realistically be. Pamela plunges from the roof to her death. We pick back up with Sally when, as a young adult, she reconnects with Robin, her high school boyfriend, and moves in with him in his flat … which is in her old converted school.

“It’s true, it was strange being in the old haunt. Long ago I’d rationalised all of those things that had happened or seemed to happen here. Not that I’d doubted what I’d seen but somehow I could put it away in a separate place where it existed in the same way that a recalled nightmare exists, in a time and space that had been superseded. Living on its remains was a big two fingers up to fear, a metaphorical holding up of the head. And it was also a dare to myself.”

For much of its length the novel is sluggish, unsure whether it wants to be a thriller or literary fiction. However, with the ending Birch pulled it all back. Sally, unsurprisingly, starts hearing and seeing weird things in the corridors of the apartment building – Sylvia-like figures, a song that the girls used to sing – and her narration is increasingly frantic and stream-of-consciousness. I even excused the slight cheat of two third-person pages at the very end reflecting on Sally’s death in a fall down the stairs. Sylvia has achieved her revenge on both girls, and stolen Robin away as well. Ultimately satisfying, but quite the slog to get there.

[Leah · Rating 1 out of 5]

I made it to 17%, during all of which time nothing happens except for reminiscences of schoolgirl days. And now, in the last few pages, our delightful heroine has regressed to infancy and is giving us graphic descriptions of her vomiting and urinating on herself. No more. I had hoped for a literary novel and some psychological suspense, since that's what the blurb promises. Sadly, I'm seeing no signs of any of that, and am not willing to plough through any more in the hopes that at some point a plot and/or some depth may appear. Abandoned.

[Jo_Scho_Reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s the 1960s and Sally is a fifteen year school girl. She hangs around with Pamela and together they rebel; bunking off Games, sneaking up to the school roof at lunchtimes, oh and they occasionally torment Sylvia, an upper class fellow student of theirs. who looks down on them with disdain. But one day something odd happens; Sylvia seems to be in two places at once and this sets off a catastrophic chain of events which can never be erased from Sally’s mind. And will come back to haunt her years later.

My oh my! This was a fabulously creepy read. I loved the slow setting up of the story before a hint of the supernatural was thrown in. Then from that stage I read on with a thrill and wonderfully increasing sense of unease. I went to an all-girls school in the 80s so this really resonated with me. It made me think about dark ghostly corridors with statues of Jesus at the end of them and made me try and recall old rooms, long forgotten teachers and memories, previously lost in the mists of time. As well as being a dark and haunting tale, it’s also a coming of age story; as the school days end we see Sally enter adulthood and leave her family behind, her childhood ending quite abruptly. She’s a stilted character, i certainly empathised with her but I’m not sure if I liked her. However she was absolutely perfect for this story, her repressed personality a remnant from those earlier days.

The increasing sense of foreboding throughout this novel heightens the tension page by page. It’s oppressive, atmospheric and exceptionally chilling. I loved every single page! But boy am I glad those school days of mine are over!

Published 14th April 2022. Thank you Head of Zeus for my proof copy. All views my own.

[Emma Hardy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh wow, where to begin with this read? Its powerful, thought provoking and unusual (for the right reasons). One that will stay with me and really makes you think. Read in one sitting, I just got so absorbed.

[Liz Barnsley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel is extraordinarily absorbing- a slow burn of a tale that gets to you without you even realising it until you find that you can't stop thinking about it.

Looking back after coming to the end I found Shadow Girls to be quietly terrifying really. A girl literally haunted by a tragedy that occurred when she was at school, the shadow hanging over her entire life with ghosts around every corner. In a lot of ways interpretative, beautifully written and dripping with atmosphere from first page to last.

Very much recommended.

[Sian Clark · Rating 2 out of 5]

Writing and characters were pretty good, I enjoyed the first half of the book. Then it all fell flat and was very repetitive and not at all interesting. It took me so long to read because of this.

[mrsbookburnee Niamh Burnett · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my first book by the author and I really like her writing style and will look out for further books.

This is an atmospheric read, a slow burning plot which enables you too fully understand the not only characters and the building itself (which I feel is also a character)

I liked the mix of characters and Pamela was my favourite, who gave some laugh out load moments with her antics.

This is not your usual ‘in your face’ supernatural read, the underlying tones are what is terrifying and really makes you think about the situation.

[Trin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Often effective and unnerving writing and a convincing teen girl POV, but I feel like it didn't really go anywhere. I wanted it to lead to something more than it did; as it was, it felt like (very) early Kate Atkinson.

[Miriam Smith (A Mother’s Musings) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Carol Birch is the author of eleven previous novels, including ‘Turn Again Home’, which was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize, and ‘Jamrach’s Menagerie’, which was a Man Booker Prize finalist and long-listed for the Orange Prize for Fiction and the London Book Award. “Shadow Girls” is her latest novel and has a superb coming of age theme, combining psychological suspense with a thought-provoking ghost story.

- “Set in an all girls’ school in 1960’s Manchester, encompassed by the resurgence of ghost stories and superstition among the girls, a tragedy is about to occur. One that will send Sally (the main protagonist) more and more down an uncanny rabbit hole……” —

This was the most realistic school environment story I’ve read to date, instantly taking me back to my own teenage years at school. Whether this was because it was a similar time setting or whether the author just hit the spot with the emotions of the girls and their behaviour among the individual cliques but a lot resonated with me. I personally hated my years at the local comprehensive school (albeit mixed) and the attitudes of the girls in the story were identical to what I encountered. I loved how the author incorporated a supernatural element throughout that was creepy and believable that culminated in a denouement that which sent a chill down my spine.
This is a slow burn story that takes Sally from her fifteen year old self to a woman still harbouring guilt and anguish from a fatal tragedy that occurred in her final school year. When she ends up living closer to those memories than she would like, how she mentally copes is the main crux of the story, with the shadows of her past returning to haunt her.

I never once wanted to put this book down, I was addicted from the first page - female friendships, teenage emotions, first boyfriends and a unique ghost story kept my attention throughout.

You can find out more about the book from the following link - https://headofzeus.com/books/97818389...

#ShadowGirls - 4.5 stars

Thank you to Kate Appleton for inviting me on the online blog tour for #ShadowGirls and for my copy of the book in return for an honest opinion.

[Romy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book, but not as much as i’d hoped. It took me a while to get through the first half, though it wasn’t boring necessarily. The pacing was a bit weird for me, there’s a lot of set up and when it finally started to get really compelling, there’s a sudden time jump, and I had to really adjust to that for some reason. I really enjoyed the setting of the book, and the author did a great job painting a vivid picture of both the time period the story takes place in, and the unsettling school building. I like how disorienting the writing gets in the 3rd part, but the ending left me wanting more closure and answers. I expected (and kind of hoped I guess) that the supernatural elements would play a bigger part, but this story is definitely more about Sally as a person, and dealing with guilt and grief.

[Mandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

At around the quarter-mark I nearly gave up with this slow-starter of a novel, apparently merely about a bunch of tedious schoolgirls with all the usual teenage angst, bullying, pettiness that goes in in a school. But before I stopped I had a quick look at the reviews and such was the enthusiasm with which so many had written that I decided to plough on – at least for a while. And I’m so glad I did, because from the halfway-mark the book takes off and becomes something much darker. A possibly supernatural element works its way in and the story becomes increasingly creepy and ambiguous. There’s a haunting – or is there? Is it a real haunting or a mental health issue? Is the protagonist suffering from guilt, regret or is something or someone really out to get her? The atmosphere of threat and menace pervades the book and the reader’s mind just as it does that of the main character, and ultimately I found this a really compelling and unsettling read. Well worth persevering with even if the beginning doesn’t seem to promise much.

[char · Rating 5 out of 5]

the most relatable main character of any book i’ve ever read

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having enjoyed two of Carol Birch’s earlier novels – Orphans of the Carnival and the Booker Prize shortlisted Jamrach’s Menagerie – I decided to try her new book, Shadow Girls. I enjoyed this one too, but it’s a very strange novel and not quite what I’d expected!

From the blurb, I had thought this was going to be a ghost story, but for the first half of the book at least, it’s much more of a ‘school story’. Our narrator, Sally, is a fifteen-year-old girl growing up in 1960s Manchester and the time and place are vividly evoked with references to the music, films, fashion and culture of the decade woven into the narrative. Like most girls her age, then and now, Sally’s life revolves around schoolwork and spending time with her friends and her boyfriend, and this is the focus of the first section of the book. Through Sally’s eyes we get to know her best friend, Pamela, a rebellious troublemaker nobody else likes, and their ‘enemy’ Sylvia Rose, a girl from a posh background who is a talented classical singer. She also describes her feelings for Rob, her first serious boyfriend, whom she is starting to have doubts about.

The supernatural element of the story isn’t introduced until surprisingly late in the novel, when Sally has a mysterious encounter with Sylvia that will haunt her for the rest of her life. The pace picks up from this point and it does become the ghost story I had expected – in fact, it’s quite a creepy one, particularly as, like many good ghost stories, it’s never completely clear which of Sally’s experiences are real and which are in her mind.

Despite not much happening for half of the book, I found it all very absorbing and was pulled into Sally’s world from the first page. I’m not sure whether so much build up was really necessary, but I enjoyed it anyway and found the book so difficult to put down that I ended up reading most of it in one day.

[Lolly K Dandeneau · Rating 3 out of 5]

via my blog: https://bookstalkerblog.wordpress.com/
𝑺𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒓𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕, 𝑰 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒉𝒐𝒓𝒓𝒊𝒃𝒍𝒆, 𝒏𝒂𝒔𝒕𝒚, 𝒎𝒆𝒂𝒏, 𝒂 𝒃𝒖𝒍𝒍𝒚. 𝑶𝒉, 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒄𝒓𝒖𝒆𝒍 𝒄𝒐𝒍𝒅 𝒅𝒆𝒑𝒕𝒉𝒔 𝒐𝒇 𝒎𝒆.

One thing never seems to change in most teenage girls, whether it’s the 1960’s or current day, one girl is always the focus for intense dislike, which leads to mean, nasty, cruel bullying. Sally and Pamela are friends, but annoyed by the more posh, proper little miss Sylvia. With her beautiful singing voice, so full of promise, and her weird way of interacting, naturally they can’t stand the smug girl. Always looking down her nose at others. Pamela is the type to blow off school, confrontational, unapologetically bold. The sort of girl who is considered to be a poor influence, and most people do not like her one bit. A big, coarse girl who curses like it’s nothing but makes life so much more fun and interesting to Sally. People fear her and her ‘nasty streak’, of course she encourages Sally’s contempt for Sylvia. They have a ‘silly séance’ in the biology room with other girls, it gets interrupted by Mrs. Kitney who chews them out and scolds them over messing about with such things, game or not! Later, Sally wonders if it was the cause of troubles that followed.

After an incident, Sylvia is on the mend and attends, much to Sally’s dismay, a party and her boyfriend Robin pays the insufferable prig too much mind. Soon Sylvia is swooning in attention from her beautiful singing. Robin is just being nice to Sylvia, Sally has nothing to worry about. Back at school, something odd happens, something frightful. Things get really weird, when she goes into the forbidden greenhouse on the roof, she sees Sylvia, but how could she be downstairs and on the roof at the same time? She knows that she is a rat, the one who gets her and Pamela in trouble even if nothing is adding up. Sylvia, causing trouble for them, and their friendship. They get revenge in their own calculated ways, as girls are wont to do. It just makes them look bad. Sylvia always seems to be the ‘good one’. Her boyfriend doesn’t take her fears seriously, how can she stay with him feeling like this? Things escalate, girls on the roof are a dangerous thing. When someone is hurt, assumptions are made, but Sally knows deep down the tragedy isn’t so simple. She suffers a shocking loss. It stays with her, whatever happened on the roof, everything she saw, the thing that wasn’t Slyvia but looked like her, how could telling the truth cause another person to breakdown? After a crushing time, she and Rob lose touch and life goes on, mysteries are never solved.

Sally decides on anthropology at Kent in Canterbury, Rob goes to Liverpool to study architecture and they drift apart. Years later, they reunite and she discovers he is living in her old school, turned into flats. It’s a ghost of a place, living inside of her too, even seven years after the tragic events. It begins ‘eating her’ again, or is it the past and all her shame and regrets. She sounds mad, and Rob doesn’t know how to comfort her or make sense of what seems to be only happening in her mind. We follow her downward spiral.

It’s an interesting novel because it begins with those difficult adolescent years, when we’re at our worst and often transfer our own securities unto other people. We let so much get under our skin and take things far more seriously than those with the wisdom of years would, and yet during this time for Sally her mind is either tricking her or something unexplained, almost supernatural is happening. It never gets dealt with and rises again to confront her. But is it something happening within or is it external? A peculiar, interesting, creepy novel. Is it mental illness or is she truly haunted? It is a slow but well written fiction.

Publication Date: April 14, 2022

Head of Zeus

Apollo

[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

Manchester, 1960s: Sally is a self-absorbed fifteen-year-old, tired of the restrictions of the girls' school she attends, and the tedium of her family. She longs for her O levels to be over with so her life can begin. Her best friend the troubled Pamela, who no one else really likes, is the only one who seems to understand her feelings, and they both spend an increasing amount of time playing truant and exploring the areas of the school that are out of bounds to students, deriving a sense of power from their rebellious acts. To amuse themselves they also think up ever more inventive ways to torment posh pupil Sylvia Rose, whose perfect appearance and exemplary ways they find particularly irksome.

One afternoon, while on her own in the rooftop greenhouse that has become one of their favourite forbidden spots, Sally spies the unlikely sight of Sylvia sitting on the parapet outside. Shocked, she runs downstairs to her classroom, only to see Sylvia primly sitting at her desk waiting for the lesson to begin. How can she be in two places at the same time? When Sally confides in Pamela about what she has seen it sets in motion a chain of events that lead to tragedy, and come to mark their destiny.

Shadow Girls is a fabulously creepy literary fiction tale, mixing elements of a chilling ghost story with a deeply affecting exploration of fragile mental health. You are never quite sure where the truth behind this story lies, which makes it darkly compelling and an absolute joy to consume in huge bites of deliciously atmospheric prose.

The first two thirds of the book take Sally through her O levels and onto her university days. They offer an incredibly insightful look into the life of a teenager teetering on the edge of adulthood. Sally is desperate to fly the coop, but in many ways she is still clutching onto the security of family and the routine of school life, unsure about what the future holds. She is also navigating her first romantic relationship, but is confused about her feelings. It's all so uncomfortably evocative of those coming-of-age years, and there is so much here that will especially resonate with anyone who has attended an old-fashioned school for girls - like I did, albeit rather later in the 1980s. There is such a brooding air of foreboding from the outset - you know that disaster is approaching, but it is impossible to look away as events spin out of control. Intriguingly, even though Birch creates an authentic feel of the 1960s, there is something so timeless about how the story plays out.

The final third of the book finds Sally back in Manchester as a young adult, trying to come to terms with the memories that haunt her - memories which begin to overwhelm her when she ends up living in very building where her life was derailed, now the old school has been converted into flats. For me, this is the most disturbing part of the whole book and it sends an icy finger running up and down your spine as Sally baulks at echoes from the past and loses her grip on reality. Or does she? Again, you are never quite sure where the boundaries between real and imagined lie, and it is brilliant.

Throughout the whole wonderful story Birch delves into themes of anxiety, abuse, unresolved trauma, guilt, jealousy and even hysteria, while underpinning everything with sinister threads of the supernatural to keep you constantly on a knife-edge. She knows how to use the setting of a mysterious old building to stifling perfection, creating a sense of otherness that is strikingly vivid.

This novel is profoundly disturbing, and one of the best chillers I have ever read. You will find yourself turning this story over in your mind a lot once you have closed the covers. I promise this one will haunt you, but you will love every second.

[Linda Hill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sally’s a smart girl at school.

Any reader looking for a visceral, fast paced and twisting plot won’t find it in Shadow Girls. They will, however, find a quiet, menacing malevolence that lurks under the surface creating a tension that inveigles itself into the reader’s mind. I found Shadow Girls beautifully written, atmospheric and very creepy.

What Carol Birch does so well in Shadow Girls is to take the monsters of childhood; the shadowy corners, the echoing school corridors, the unexplained noises that we all know so well, and weave them into a spellbinding narrative that mesmerises, making the reader feel as if they are there in the corner of the room watching Sally as she negotiates the smoke like details just out of the corner of her eye. I loved how the plot built quietly and, except for a couple of dramatic moments, almost prosaically, to its conclusion because it made the events all the more relatable. Add in the hooks of music, especially the discordant or indistinct notes that feel as if they are not quite real and Carol Birch has created a disturbing, compelling narrative. Her writing is exceptional.

The characterisation is so skilful. Sally’s increasing paranoia, her flawed reasoning and her self-justification when her actions are less than kind should make her repugnant. Instead she is a genuine, tangible creation who could be any one of us, making her all the more affecting for the reader. There’s a level of self-destruction and isolation that begins with her trapped in the middle of two sets of twin siblings so that why she is as she is and why she becomes who she becomes is thoroughly understandable. It’s not possible to add more for fear of revealing too much. Pamela and Sylvia too are utterly real so that their lives at school feel completely authentic.

The themes of Shadow Girls are fascinating. There’s an unflinching exposition of girlhood, with its rebellions, petty jealousies, cruelty and vulnerability that fixes the narrative even when other aspects of the story feel supernatural and other-worldly so that Shadow Girls is brilliantly balanced. I loved the fluidity of friendship, of reality, of time and place.

It’s hard to define Shadow Girls and I suspect it may divide opinion among readers. I thoroughly enjoyed it, finding the literary nature of the prose, the psychological mystery and the delving into the darker side of the human psyche all superbly presented.

[Lavender · Rating 3 out of 5]

2,5 Stars

When you read a book about teenage girls at school there is always bullying included. Sylvia is a quirky girl. She is quite, posh, her clothes are different and she has an angelic singing voice. But our narrator is not Sylvia. It is one of her bullies, Sally. Sally comes from a big family which seems to be laid back. She has twins as elder siblings and twins as younger siblings. So she runs in the middle and seems to belong not to them. She became friends with Pamela. Her family seems to be different, more complicated although she never speaks of them. But sometimes her body is bruised. But Pamela is not a nice girl. And our narrator Sally isn’t either. One day Sally experiences a creepy situation. She sees Sylvia, or something/someone similar to Sylvia on the roof of the greenhouse which belongs to the school. She gets strangely afraid of this Sylvia thing and runs straight back to her classroom where she sees the real Sylvia sitting quietly. Soon after this weird accident something even more horrible happened and leaves Sally deeply disturbed.

The book is told from the POV of Sally. Sometimes it has the vibe of one long monologue. Her narrative is dreamlike and a bit surreal. The story moves slowly and for quite a while it seems to lead nowhere. The Sylvia accident happens later in the book and up until then you just read about Sally and school, her friendship to Pamela and her boyfriend Rob who she does not really care about. She just enjoys being with a popular boy. I never connected to Sally and I found her voice wavering.

I took me a whole week to read this book and that is never a good sign. At the end it got a bit more interesting when we see Sally as an adult meeting Robin again and moving in with him. Her old school was remodeled into flats and of all things Robin lives in one of them. But living in this creepy building brings back bad memories for Sally. I am not sure what was going on with Sally. Are there ghost haunting her or is she having some mental issues? This is often a question in this kind of books. But the narrative never captured me. We are always close to Sally and every other character stays vague. I wanted something more from this book.

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[miss.mesmerized mesmerized · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sally is a typical school girl of 1960s Manchester. The 15-year-old believes herself a lot cleverer than her class mates and also her family. With her new best friend Pamela, she tries to extent the rules, takes her freedoms and over and over again gets into trouble. Most fun both have tormenting Sylvia Rose, a shyish, old-fashioned girl of their class. Even though Sally and Sylvia do have some common interests, she follows Pamela’s example and makes fun of her, some of their tricks go quite far, humiliating their class mate in front of the whole school. Common among the girls of their school is the attraction by superstition and an ouija board they secretly use during their breaks. When it predicts some bad luck, they do not want to believe it even though they are clearly warned by one of their teachers. But then, the unthinkable happens and will haunt Sally for the rest of her life.

Carol Birch’s novel is an addictive combination of school girl, coming-of-age and ghost novel. She cleverly turns the carefree, boisterous girls into fearful and edgy young women. The story is told from Sally’s point of view so we often get to know her thoughts which are convincingly portrayed: it is not easy to be a teenager, conflicting feelings, knowing what is right but doing what is wrong, making the wrong decisions and regretting them later.

The novel is divided into three chapters named “penumbra”, “umbra” and “anteumbra”. I was trying to make sense of this, but I am not sure if I really got the meaning. Maybe it reflects Sally’s mental state which deteriorates throughout the plot. Maybe this is linked to the idea of the ghosts and seeing or not seeing things, being tricked by the eye.

There is an uneasy feeling looming over the story, you know it is not going to run out well, yet, you cannot be sure what is real and what is only imagined. Is there some supernatural power making sure that there is some kind of pay back for the evil done? Or is it just all the imagination of a young woman at the edge? Captivating once you have started with some unexpected twists.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

📚Book Review: The Shadow Girls by Carol Birch

This is a classic coming of age story with a heavy dose of the supernatural. It is told from the perspective of Sally, a teenager attending an all girls school in the 1960s. She is faced with all the typical school girl issues; friendships, jealousies, fitting in, siblings and boyfriends. Since meeting unruly misfit Pamela, she has started to skip lessons and study less. The pair also start to bully their posh classmate, Sylvia, for her prissy ways and perfect singing voice.

The first half is definitely a slow burn, but it does accurately capture teenage angst, and the disorientating and creepy atmosphere of the school building is set up very well. This is important for the second half, which takes a decidedly supernatural turn.

When Sally starts to see Sylvia in two places at once, it sets off a trail of tragedy that she may never escape from and which she seems to be drawn back to, as the story progresses. The final part of the book sees Sally as an adult back in her home town, where a twist of fate leads her back to places, people and feelings that were probably better left in the past.

The supernatural elements are never fully explained. The paranormal hides, lurking in the shadows and skirting the edges of the narrative. This creates a suffocating sense of foreboding and reminded me of Shirley Jackson’s ‘The Haunting of Hill House’ in places. Reality begins to feel like it is being distorted and it becomes difficult to know if Sally’s narrative is reliable. As the girls are studying Macbeth at the start of the novel, could this be a hint that it’s all a guilt induced madness or are there really strange and brooding forces at work?

In some ways I would have really liked more answers, but perhaps the point is that a lot of this is left to our interpretation. A few weeks after reading the book, I still find myself trying to puzzle it all out and the thought of the oppressive school building still gives me a shiver down my spine.

[Stella · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very unusual story about the pains of growing up and the pain of never quite being satisfied. Carol Birch has written a story that could be considered contemporary fiction about female friendship OR it could be considered a story about mental health OR it could be considered a story about being haunted about guilt. But it's all of these.

Sally is 15 and and attending an all girls school in the mid 1960s. She is friends with Pamela, a rough girl who no one else likes, and they both spend large parts of the day in the greenhouse on the roof. Their classmate, Sylvia, a prim and proper girl, is their enemy and constant source of their bullying. Many nights, Sally ends by staring out her window, looking at the train passing by.

Tragedy happens at school, followed by another incident that causes some sort of incident at the school. Sally breaks up with her long term boyfriend Robin and then....and then the book takes off into an amazing, beautiful turn..several years into the future. Sally and her friends have finished college and are young adults. Sally and Robin run into each other in the street and reconnect. He's living in her old school, which has recently become an apartment building. And this is where the most interesting part of the book begins.

Carol Birch has written this haunting story that almost...melts your brain. Timelines weave in and out as Sally falls deeper and deeper into her mania and confusion. Visions and voices appear and you wonder if Sally is the only one who is experiencing it or if everyone is.

I found the "aftermath" the cherry on top of this story. It's added the extra something that I didn't realize that this story needed. It was already excellent but this just made it....near perfect.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

[Dani Cox · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s the 1960s, and Sally is a fifteen year old schoolgirl in Manchester. Along with her best friend, Pamela, they both enter a stage of teenage rebellion – they play truant, explore out of bounds areas of their school, and torment Sylvia Rose, a posh girl who just doesn’t fit in.

When Sally ventures onto the roof alone one day, she spots Sylvia there too. Only, as she hurries downstairs, she finds Sylvia there too, which is impossible, right? A tragedy is about to unfold at the school, one which will haunt Sally for the rest of her life.

We follow Sally through life at school in the first two parts, which perfectly leads us into the final part of the book – Sally after university, having moved home and finding herself living in flats built in her old school. Living in the same building where she experienced girlhood trauma, Sally finds herself questioning everything that happened in the past, experiencing strange occurrences, and wondering whether ghosts really exist.

This seems like your standard coming of age story to start with, but there is more to this school than it seems on the surface. Combining psychological suspense and ghost stories with an exploration of girlhood, Shadow Girls is a story that builds the tension slowly throughout each part. The first two parts are slower, taking us through the daily life of Sally – the mundane, the normal – until we hit one tragic moment, where everything shifts.

The final part of the book was my favourite, as this shifts from slow building tension to full-on psychological thriller. The suspense is all leading up to the final page, where there is a twist that will leave you reeling.

You might find the first two parts difficult to read, as they can be slow going and there are typical school girl bullying scenes. However, the final pay off is worth the slow start.

[Hattie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I rate Carol Birch's writing, but this is not of the calibre of The naming of Eliza Quinn or Jamrach's Menagerie. This said I thoroughly enjoyed it and read it maybe a bit too quickly! She's brilliant at evoking an atmosphere and a sense of time and place. Characterisation excellent too.
A bit I didn't like: there's a portion in the middle where the narrator (Sally) just 'tells' how she got from leaving school to reconnecting with it again. In my recollection this was a larger chunk than it is - it's actually just a few pages - but it didin't work for me - effectively paused the story / distanced me from it. I felt some other device was needed here... or that she (Carol B) could have done away with filling us in so directly. I felt disappointed with this bit of the book. The ending too - I had to re-read it, too many location references for me to easily follow quite what had happened.
But where the book really worked for me is in the haunting feeling it left me. (I dreamt that haunting feeling the night after I finished the book... and it's still hanging around!). I think this feeling is evoked by the ambiguity of the story... on the one hand there's a hint that Sally is becoming mentally unwell, on the other a hint that she feels more responsible than she has claimed. I have loved mulling over questions like - was Sally an 'unreliable narrator?' Was Sylvia Rose less innocent than she presents? (after all she got her desire - was this what it was all about?) Might we see the story as a metaphor? The result of repression of what is 'unacceptable' (to self or others) gettng expression through something very frightening... a splitting off of 'the other' frightening aspects of ourselves?
Whatever, Sylvia was creepy!

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘Shadow Girls’ is a strange, poignant novel which begins as a straightforward exploration of teenage girls’ lives in the 1960s but becomes much more. The author Carol Birch plays with genres and timelines, with perspective and with our expectations.
Sally and her friend Pamela, an opinionated girl whom nobody much likes, enjoy carrying out small rebellious acts to enliven dull school days. Some of these amount to bullying Sylvia, an old-fashioned, only child with a remarkable singing voice. Sally’s parents are extraordinarily hands-off whilst Pamela’s are hands-on when a hard slap is her due. Birch doesn’t dwell on the trio’s backgrounds but the details given allow us to understand why they all do what they do over the course of the narrative.
Above all, this is a story about tragedy left unexpressed, about damaged people and long-lasting guilt. Birch doesn’t shy away from the cruelties inflicted as she explores her teenage girls’ confused identities and, as they grow into adulthood, their discontented schooldays still cast a shadow. Whilst some readers clearly feel that the supernatural elements of the novel mar its credibility, I prefer to see them as a metaphor for the psychological damage caused by guilt and grief. As the adult Sally explains, ‘Inside me was the endless Steppe, lonely and beautiful, that nothing could ever touch.’
Whilst the final pages are a little hackneyed but, overall, this is a beautifully written story which haunts the reader well after the last page is turned.
My thanks to NetGalley and Head of Zeus Apollo for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair review.

[Milly Reynolds · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was sent this book by Netgalley and Head of Zeus in return for an honest review.

I remember reading Jamrach's Menagerie many years ago and so was interested to see how this would compare. This time, in the first part of the book we are taken to 1960's Manchester and our main character is 15 year old Sally who, according to her, had a bright future. This is a well written exploration of what life was like in a school at that time. Sally's best friend is Pamela, a girl who is rebellious, loud and disliked but both pupils and teachers. Together the two girls play truant and go into parts of the building that are out of bounds and although it seems as if Pamela is the one influencing Sally, you are not quite sure. This is school life before the safe-guarding rules of today when bullying was a major sport and the poor victim is Sylvia, a girl which a 'posh accent' who seems out of place. The aim of the game - public humiliation. These are not likeable characters and when a dreadful tragedy hit the school, even though this would haunt her, I didn't feel sympathy for Sally.

This does seem like a coming of age story and we follow Sally as she comes to terms with tragedy, and as she navigates her first serious relationship with Rob, who adores her even though she gives the impression of not reciprocating his feelings.

As the book progresses, we go with Sally as she meanders through different towns and jobs until she returns to her home town and meets up with and moves in with some of her former classmates. During this part of the story, we can still see that Sally is still troubled by the tragedy that she suffered at school, it has never left her and when she moves in to a flat in her former school - the building having been turned into flats - then her anxieties and fears turn into 'supernatural' events. Sally is an unreliable narrator and we are never sure what is real and what isn't. However the author builds up a tension in the third part of the book. We are looking over out shoulders just as Sally is and the ending? I'll leave you to make your mind up about it.

This is a slow burn novel, lulling us into thinking that we have a school story before cleverly leading us into a place where we never know whether what we glimpse in the corner of our eye is real.

Thank you Netgalley and Head of Zeus for allowing me to read this.

[Vivienne · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I can tell you this right now: I’m not going to do that stupid thing like they do in films, that stupid thing where they go out and wander about in creepy places: oh yes, I’ll just take a look in the basement, no particular reason, oh dear the light’s gone, well, it would, wouldn’t it, better take a candle, wait for the jump scare.”

My thanks to Head of Zeus for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘Shadow Girls’ by Carol Birch in exchange for an honest review.

Carol Birch’s latest is a work of literary psychological horror. Among other things it examines the Jungian concept of the shadow as a hidden part of the unconscious mind that can manifest via dreams, behaviour, and possibly as something more sinister.

‘Shadow Girls’ opens in mid-1960s Manchester and focuses on two fifteen-year-old schoolgirls. Sally is clever and cynical. Her best friend, Pamela is the kind of girl always on the look out to push boundaries. They play truant and explore forbidden areas of their school. Yet their favourite activity is tormenting the posh Sylvia Rose, whose beautiful voice ensures that she wins every singing contest.

While so far this sounds like a fairly typical period coming-of-age tale, things take a darker turn when there are a series of unsettling incidents at the school. An interest in ghost stories, seances, and superstition among the students ultimately leads to a tragedy that will send Sally down an uncanny rabbit hole... No further details in order to avoid spoilers.

I found ‘Shadow Girls’ a well-written, character-led novel with a strong period setting. It was a quiet novel that relied on a subtle sense of creeping dread and unease over more overt horror tropes.

[Teresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a slow burn of a read. There's an overall feeling of dread looming over the narrative. I kept waiting for the inevitable, unable to predict where the tale was heading. 

Teenage girls in mid-sixties Manchester, at a creepy old school, near a park called Piccadilly where a statue of Queen Victoria looms large. These girls have pictures of the Beatles and the Stones taped to their desks, wondering which ones they're going to marry. Birch absolutely nails the teenage girl banter, mannerisms, pranks, bullying, eye-rolling contempt for anything their parents, teachers, other adults might have to say. Eerie things happen. One of these teenagers, Sally, is our narrator. 

Time jumps, abruptly, and we catch up with Sally in her twenties. She hasn't thought much about those haunting days at school, until a chance meeting pulls her right back into her buried memories. We spend the rest of our time with Sally as she wrestles with those memories, her history with the school. 

I don't want to say much more and get into spoiler territory. I think this creepy story with its weird creepy girls in their old creepy school will stay with me for a while. I'll be seeking out more titles by Carol Birch.

My thanks to NetGalley and Head of Zeus for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Kaytee · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well written story of a girls school with a dramatic event and a touch of the supernatural. The school days are ones that everyone can Identify with and the idea of the school being made into flats years later where the MC lives is intriguing.
Dropped points for being way too drawn out and overly padded with repetition, Some school passages are dragged out for pages which can be skipped, and after she moves to the flat the story drags with endless ‘well we will move out’ stretched to breaking point repetitive convos, and a party and other pointless padding that adds nothing to the story. Also I never quite connected to sally, her voice was whining and disconnected, and it’s a bit mysterious why robin is so in love with her, and Despite finding him repulsive to kiss as hes like a brother she moves in with him and claims she’s happy with him.
If the author or publisher had the courage to cut chunks this would’ve been an easy five stars, as it stands, about a third of the pages can be flipped past to get to the best bits. Also it would’ve been unique and intriguing to have been truly supernatural and developed the doppelgänger theme,
Unfathomable and ambiguous endings which I hated.

[Tilly Fitzgerald · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a chilling novel which adds a ghostly element to the already complex topic of female adolescence.

Growing up in 1960s Manchester, Sally finds herself getting into more and more trouble with her best friend Pamela, a troubled and angry young girl. They especially love to bully Sylvia Rose, a well to do classmate with a beautiful voice who drives them crazy. But when they start seeing Sylvia Rose in unexpected places, the girls are soon driven to distraction…

This certainly does a great job of exploring girlhood and all the complex emotions and friendships which that creates. It’s interesting to read a narrative from the perspective of the one doing the bullying rather than the victim, but it’s uncomfortable reading to say the least - you forget how cruel young girls can be.

The ghostly element and questions that throws up make this really suspenseful and left me with lots of questions - I have to admit I wasn’t always sure what was going on, even right at the end!

Whilst this felt a little too rambling for me to really enjoy, I’ve seen lots of glowing reviews so I know lots of readers will love it!

Actual rating 2.5 - just wasn’t for me.