When Shadows Burn by Todd Brown: A Review by LD

How can I possibly adequately express all the thoughts I have about When Shadows Burn without spoilers? This is definitely a book that you have to finish to be able to fully consider its implications and dive into discussing it, which I promise you will want to do. I’ve been left thinking about its subject matter long after finishing it, wanting to bring it up in conversation, and was fascinated to read the author’s note and the afterward that contextualize Brown’s intent behind the book.

Especially in the context of a mystery, where we have to have patience to connect all the dots, this is a book that kept me wanting to come back to find out what would happen. Brown does an excellent job of weaving together several plot lines and themes while exploring the connections among them. The first note that I wrote, even just a few chapters in, was how much lore and intrigue was packed into this small, fictional town. It feels like a town everyone has heard of, and is glad they are not from. Being from a smaller, rural town myself, the small town backstory felt incredibly genuine. 

Towards the beginning of the novel, as we meet a plethora of characters and features of this town, I felt like I was being immersed in a place that was a combination of the imaginations of Stephen King and Nicholas Sparks. The deep layers of interpersonal relationships felt like there was truly history there among the characters, and those relationships are what brought me back to Nicholas Sparks– not that anyone would confuse this with a romance novel. It’s just the meet-cute at the beginning between two of the main characters (I say main characters, but this truly felt like an ensemble cast, if that’s a thing in books), but with the constant eerie and unforgettable feel of a Stephen King novel. 

What Todd Brown has done is provide nuanced commentary on our current American culture, how interpersonal relationships affect the culture and are affected by it, and the missed perceptions that can come out of being blinded by your own biases. I felt myself constantly checking my own assumptions about these characters as I read along, questioning how their preferences and beliefs made me feel about them. This is compounded by the abundant modern pop culture references (seriously, I think this is the first time I have seen Kim Petras mentioned in literature), it brings this modern novel to life. Like its author, this book has a lot to say, if you’re ready to listen.

Fall is the perfect release time for this novel, with its spooky feel and late October setting. If you’re up for reading a novel that sticks with you long after you put it down, I would recommend Todd Brown’s novel, When Shadows Burn, when it releases on October 14th, 2025.