Title: The Shadow Over Lone Wolf Lake

Author: D.W. Hitz

Release Date: December 1^st, 2025

Link: https://us.amazon.com/Shadow-Over-Lone-Wolf-Lake-ebook/dp/B0FWXSWZDL/

Summary

Sometimes dead doesn’t mean dead, and sometimes family is bound by more than blood.

After the death of his cantankerous grandmother, twelve-year-old Drew Kline and his family move into her house. It boasts a vast, fantastic forest, a broad and beautiful lake, and it also happens to be Drew’s father’s childhood home and the place where his young uncle disappeared twenty-five years ago.

The night of his arrival, in the crawlspace of his bedroom, Drew discovers a miniature human skull. It’s a curiosity between him and his brother Dean, sparking a debate about whether the thing is real or some well-sculpted decoration. When he invites his friends to spend their last weekend of summer break exploring the property’s woods and his uncle’s clandestine fort, which contains a burial ground of pixie-size bodies, they inadvertently find themselves trapped in a land of the dead.

What follows forces Drew’s father to relive the horrific mystery of his uncle’s disappearance and reveals a long-held family secret that has cursed generations. If Drew and his friends want to return home, they’ll have to survive in that strange land as they fight their way back, and his father will have to confront an evil that will only be satisfied with blood.

My Review

5/5 Stars

Moving into a new house is stressful enough, but what if the house sits on land with a portal to a nightmare realm where death lurks around every corner? Now that is a move nobody could ever prepare for.

After a tragic loss, Drew and his brother Dean return to their family’s home, a place shrouded in dark history. Years ago, their uncle vanished from the very same house, and now, Drew and Dean are about to uncover the chilling truth of where he went and why he never came back.

Told through two timelines, one set in the 1990s and the other in the present day, this story weaves together a rich narrative and a layered atmosphere that pulls you deeper into the mystery, revealing terrifying truths and a darkness that has been waiting for decades.

From eerie creatures and otherworldly monsters to the spine-chilling horror of the upside-down realm, every page of this story ratchets up the tension. I loved the eerie monsters and the creatures in the other world. They all sounded so horrifying in many different ways.

The ending wrapped up the story perfectly.

Faustian bargains, cosmic monsters, family secrets, and an upside-down world, this story easily has everything someone could want in a dark fantasy or a horror book.