Shadows of the Gate - A Fantasy Mystery Novel

Some doors, once closed, trap two people alone with everything they've never said.

The evening light is failing, the air is thick with accusation, and a friendship strained past its limits has nowhere left to hide. How much of the past can you seal away before it reaches back for you? And when trust has already broken once, is there any version of the truth that will be believed?

—

Narrated by Rebecca Hasler.

Set in D.W. Sheppard’s vast interconnected world where protective Gates hold back deadly monsters and treacherous flora, where safety is never guaranteed.

Support the show:

• Grab the full novel: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CWNBQWZM
• Stream sats or boost on Fountain.fm to support more episodes
• Leave a rating or review to help new listeners find the series

New episodes every Tuesday.

There is a particular kind of hunger that has nothing to do with food, and everything to do with needing to know.

A crowded hall, borrowed beds, watching eyes — and one person certain she is being lied about, with no way to prove it but to trespass where she shouldn't. Every stray glance feels like an accusation, every squeak of a hinge a countdown. How far will you go to clear your own name, and what does it cost you to be caught trying?

—

Narrated by Rebecca Hasler.

Set in D.W. Sheppard’s vast interconnected world where protective Gates hold back deadly monsters and treacherous flora, where safety is never guaranteed.

Support the show:

• Grab the full novel: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CWNBQWZM
• Stream sats or boost on Fountain.fm to support more episodes
• Leave a rating or review to help new listeners find the series

New episodes every Tuesday.

A crowded inn, a hungry brood, and a conversation that has to happen whether anyone wants it or not.

There is a particular kind of dread in confronting family — the people who know exactly where you're soft, and press. This one runs hot with old grudges and colder with what they leave unsaid, until the ground you thought you were standing on tips beneath you. How far would you go to clear your own name, and what would it cost you to learn you were chasing the wrong thing?

—

Narrated by Rebecca Hasler.

Set in D.W. Sheppard’s vast interconnected world where protective Gates hold back deadly monsters and treacherous flora, where safety is never guaranteed.

Support the show:

• Grab the full novel: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CWNBQWZM
• Stream sats or boost on Fountain.fm to support more episodes
• Leave a rating or review to help new listeners find the series

New episodes every Tuesday.

Some rooms are loud with quiet suffering — the hiss of salve, a child's hiccupping tears, the small talk people reach for when there's nothing left to say.

A weary mother runs out of comfort to give, weighing one mistake against everyone she loves. A difficult man is remembered gently by the few who knew his softer hours, and grief has a way of loosening the tongue. How much do you owe the people who trusted you?

—

Narrated by Rebecca Hasler.

Set in D.W. Sheppard’s vast interconnected world where protective Gates hold back deadly monsters and treacherous flora, where safety is never guaranteed.

Support the show:

• Grab the full novel: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CWNBQWZM
• Stream sats or boost on Fountain.fm to support more episodes
• Leave a rating or review to help new listeners find the series

New episodes every Tuesday.

There is a particular heat that floods the face when a whole town has decided what you are.

A woman moves through a crowd that used to be neighbors, a baby asleep against her back and a small hand in hers, offering to help and finding suspicion in every glance. This is an hour about the stories people tell to make sense of their grief — and what it costs to stand still beneath them. How much scorn can you swallow before someone smaller than you decides they've had enough?

—

Narrated by Rebecca Hasler.

Set in D.W. Sheppard’s vast interconnected world where protective Gates hold back deadly monsters and treacherous flora, where safety is never guaranteed.

Support the show:

• Grab the full novel: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CWNBQWZM
• Stream sats or boost on Fountain.fm to support more episodes
• Leave a rating or review to help new listeners find the series

New episodes every Tuesday.

A festival morning, cold river water on your hands, and a whole day's small resentments—right up until the moment the ordinary stops being safe.

This is the chapter where a mother counts her children with her eyes and refuses to let her voice shake. It asks what a person owes the neighbors who never quite trusted them, and whether a secret carried for fifteen years is a debt that can ever be paid. The dread here is quiet, domestic, and relentless: the fear of not being enough, and the colder fear of being turned away when you offer.

—

Narrated by Rebecca Hasler.

Set in D.W. Sheppard’s vast interconnected world where protective Gates hold back deadly monsters and treacherous flora, where safety is never guaranteed.

Support the show:

• Grab the full novel: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CWNBQWZM
• Stream sats or boost on Fountain.fm to support more episodes
• Leave a rating or review to help new listeners find the series

New episodes every Tuesday.

There is a particular loneliness in standing among people who used to be your neighbors and feeling the warmth drain out of every glance.

A gray morning, a town on edge, and a woman who knows that being innocent is not the same as being safe. Watch how a friendship frays, how quickly a whisper travels, how the people closest to us can wound us most when they're afraid. How much can one heart carry before it breaks?

—

Narrated by Rebecca Hasler.

Set in D.W. Sheppard’s vast interconnected world where protective Gates hold back deadly monsters and treacherous flora, where safety is never guaranteed.

Support the show:

• Grab the full novel: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CWNBQWZM
• Stream sats or boost on Fountain.fm to support more episodes
• Leave a rating or review to help new listeners find the series

New episodes every Tuesday.

A festival is taking shape in the square—lanterns, painted paths, the smell of apples—and beneath all of it runs a colder current.

Behind a closed door, a conversation turns careful, then pointed, then unbearable. When the people you trusted stop meeting your eye, how do you prove you are who you've always been? Some rooms are hardest to leave not because of the lock, but because of who stands silent on the other side.

—

Narrated by Rebecca Hasler.

Set in D.W. Sheppard’s vast interconnected world where protective Gates hold back deadly monsters and treacherous flora, where safety is never guaranteed.

Support the show:

• Grab the full novel: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CWNBQWZM
• Stream sats or boost on Fountain.fm to support more episodes
• Leave a rating or review to help new listeners find the series

New episodes every Tuesday.

A grieving house fills with too many voices, and every one of them has a theory about the dead.

There is a particular exhaustion in tending someone else's sorrow — chopping onions, kneading dough, folding laundry while the living quarrel over the bones of the departed. Some come to mourn; others come to be seen mourning; one arrives certain the whole town should be afraid. How much of yourself do you owe the people who need you, and what's left when you've given it?

—

Narrated by Rebecca Hasler.

Set in D.W. Sheppard’s vast interconnected world where protective Gates hold back deadly monsters and treacherous flora, where safety is never guaranteed.

Support the show:

• Grab the full novel: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CWNBQWZM
• Stream sats or boost on Fountain.fm to support more episodes
• Leave a rating or review to help new listeners find the series

New episodes every Tuesday.

Grief has a way of filling a kitchen faster than tea can cool.

This is an hour of over-sweetened cups and undone people, where every kind word arrives a half-beat too late and the heart keeps reaching for a question the mouth should never ask. What do you owe the people who need you to simply sit with them — and how much of yourself must you set down to do it?

—

Narrated by Rebecca Hasler.

Set in D.W. Sheppard’s vast interconnected world where protective Gates hold back deadly monsters and treacherous flora, where safety is never guaranteed.

Support the show:

• Grab the full novel: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CWNBQWZM
• Stream sats or boost on Fountain.fm to support more episodes
• Leave a rating or review to help new listeners find the series

New episodes every Tuesday.