Shadowghast (Eerie-on-Sea Book #3)

Wr. Thomas Taylor

Pub. Walker Books

Age Range - 9-12 years

Herbie and Violet try to uncover the truth behind the mysterious Shadowghast, a ghostly creature said to haunt Eerie-on-Sea during the darkest days of autumn. As strange sightings increase and fear spreads, they investigate old stories, hidden tunnels, and the history of Eerie-on-Sea, discovering that the Shadowghast may be more than just a legend...

"What really stands out...is the theme at the heart of it all: Herbie's sense of identity and belonging."

It's taken me a good long while to return to Eerie-on-Sea, but this weekend I decided enough was enough. It has the honour of being the first book I've read on my new Kindle. I’ve long had a soft spot for Taylor’s gloomy seaside town. So, expectations were high going into Shadowghast. And it absolutely delivers. This time, the story leans fully into wintery dread, with the legend of the Shadowghast creeping through the book like a cold fog.

As before, Taylor's narrative plays with uncertainty: can you trust what you’re seeing? Can the thing you fear become real? It's still funny in places, still packed with wordplay and oddball characters, but I felt a darker, more psychological edge. And it plays on Herbie's emotions more than ever before, with the friendship between him and Violet seeing real jeopardy.

Eerie itself feels bigger and more dangerous than before. The caves, the winter festival, the sense of something lurking just out of sight, it all builds an atmosphere where the setting is doing as much storytelling as the characters. The Shadowghast legend threads through everything, blurring the line between myth and reality in a way that’s genuinely unsettling.

What really stands out, though, is the theme at the heart of it all: Herbie's sense of identity and belonging. It’s quiet and fragile, and Herbie doesn’t fully trust it himself, and that uncertainty mirrors the wider theme of the book: what’s real, what’s imagined, and what we want to be true. It’s a surprisingly thoughtful layer in what is, on the surface, a fast-paced mystery adventure. And like the best children’s books, it trusts its readers to handle that complexity. It's another triumph for the series, and one that will hook Year 5 and 6 readers who like their stories a little darker, and a little stranger...