Your Shadow Half Remains

Moraine (Casting the Bones) sets this sharp, tension-filled psychological thriller in a world stricken by a strange and violent pandemic that is transmitted through eye contact and triggers the urge to kill both others and, eventually, oneself. Riley has been isolated in a house in the woods by a lake for so long that time has become fluid and her connection to reality is fading. At the start of the book, she encounters the first human she’s seen in who-knows-how-long: Ellis, who seems kind and well-intentioned, but may be hiding something sinister. The rules of the eye-contact-killing disease are at times hard to grasp, with the characters just as unclear on its mechanics as the reader (the failure of technology has caused a near-total disconnection between Riley, Ellis, and whatever’s left of the world, leaving them unaware of any discoveries or mutations that may have occurred). As the bite-size novel progresses, it becomes clear that Riley, too, cannot be trusted: her version of events hides the macabre truth of her past. The result is a freaky and masterfully constructed tale, whose strength most often comes from what Moraine leaves to the imagination. Read this one with the lights on. (Feb.)