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Shadows of Doubt
Former grade school bully and, later, amateur drug dealer Jeff Hudson turns his life around and is pursuing a degree in agriculture. His future, as well as a budding relationship with fellow student Sandy Harris, is threatened when a former dealer threatens to expose Jeff's past to university authorities if he doesn't rejoin the ring.
Realizing that Jeff is no longer an angry, misunderstood boy, Sandy must take a stand against her family and friends who swear he is no good and will only cause her unhappiness. Together, can they escape the past in order to forge a future?
Realizing that Jeff is no longer an angry, misunderstood boy, Sandy must take a stand against her family and friends who swear he is no good and will only cause her unhappiness. Together, can they escape the past in order to forge a future?
218 pages, Paperback
Published April 5, 2021
About the author
Patricia McAlexander
7 books35 followersI am from upstate New York, and have degrees from the University of New York at Albany, Columbia University, and The University of Wisconsin, Madison, all in English. I met my Southerner husband when we were graduate students in Wisconsin. We have one son.
In high school and college, I wrote stories for my friends, but I turned to academic writing while I was in graduate school and teaching. Now retired from The University of Georgia, I've written four contemporary romantic suspense novels--Stranger in the Storm, set in New York State, and Shadows of Doubt, The Student in Classroom 6, and The Last Golden Isle, all set in Georgia. My latest book, Second Wives, is historical fiction, inspired by three generations of my ancestors. The first two generations emigrated from Baden (Germany) to Boonville, New York, in 1850; the third grew up in Boonville. The novel traces their lives through marriage, loss, and the possibility of renewal through a second love.
In high school and college, I wrote stories for my friends, but I turned to academic writing while I was in graduate school and teaching. Now retired from The University of Georgia, I've written four contemporary romantic suspense novels--Stranger in the Storm, set in New York State, and Shadows of Doubt, The Student in Classroom 6, and The Last Golden Isle, all set in Georgia. My latest book, Second Wives, is historical fiction, inspired by three generations of my ancestors. The first two generations emigrated from Baden (Germany) to Boonville, New York, in 1850; the third grew up in Boonville. The novel traces their lives through marriage, loss, and the possibility of renewal through a second love.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
July 10, 2021
“Shadows of Doubt” is a story of redemption as Jeff works to not only change other people’s perception of him, but also to continue to better himself overall.
Read full review in the 2021 Summer issue of InD'tale Magazine.
Read full review in the 2021 Summer issue of InD'tale Magazine.
March 20, 2021
Shadows of Doubt, by Patricia McAlexander, is a taut psychological thriller. Sandy Harris, the protagonist, is a wholesome 20-year-old attending college in the town where she grew up. When the novel opens, she has just decided to spend the summer living at home to help her mother cope with the recent unexpected death of Sandy’s father. She will enroll in a summer school course, get a part-time babysitting job, and, when she’s not doing things with her mother, socialize with friends. But within a few weeks, the placid, predictable world she inhabits will begin to destabilize, as Sandy discovers passions she never knew she possessed and as her moral certitude and clarity become murky.
Early in the summer Sandy’s mom brightly announces that Bill Morrison is back home after graduating from college out of state and will be starting business school locally. Bill is the son of Sandy’s parents’ best friends and although they’ve had more of a brother-sister relationship growing up, they begin dating early in the summer. This is a pleasant development for Sandy: Bill is clean-cut, blond and good-looking, and she knows that both sets of parents had always hoped they’d end up together. So the trajectory of her life seems to be going according to plan.
Then suddenly an unpredictable element enters Sandy’s tranquil, well-balanced world. Jeff Hudson, a darkly handsome young man who had years earlier been expelled from Sandy’s elementary school for trouble-making and had shortly thereafter moved away with his mother following his parents’ divorce, is back in town, starting at the university as a transfer student. He is living in the garage apartment of the professor Sandy babysits for three days a week. Sandy knows to keep her distance from him—she is warned by both her mother, who was Jeff’s fifth-grade teacher, and Bill, who as his classmate witnessed the many playground fights Jeff got into—but the attraction to him is magnetic. Before long, Sandy has plunged into a secretive passionate relationship with Jeff.
She also suddenly finds herself in the dark, dangerous underworld of college drug-dealing. As she struggles to get her moral bearings, Sandy is helped by insights into the literature she is studying in her course. She realizes that like Elizabeth Bennet, the protagonist of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, she is learning that appearances can be deceptive and that one’s perceptions of reality can be distorted by one’s assumptions. By the end of the novel, Sandy has re-integrated her world and achieved a deeper understanding of the complexities of truth.
Shadows of Doubt, then, is more than just a suspenseful page-turner—although it is that too; it is also a beautifully written, psychologically complex novel, at once chilling and literary.
Early in the summer Sandy’s mom brightly announces that Bill Morrison is back home after graduating from college out of state and will be starting business school locally. Bill is the son of Sandy’s parents’ best friends and although they’ve had more of a brother-sister relationship growing up, they begin dating early in the summer. This is a pleasant development for Sandy: Bill is clean-cut, blond and good-looking, and she knows that both sets of parents had always hoped they’d end up together. So the trajectory of her life seems to be going according to plan.
Then suddenly an unpredictable element enters Sandy’s tranquil, well-balanced world. Jeff Hudson, a darkly handsome young man who had years earlier been expelled from Sandy’s elementary school for trouble-making and had shortly thereafter moved away with his mother following his parents’ divorce, is back in town, starting at the university as a transfer student. He is living in the garage apartment of the professor Sandy babysits for three days a week. Sandy knows to keep her distance from him—she is warned by both her mother, who was Jeff’s fifth-grade teacher, and Bill, who as his classmate witnessed the many playground fights Jeff got into—but the attraction to him is magnetic. Before long, Sandy has plunged into a secretive passionate relationship with Jeff.
She also suddenly finds herself in the dark, dangerous underworld of college drug-dealing. As she struggles to get her moral bearings, Sandy is helped by insights into the literature she is studying in her course. She realizes that like Elizabeth Bennet, the protagonist of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, she is learning that appearances can be deceptive and that one’s perceptions of reality can be distorted by one’s assumptions. By the end of the novel, Sandy has re-integrated her world and achieved a deeper understanding of the complexities of truth.
Shadows of Doubt, then, is more than just a suspenseful page-turner—although it is that too; it is also a beautifully written, psychologically complex novel, at once chilling and literary.
April 6, 2021
…despite warnings, should she take a chance on him?
Shadows of Doubt, written by Patricia McAlexander, published by the Wild Rose Press.
Former grade school bully and later amateur drug dealer, Jeff Hudson, turns his life around and is pursuing a degree in agriculture. His future, as well as a budding relationship with fellow student Sandy Harris, is threatened when a former dealer threatens to expose Jeff’s past to university authorities if he doesn’t rejoin the ring.
Realizing that Jeff is no longer the angry, misunderstood boy, Sandy must take a stand against her family and friends who swear he is no good and will only cause her unhappiness. Together, can they escape the past in order to forge a future?
Our Review: While the disapproval of parents and friends is a tale as old as time, Shadows of Doubt offers a different spin on a young woman’s determination to listen to what her heart and common sense tell her despite what others are saying.
One of author McAlexander’s strengths—are there many—is her ability to show the reader the different sides of an issue. While he claims to have changed, Jeff Hudson occasionally behaves like that same angry, unlovable boy from years past, only to turn on a dime and show uncharacteristic caring and affection for his young stepbrother. As well, the mounting stress and tension heaped on Sandy who is torn between her growing feelings for Jeff and her loyalty to her widowed mother and close friends comes through loud and clear. This aptly titled story is a study of conflict born out of loyalty, and following one’s heart and instinct.
On a scale of 1-5, Shadows of Doubt deserves a 5.
Kat Henry Doran, Two Wild Women Reviews
Shadows of Doubt, written by Patricia McAlexander, published by the Wild Rose Press.
Former grade school bully and later amateur drug dealer, Jeff Hudson, turns his life around and is pursuing a degree in agriculture. His future, as well as a budding relationship with fellow student Sandy Harris, is threatened when a former dealer threatens to expose Jeff’s past to university authorities if he doesn’t rejoin the ring.
Realizing that Jeff is no longer the angry, misunderstood boy, Sandy must take a stand against her family and friends who swear he is no good and will only cause her unhappiness. Together, can they escape the past in order to forge a future?
Our Review: While the disapproval of parents and friends is a tale as old as time, Shadows of Doubt offers a different spin on a young woman’s determination to listen to what her heart and common sense tell her despite what others are saying.
One of author McAlexander’s strengths—are there many—is her ability to show the reader the different sides of an issue. While he claims to have changed, Jeff Hudson occasionally behaves like that same angry, unlovable boy from years past, only to turn on a dime and show uncharacteristic caring and affection for his young stepbrother. As well, the mounting stress and tension heaped on Sandy who is torn between her growing feelings for Jeff and her loyalty to her widowed mother and close friends comes through loud and clear. This aptly titled story is a study of conflict born out of loyalty, and following one’s heart and instinct.
On a scale of 1-5, Shadows of Doubt deserves a 5.
Kat Henry Doran, Two Wild Women Reviews
March 6, 2021
Patricia McAlexander’s second thriller-romance Shadows of Doubt is an exceptionally well-crafted and gripping novel. When her father suddenly dies, nineteen-year old Sandy changes her summer plans, forgoing a six-week photography workshop to stay with her mother in Athens. She fills her days with a Victorian novels course and a job caring for the three-year old son of a professor. She soon meets Jeff Hudson, the professor’s 21-year old estranged son, who has grudgingly accepted the offer of his father’s free garage apartment, so he can finish college at the University of Georgia. Sandy and Jeff are immediately attracted, but her mother, Jeff’s former fifth-grade teacher, remembers his getting into constant trouble and she fears trouble has followed him. When her Internet research uncovers an arrest, she warns Sandy against him. Mrs. Harris favors Bill, the son of longtime friends, who has returned home ready to seriously date Sandy. Both men carry secrets that entangle them, and their rivalry builds as the novel moves to its thrilling climax. An exceptional creator of setting, McAlexander invites the reader to share the beauty of wildflowers along the Oconee River, the exciting atmosphere of a University football game, and the terror of living through a tornado. She skillfully uses Sandy’s reflections on Victorian novels to show her thoughts and feelings. Easy to read and hard to put down, Shadows explores love, sexuality, family, divorce and reconciliation, nature, and the dark world of drugs and secrets.
March 28, 2021
Although, I've been away from reading the romance-thriller genre for several decades, Patricia McAlexander makes returning to it something that I've very much enjoyed during the pandemic. As a grandmother, it was eye-opening to me to see the everydayness of the dangers that 20 year old Sandy faces and, as a social worker, it was jarring to see the effects of the judgementalism and labeling that 10 year old Jeff faced in school. Yet, each of them had the courage and confidence to face up to their challenges while protecting themselves emotionally, then allowing each other to protect them. I appreciate how there are lessons in this book about how families heal and move forward.
Other things I loved about this book were the scenes for walking and boating in nature as they grew to know each other better and the way that Sandy and Jeff each used their talents and opportunities in the "thriller" aspect of the book. The ending was also particularly satisfying and thoroughly believable. Thanks to Patricia McAlexander for another satisfying read!
Other things I loved about this book were the scenes for walking and boating in nature as they grew to know each other better and the way that Sandy and Jeff each used their talents and opportunities in the "thriller" aspect of the book. The ending was also particularly satisfying and thoroughly believable. Thanks to Patricia McAlexander for another satisfying read!
March 4, 2021
Babysitting a university professor’s young son takes several unexpected turns for Sandy Harris in this new-adult romance. Jeff, the professor’s older son from a former marriage, comes to town and takes up residence in the garage apartment outside his father’s house (the novel is set in Athens, home of the University of Georgia). His presence triggers memories—Sandy’s as well as her mother’s—of his childhood “violent streak.” These memories, along with eventual questions about why he left college a few years earlier, overshadow Sandy’s growing attraction to Jeff. Sandy’s mother, meanwhile, is an advocate for Bill, the “local boy” of good repute who tries to date Sandy. The novel’s episodic structure leads us readers through a series of revelatory events, allowing us, along with Sandy, to sort light from shadow regarding Jeff’s nature—and to be treated to other surprises as well!
Note: I received an advance copy of this book but am posting an entirely independent overview.
Note: I received an advance copy of this book but am posting an entirely independent overview.
April 5, 2021
“The child is father of the man.”
Growing up, Jeff Hudson was labeled as a problem child. His parents were on the verge of divorce. He often started fights. And he acted out to get his parents’ attention. However, he quickly finds he cannot outrun his past, even if it means winning over Sandy Harris and her mother. When his past catches up to him, it might put both him and Sandy at risk.
Patricia McAlexander wove together a gripping tale of love, danger, and second chances. The author created a story with so much depth that each character introduced was unique and your heart couldn’t help but go out to them. I loved getting to know the characters, and I found myself rooting for Jeff and Sandy to make their relationship work.
Growing up, Jeff Hudson was labeled as a problem child. His parents were on the verge of divorce. He often started fights. And he acted out to get his parents’ attention. However, he quickly finds he cannot outrun his past, even if it means winning over Sandy Harris and her mother. When his past catches up to him, it might put both him and Sandy at risk.
Patricia McAlexander wove together a gripping tale of love, danger, and second chances. The author created a story with so much depth that each character introduced was unique and your heart couldn’t help but go out to them. I loved getting to know the characters, and I found myself rooting for Jeff and Sandy to make their relationship work.
April 13, 2021
Shadows of Doubt, by Patricia McAlexander
You’re in the hands of an expert when you open Shadows of Doubt – prepare to be entertained, anxious, and intrigued following the summer adventures of an appealing heroine and the disparate characters who want to shape her future. Sandy, the summer caretaker of a beguiling toddler, is pursued by two suitors whose backgrounds contain mysteries and contradictions. Her recently widowed mother favors the one whose family have been her close friends for many years, but Sandy is strongly attracted to the other, who grew up having fist fights at school, and has spent recent years in another town. Only near the end of the summer does it become clear which is a victim and which a villain, and how their lives and destinies have been intertwined.
You’re in the hands of an expert when you open Shadows of Doubt – prepare to be entertained, anxious, and intrigued following the summer adventures of an appealing heroine and the disparate characters who want to shape her future. Sandy, the summer caretaker of a beguiling toddler, is pursued by two suitors whose backgrounds contain mysteries and contradictions. Her recently widowed mother favors the one whose family have been her close friends for many years, but Sandy is strongly attracted to the other, who grew up having fist fights at school, and has spent recent years in another town. Only near the end of the summer does it become clear which is a victim and which a villain, and how their lives and destinies have been intertwined.
Read
March 19, 2021Patricia McAlexander’s Shadows of Doubt is a terrific romance/thriller/mystery with well-developed characters. Here’s the story: Torn between two suitors, Sandy Harris must decide which one committed the injustice against the other in the distant past that determines the events of the present. Like any good mystery writer, Dr. McAlexander plays fair with the reader. She plants clues throughout the story that allow the reader to see the logic of the ending without guessing it. Dr. McAlexander is an excellent writer and an imaginative storyteller.
I give the novel five stars.
--BJ Craige
I give the novel five stars.
--BJ Craige
June 3, 2021
FUN SUMMER READ
I thoroughly enjoyed the crisp, appropriate pace of the story and character development. It would be fun to see Sandy and Jeff in the next phase of their life together.
I thoroughly enjoyed the crisp, appropriate pace of the story and character development. It would be fun to see Sandy and Jeff in the next phase of their life together.
September 16, 2021
An interesting young adult romance. You’ll root for Sandy and Jeff. Jeff has a shady past with school fights and dealing drugs, but he has changed and is making a better life for himself. Sandy is good for Jeff, supportive and loving. There is family drama on both sides, which adds to the enjoyment of the read. The drama is heightened with Jeff going undercover, and a jealous friend, which leads to a surprising twist. This story is all about the well-developed characters and their growth. Reviewed for Still Moments Magazine.
March 10, 2022
I was born and raised in Athens, GA. So, this book definitely hit home so to speak. I am not an avid reader one would say. I have an extremely short attention span like every type A male. When I do read, I read a chapter at a time or maybe two chapters at a time. When I read Shadows of doubt. I could not put it down. I read it in one afternoon from cover to cover. I give this book my highest recommendation. It definitely got my attention and kept my attention. This is the perfect read when traveling - either on the airplane or sitting on the beach. I give it a perfect 10.
May 11, 2022
Poorly written with a ridiculous plot. Maybe if the author wrote about her own generation this would have been slightly less painful to read, but chances are the dialogue and writing would still be horribly stilted. (But at least it wouldn't feature main characters who are supposed to be in their early 20s but speak, act, and think like they're in their 70s.)
Also, neither Frankenstein nor Pride and Prejudice are Victorian novels, early or otherwise. Both were written during the Regency. You'd think someone with multiple degrees in English would know that.
Rating: 1 star / F
Also, neither Frankenstein nor Pride and Prejudice are Victorian novels, early or otherwise. Both were written during the Regency. You'd think someone with multiple degrees in English would know that.
Rating: 1 star / F
January 25, 2022
I love this intensely compelling tale. The author keeps you on the edge of your seat, not knowing what will happen, who you can trust, what secrets will be revealed and what danger will befall the characters. The setting was vivid and the characters were authentic. It had sort of a Victorian vibe that I thoroughly enjoyed. Kudos to the author on a wonderful novel!
September 22, 2023
Great book. Loved the twist at the end. Wish there was more though
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews