Bravo to Shannon Felton on this, her debut novella! After reading her short story in MIDNIGHT AT THE GRAVEYARD, I was super excited to read more from this author and she did not disappoint!

Beneath a dying town, whose only means of support is the prison, a young man and his friend discover hidden tunnels one night when a brick fell out of the basement wall. From that point on, something seems to spread throughout this already bleak place. Were these tunnels used by escaped prisoners? What's causing the noises in the walls townsfolk are now hearing? You'll have to read this to find out!

Stewartville as a town rang true to me. There are several places here in the northeast that have dwindled to nothing as manufacturing jobs have been moved overseas. Just driving through some of these places you feel suffocated with despair. There is also a severe opioid crisis going on in several of these towns as well. In this manner, Stewartville became an all too well known character in this tale. The despair....the grayness...it became an entity of its own.

Ms. Felton has demonstrated a command of language and characterization that, I'm sure, will hold her in good stead as she, (hopefully?), continues her career in dark fiction. As far as I'm concerned? You can sign me up right now for anything she writes in the future!

Highly recommended!

Available today, here: https://amzn.to/3c6SPAr

*Thanks to Silver Shamrock Publishing for the e-ARC of this book in exchange for my honest feedback. This is it!*novellas silver-shamrock-publishing41 s Kimberly1,807 2

THE PRISONERS OF STEWARTVILLE is the first novella I have read by author Shanon Felton. Previously I had read--and loved--a short story of hers. This introduction into a longer work shows that she has what it takes to formulate a great tale in multiple formats.

"People moved to Stewartville for three reasons and three reasons only: they worked for the prisons, they had family in the prisons, or they were in prison."

The atmosphere in this story could not have been more perfect, in my humble opinion. Not only did Felton capture the depression and desolation of the prison, but the entire town that revolves around it. With that as a focal point, it's difficult to imagine anything good in this town.

"There might be three reasons to move to Stewartville but the natives, myself, stayed because of just one: we'd lost the will to leave . . ."

The prevailing sense of something . . . unnatural . . . was so easy to latch onto here. When the characters feel/say odd things, they are "believable" in this context.

". . . You know you're in Stewartville when weird is normal . . ."

It's their day-to-day interactions that lead the reader to be able to take that extra leap and believe in the . . . .disturbing . . . incidents and the steps leading up to each. I loved the way Felton paved the way for the inexplicable by building a "legend", of sorts, all from the ground up in this town.

"Inmates had built most of the buildings in Stewartville, and I imagine they cemented every brick laid in place with dark and hateful thoughts . . . "

Overall, a very impressive and imaginative novella that left me thinking over the various events after I'd finished reading. The answers aren't spoon-fed to you here, but rather the writing invites you to become a part of this town for a spell and see what your own interpretations are.

"There is something about this place. Something that locks us all in a prison, chained to the sins and mistakes of the past . . . "

I can't wait to read more from this author in the future.

Recommended.

Available now: https://amzn.to/38NrDDRarc atmospheric dark ...more22 s Laurie (barksbooks)1,812 728

The Prisoners of Stewartville is a beautifully written novella about a town buried beneath a cloud of despair and desperation. Getting out alive and healthy doesn’t really happen in Stewartville. You either work in the prison, have an incarcerated relative or become an inmate yourself. But our young narrator Casey hopes to get out of the stifling grasp of its looming presence someday.

The book begins when our young narrator and his friend Denny, who is very new to this awful town, discover a big black hole in Denny’s basement when his mom tosses her steel-toed workboot at Denny’s head but misses and knocks some bricks loose instead. What’s a boy to do but investigate this possible portal to hell?! But Casey has lived here his entire life and he knows with every bone in his body that nothing good can come out of crawling into that hole and he Hell Noes himself right out of that basement because he’s unwilling to tempt fate and discover something so terrible that it had to be bricked up! Soon after everything gets even shittier and creepier.

This novella set me up for a spooky boyhood adventure and some of the dialogue was hilariously delightful but what actually occurs is much more insidious and painfully emotional than I ever imagined and to say much else will ruin it so I won’t be the jerk who does that today.

There’s a lot going on in this town and none of it is good. It’s a bleak and brutal read about a town infested with poverty, hopelessness, and despair. You’ll care about the narrator, you’ll hope he’s able to overcome everything thrown at him and you’ll probably want to crawl into a big ball of sad quite a few times as the story unfolds and everything he’s really dealing with here is revealed.

This well thought out and excellently written debut is one that I can easily recommend to dark fiction fans. ???????? ½ stars.
horror19 s Steve StredAuthor 80 books612

** Edited as review is now live on Kendall Reviews! **

“There’s only three reasons people move to Stewartville.”

With the opening paragraph, Felton cuts through the gristle and lays out a bleak and sorrow filled existence and good lord did this book resonate with me.

Where I grew up, there wasn’t a physical prison. No, the village I lived in and the town thirty minutes away (the big city to me when I was young!) was our prison.

You’d see it every day. The former jock now working for the village. The cool kids still living at home a decade later, doped out of their minds while they banged their way through the women in the town. The village I grew up in had a population of 100-150. The town nearest us – population 3000. Now it sits around 5000. It’s an odd place to visit because I will run into people in every single store I go into that I went to elementary school or high school with.

The story within this book, is simple. Our main character has a friend, Denny. New guy to town, his mom works at the prison (one of the three reasons to more there – someone works at the prison). One day, while playing video games in the basement, Denny’s mom comes home angry. She throws her steel toe boots at her son, missing with the second boot, which hits the wall and knocks a brick free. The two boys see there’s a space behind the wall, a tunnel.

From this point on, Felton paints the bleakest picture of small-town life. Where bad news travels fast and life can change for everyone in the blink of an eye. Between hearing scratches behind the walls and becoming addicted to a substance to escape the certainty of having no hope, no future, Felton created some truly amazing characters.

One thing that I really enjoyed was how Felton ensured to weave people’s histories throughout. This is something paramount in a story that’s based in a rural, tiny location. Everyone knows everyone and they all have history. Every young citizen of a small place has been friends with every other young person at one time or another. They may no longer be friends, but at one point they were. This was done fantastically.

Silver Shamrock keeps knocking releases out of the park, but ‘The Prisoners of Stewartville’ may well be my favourite release of theirs so far.

This is one that I’ll be recommending to everyone and I’ve added it to my list of books I’m positive will make my ‘Best Reads of 2020 List.’

Outstanding.10 s S.D. VassalloAuthor 7 books13

I loved this book! It's hard to believe that this is Shannon Felton's debut novel. Her style and the way she wields words suggests a well-honed skill.

Consider this passage from her novel:

"We dragged our feet down sidewalks cracked and choked with weeds, past abandoned storefronts and a market that smelled old stale blood, and into neighborhoods with nothing but dirt front yards and rusted chain-link fences. But the misery itself? That was helium, lighter than air, and it quivered above us in the wide open sky so you couldn’t even lift your head in prayer without having to face it."

Beautiful and effective use of language to paint a picture. Felton drew me into the world and horror of Stewartville and I was sad when I reached the end. I wanted the story to go on.

"The Prisoners of Stewartville" tells the story of the locals, most of whom either work for the prisons, are in prison, or have family in prison. The prisons form the bulk of the local economy and dominate the landscape. Stewartville is a grim place to live, a town plagued by drugs and violent crime. As the story progresses, the protagonist gradually becomes aware of the dark undercurrent controlling and directing the events taking place in Stewartville. It's a harsh and often a violent and bloody tale, and I found myself unable to put it down. I, much the protagonist, found myself swept inexorably toward the climax.

I've got a list of writers for whom I make an effort to buy and read their new releases. After reading "Devil's Dip", a story that appeared in "Midnight in the Graveyard," and "The Prisoners of Stewartville," Shannon Felton is going on that list. I give this book five stars and my highest recommendation.

Disclaimer: I was provided an electronic advance reading copy of the novel by the publisher in return for a review. I received no monies or any form of compensation other an electronic copy of the book. The opinions stated herein are my own.10 s Irene Well Worth A Read921 94

This is Shannon Felton's debut novel but I was lucky enough to have a previous taste of her work in an anthology called Midnight In The Graveyard. If you haven't read that one you should. She had a great story in there called Devil's Dip.

Anyway, about this book.
It is told from the point of view of Casey, a teen who lives in a run down trailer park with his brother Shane and his elderly grandmother. It's just the three of them ever since mom got sent to prison for her drug habit. Shane works in the cement plant, and Casey is still in high school.
The first word that comes to mind in describing the town of Stewartville is bleak. What else can you say about a town that grew around a prison? Pretty much everyone who lives in Stewartville is there because they work in the prison, or have family in prison, or are inmates themselves. There's nothing much to do but get drunk or high and sometimes both. There's a long history of murder and mayhem here, and very little hope, so just to be clear this was no happy place even before Casey and his best friend Denny found the tunnel in Denny's basement. Once they did, Denny became obsessed with finding out what was inside and where it would lead to. Maybe if he had left it alone a lot of people would still be alive. Maybe not, because there was already something wrong with Stewartville, even before those scratching noises started in the walls.
I can scarcely believe this was a first novel. Shannon Felton is already quite adept at bringing her characters to life and weaving suspenseful tales.

I received an advance copy for review.10 s Horror DNA1,177 105

What differentiates The Prisoners of Stewartville from the normal fare is how dark it is. Stewartville is not the home of June and Ward Cleaver; it’s already a haunted place long before the horror enters the scene. This is a place that is dominated by a prison where all of the residents expect to end up one day as either an employee or a resident.

You can read Jennifer's full review at Horror DNA by clicking here.jennifer-turner5 s Garrett Witt19 2

Silver Shamrock has done it again. The Prisoners of Stewartville is another harrowing but fantastic release from this indie press. The story, written by Author Shannon Felton, focuses on the small town of Stewartville and the people confided there. I say confided because no one leaves Stewerville. You just end up in the Towns biggest income source, the prisons. Or you end up returning back to the Earth, six feet deep.

This book had me hooked from start to finish. Shannon does an exceptional job at blending genres within her novella. We follow our main character around the town, learning of its residents and darkest secrets, as everything slowly spirals out of control.

I really enjoyed the cast in this story. Every Character is written with strong personality and distinctiveness. I became invested in almost everyone quickly after meeting them, feeling as if I was growing a friendship with some of them.

These characters remind me a lot of the people I grew up with, as does the story. This may have something to do with how invested I felt as we progress towards the end. This story felt hand crafted for me. The pages are easy to fly through with Feltons writing. We have short chapters and a quickly placed story that you won’t be able to finish fast enough. The creeps and scares are written to full effect. To some it up, this story had a little something for everyone and I feel if you are in the horror community and haven’t read it, you are missing out dearly.

5 stars ??
5 s Brennan LaFaroAuthor 20 books137

?I'm afraid I don't know much about Shannon Felton, a fact that I expect will change. Here's what I do know:?1. Her debut novella is published by Silver Shamrock, something that nobody in the horror community takes lightly.?2. Her story Devil's Dip from Midnight in the Graveyard was a phenomenal opening to a phenomenal collection.?3. She either grew up in or near a place Stewartville or has an extremely admirable and fertile imagination.?Stewartville is a place where everyone either works in the prison or, well, is in the prison. Meth is a serious issue, and not just among adults, and the kids that live there haven't got a chance. It's a desolate place with a history.
Casey, the voice of the story, has a mom in jail and lives with his older brother. When his friend, Denny, finds a secret passageway in the basement, Denny wants to explore it, against Casey's better judgement. From here on out, things in this already troubled town become increasingly strange and violent, bounding towards its' seemingly inevitable conclusion.
Felton did such an incredible job crafting the town of Stewartville and making it feel lived-in. The reader can feel the lack of hope in it's residents and the sense that they have come to terms with the way things are looms large. Later in the story the violence comes in waves, but is genuinely surprising and upsetting every time.
The Prisoners of Stewartville is one of the strongest offerings from Silver Shamrock Publishing yet, and trust me, that's really saying something. I have no qualms about recommending this book to anyone and everyone. Not for nothing, this is also up there with my favorite Kealan Patrick Burke covers, and something I'm going to require in paperback.

I received an e-Book from the publisher for review consideration. 4 s Kim Napolitano304 38

This is the authors debut novella. It’s one of those stories that stays with you long after you read and wonder why am I not reading more books from Shannon Felton! ..One of the best of 2020!

Nothing is good in Stewartsville, a dysfunctional town built up around a sprawling prison system, an abandoned mine and concrete factory, the town is nothing but abject poverty, depression and drug abuse. The horror of opioid addiction is forefront. The story is written in first person and I don’t think he’s even named in the story? 17 years old, mother in jail and living with his brother and nana, I’ll call him “Little Dude” because his brother calls him that. He does befriends a new boy in town, Denny who’s mother is a correctional officer. Denny discovers an abandoned tunnel behind the walls of this cellar which seems to trigger a wave of unspeakable violent, seemingly random events that threatens the very souls of Stewartsville. No, spoilers.. the author paints a bleak picture of a town harboring demons that don’t always come from the supernatural. Sometimes demons live within the collective hearts built on misery. The characters are well developed and you care about them as they face a growing danger. You hope for their escape and salvation from the evils within. Highly recommended and I look forward to more stories to come from this amazing author. Please don’t let this book pass you by.. 2/25/20 release date!4 s John LynchAuthor 11 books142

One of my highly anticipated books of 2020 has arrived, The Prisoners of Stewartville, has finally arrived. Shannon’s story in the anthology Midnight in a graveyard served as proof she has talent, and her debut novella cements that.

Felton tells the story of a young resident of Stewartville, who along with his friend, stumble upon an underground tunnel system. Something is afoot in Stewartville, can anybody escape?

The town of Stewartville is just as important as any character in the book. This is a story of desolation, despair, struggling to find your way in a dying town where most are trapped, unable to leave. You end up a prisoner to the town itself, even if you manage to avoid jail.

Felton does an extremely good job showing just how bad Stewartville is. It was easy for me to imagine the residents growing up, knowing that they were destined to end up on drugs, locked up in prison. The lucky ones do well enough to end up correction officers rather than prisoners. Its a very bleak situation, and one that Felton writes expertly.

The Prisoners of Stewartville is a top notch release from a publisher who puts out nothing but top notch releases. Check this one out, and give me more from Shannon Felton ASAP3 s Dale RobertsonAuthor 6 books29

A very good debut novella.

I d the first person style writing, it gave the reader a more personal take of the town of Stewartville. And the writing itself was well done as well, easy to get in to and follow.

Lots of creepy, isolated locations that the main character and his pals visit knit together into a bigger picture as the story goes on. Is there really something supernatural going on? Or is the town just cursed by bad luck? You'll find out if you give it a go. And if i was you, I most certainly would.

Looking forward to future releases by Shannon Felton3 s Kay OliverAuthor 13 books175

Halloween 2022 Read #9

Stewartville is a rundown town with the prison as its epicenter. Between the town and its residents there's no shortage of grit, brokenness, and simmering insidousness. There also lingers a pall; something sinister and macabre that fills every crevice.

This was a haunting page turner. The writing style is superb, yanking readers into the bloody heart of the horror. An excellent read for horror fans.3 s S.H. CooperAuthor 17 books124

Shannon Felton's The Prisoners of Stewartville is a glimpse into a depressing town overshadowed by the prison complex sitting in the middle of it. The horrors found in the tired, littered streets are subtle and creeping, and only sometimes coming from where you expect.

I really enjoyed this book. The story itself was engaging, the pacing was done well, and the characters were believable. It was half a look at the effects of a forgotten city where poverty and drug use are the norm and half a supernatural tale of what lies beneath. Both elements were woven together very well and played off of each other so that the reader and the main character, Casey, were never quite sure what was going on until the very end.

The sense of realness is really what made this such a good book for me. The teens trying to find their footing in a world that doesn't seem to have a place for them, the ever-present sense that their destinies were written the moment they were born into Stewartville, the hopelessness and feelings of being trapped. It could be incredibly bleak, but the characters at the center of it, particularly Casey, Charlie, and Zeke, hadn't yet been broken by it. They retained some measure of hope and goodness for much of the story.

I would definitely recommend this book to those who enjoy fast paced, character driven stories where the supernatural elements play second fiddle to the people involved. It kind of reminded me of The Outsiders in a way, but in Stewartville, staying gold isn't nearly as easy.3 s Brad143

Who are the real prisoners here, the inmates within the prison or the poor souls who call Stewartville home?

The town of Stewartville is a living breathing, and dying, character within these pages. A hauntingly familiar setting that ns to many places in America nowadays. Run down, closed businesses, boarded up store fronts, an opioid crisis, an economy that revolves almost solely around the prison complex. Clouds of despair and dread hang over the town casting their shadows over all. It seems there are only two destinations at the end of the road for anyone growing up here, you either go to prison as an inmate or you go to prison as an employee.

Our narrator is Casey, a high school kid who lives with his older brother Shane and his Nana while his mom rots in prison. Fear stews within him believing that he is destined to end up a prisoner in Stewartville everyone else ends up. One day Casey and his friend Denny stumble across a secret tunnel hidden behind a wall of bricks in Denny's basement. Whatever is released from the tunnel causes things to go from bad to worse.

From people hearing scratching within the walls to bizarre and startlingly deaths Stewartville is bleaker than ever. With evil lurking at the edge of every shadow Casey takes actions into his own hands as he attempts to change his destiny and break the chains of oppression that have wrapped themselves around the town.

The Prisoners of Stewartville is an insidious tale with a creeping sense of dread filled with bursts of violence. I instantly felt for the characters and Shannon's writing brings this story to life. The book went in the complete opposite direction from where I thought it was headed which was very refreshing. I cannot recommend this one enough.

I received an ARC of this book from the publisher for review consideration.

Check out my video review: https://youtu.be/dAZikkElW6w2 s John Kerry609 301

I'm very picky about horror novels. All of my favorites have some unusual hook or quality that make them stand out from the rest. I knew as soon as I started The Prisoners of Stewartville that it was going to be one of these stories. I enjoyed everything about this book--the characters , the differences between the world of the living and the dead , the traditions and legends, and so much more. This very thoughtful, well-written book is a very engaging page-turner!

What a stunning debut novel! Once I started, I couldn't put this one down for an instant. I even read it at work, sometimes on lunch break, sometimes not. Ssh! Don't tell. This is a great 'round the campfire' kinda story, with a sweet love story alongside it. Always a fan of this author's work, and this one was no exception. Great creepy ghost story otherwise and a great start to The Prisoners of Stewartville.

After I read the last sentence I just sighed and said out loud, “sooooo good”. I didn’t want it to end. I love, love, love The Prisoners of Stewartville - thank you for this wonderfully haunting story!!

Highly Recommended!3 s Aiden MerchantAuthor 32 books73

(This 4.5
Autor del comentario:
=================================