by Clifton BrownPublish: Nov 30, 2025 Series: The Shadow Core SagaAction & AdventureRomantic SuspenseScience FictionFantasy
Book Overview
International Impact Book Award - Science Fiction
Storytrade Awards Finalist - Romance-Fantasy/Science Fiction
Global Book Awards - Silver Medal - Science Fiction-Genetic Engineering Category
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 5-star reviews on Readers’ Favorite, Reedsy Discovery, and Goodreads
He was built for war. She was never supposed to know or care. But when shadows close in, love may be their only weapon.
Mason “Brick” Redstone was supposed to be their ultimate weapon. Shadowy forces genetically manipulated his parents to engineer his existence but his family fled before his birth. Instead of rising to their design, Brick buried his gifts beneath a façade of isolation and weakness until a covert mission lit his past on fire and planted a seed of darkness inside him. Then came his science professor’s project, a recalcitrant partner, and a spark that would light his world on fire.
Latisha “Tish” Owusu wanted nothing to do with Brick—until working beside him revealed more than she ever expected. Knowledge turned into connection. Understanding cracked the walls between them. And just as love began to flicker, Brick’s past found him.
Kidnapped and imprisoned in a house of horrors run by a twin who shares his science professor’s face but none of her humanity, Brick is subjected to manipulation, seduction, and unimaginable violence. While his sister and Tish work to uncover the truth and bring him home, they find something bigger than any one person: a hidden cabal bent on domination, a woman who has traded motherhood for godlike power, and a force so vast it threatens to rewrite reality at the molecular level.
Brick’s choices could doom them all. Tish’s awakening abilities might be the key to everything. Together, they must survive betrayal, master an energy that blends science and mysticism and face the truth about might, purpose, and what it means to be human.
This is a story of love under fire, the terrible burdens of power, and two broken people fighting an intimate war against monstrous ambition. All set in a world that may not be ready for what comes next.
Will they end the threat, become it, or fall into the shadows between?
A haunted prodigy and the woman who once hated him must confront a secret world of myth-based science, betrayal, and love. Their bond could save the world—or doom it—if they survive what’s waiting in the shadows.
First in the award-winning Shadow Core Saga, In the Ghost’s Shadow is a genre-blending romantic suspense with a sci-fi twist.
Fans of Vicious, The Rook, and Soon I Will Be Invincible will enjoy the dark dystopian vibe, shadow organizations and imperfect genetically-altered heroes struggling to walk the path between light and dark.
Content Warning: This book contains graphic violence, sexual situations and trigger events.
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BIOGRAPHY Clifton Brown is an author who draws deeply from his experiences in the U.S. Navy, weaving them into dark, evocative stories that explore the boundaries between light and shadow. With several published short stories and a debut fiction novel, an anthology, and two nonfiction works, Clifton has found writing to be a powerful way to navigate his past, honoring his service while exploring the catharsis of storytelling, self-healing, and discovery.
His fiction often deals with the struggle for hope amid darkness, guiding characters through love and loss in unpredictable ways. As he crafts tales of demons, extraterrestrial forces, and the supernatural, Clifton brings to life flawed, yet resilient characters, pushing them toward growth even when the path is painful.
With an affinity for the weird and the wondrous and an unapologetic romantic, Clifton enjoys creating worlds where danger is ever-present, but love and resilience still shine through, however unexpectedly.