Call Off The Dark
By: Hallie Shepherd
Narrator: Brittany Pressley
ISBN:9780063489486
Publisher: HarperAudio Adult
William Morrow
Publication Date: 09/22/2026
Format: Audio
My Rating: 4.5 Stars (ALC) (ARC)
“Call Off the Dark is my favorite kind of thriller: so moving about true love and the aftermath of loss, and at the same time, twisty, confounding and impossible to put down.”
—Clare Leslie Hall, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Broken Country
A haunting, atmospheric debut thriller with a love story at its heart, following a feisty young woman caught between her husband and a mysterious stranger who disturbs their off-grid life in rural Washington--currently in development as a television series with Warner Bros. Television and Berlanti Productions!
Helen and Tyler were soulmates, a couple with a storybook beginning and an enduring bond, until Tyler’s sudden murder shattered her world. Numb with grief and desperate for escape, Helen impulsively marries Wade—a near stranger—and goes off-grid with him to a farmhouse in rural Washington.
Trading her polished Seattle existence for a tradwife life of canning vegetables and sewing during the day, she battles insomnia, PTSD, and haunting memories of Tyler at night…until Wade's brother Isaac shows up. The problem: Isaac died years ago in a farm accident, and Wade insists they're now in danger.
Helen isn’t sure what to believe. Is Isaac back from the dead? Is Wade manipulating her? Or is Helen's mind unraveling? As her suspicions close in from every side, Helen must navigate a maze of secrets, grief, and uncertainty—where trusting the wrong person could be fatal.
A stunningly original debut, Call Off the Dark blends a spine-tingling thriller, an immersive psychological drama, and a heart-piercing love story that reminds us of the magic in human connection and that our truest partners in life can keep us tethered to the world, even from the grave.
My Review
Can you ever really outrun your past?
A new marriage, an off-grid farmhouse, and a dead brother who just walked through the door. Hallie Shepherd’s debut Call Off the Dark is the ultimate atmospheric slow-burn. Plus, the audiobook narrated by Brittany Pressley is a must-listen!
Intro
"Call Off the Dark" is a haunting and genre-blending debut novel by screenwriter and producer Hallie Shepherd. After the honor of receiving both an (ARC) and (ALC), I had my first experience with Shepherd's storytelling. This novel is an incredibly unique psychological suspense story that heavily relies on its claustrophobic setting and offers an intense exploration of trauma.
The Hook
What do you do when you escape your deepest grief by running away to an off-grid farmhouse with a near-stranger, only for his "dead" brother to walk through the front door?
Elevator Pitch
Following the brutal, unsolved murder of her soulmate Tyler, a devastated Helen impulsively marries a man named Wade and flees her life in Seattle. They move into an isolated, off-grid farmhouse in rural Washington where Helen tries to force herself into a quiet life of domesticity.
But her fragile reality shatters when Wade’s brother, Isaac, suddenly shows up at their home. Wade insists that Isaac died years ago in a horrific farm accident. Trapped in a web of shifting truths, Helen is forced to figure out if she is being manipulated, if a dead man has actually returned, or if her own grief-stricken mind is completely unraveling.
Setting
A remote, deeply isolated, and rustic farmhouse in rural Washington state.
The oppressive wilderness serves as a double-edged sword—offering a hiding spot from the outside world while building a thick, inescapable atmosphere of paranoia.
Vibe
Moodily gothic, heavy with quiet dread, and deeply melancholic. A psychological slow-burn that feels like The Turn of the Screw crossed with a modern homesteader nightmare.
Genre
Gothic Psychological Suspense / Atmospheric Mystery / Ghost / Horror
Themes
~The weight of grief: How the trauma of a sudden loss can completely warp a person's judgment and reality.
~Isolation and control: The dangerous vulnerability of cutting oneself off entirely from society with a partner you barely know.
~Gaslighting vs. psychosis: The terrifying ambiguity of not knowing whether to trust your own senses or the people around you.
Standout Characters
~Helen: A fiercely resilient but deeply broken protagonist who is utterly ill-suited for her new "tradwife" lifestyle
~Wade: Helen's secretive new husband whose protective nature borders on terrifyingly controlling.
~Isaac: The brooding, enigmatic brother who shouldn't be alive, injecting an immediate spark of danger into the house.
Author Writing Standout
Hallie Shepherd’s screenwriting background shines brightly through her cinematic pacing and hyper-visual prose. She expertly crafts a highly restrictive, three-character bottle-thriller setup that relies entirely on tension, subtext, and the unsettling gray areas of human behavior [h].
Takeaway
You can change your name, your clothes, and your location, but you can never successfully run away from a ghost.
Title Significance
Call Off the Dark acts as a desperate plea from a protagonist suffocating in her own grief and trauma. It represents Helen's struggle to find a literal and metaphorical light when she is surrounded by the darkness of her past, the isolation of her present, and the secrets of her new family.
Metaphor
The off-grid farmhouse is a beautiful velvet trap. It looks like a peaceful sanctuary of self-sufficiency from the outside, but once the doors close, it becomes a cage where reality can be altered by whoever holds the keys.
Why You Should Read
If you enjoy thrillers that focus heavily on character psychology, dark atmosphere, and emotional depth over cheap jump scares, this debut delivers beautifully. It is a fantastic entry point for readers who enjoy gothic-tinged mysteries with a complex romance at their core.
My Thoughts
The Tradwife Trap: When Going Off-Grid Goes Horribly Wrong
Ghosts of Washington: Hallie Shepherd’s Chilling Debut
Trust No One: The Fine Line Between Grief and Madness
As my first book by Hallie Shepherd, I was deeply impressed by her ability to sustain such a high level of quiet discomfort throughout the story. While the pacing leans more toward a slow, deliberate boil rather than a breakneck action flick, the mystery surrounding Isaac's identity kept me guessing. The audio narration truly elevated the entire experience for me, cementing it as an incredibly solid introduction to a promising new voice in thriller fiction.
Verdict
A masterfully executed, spine-chilling excursion into psychological isolation that establishes Hallie Shepherd as an immediate powerhouse voice in modern gothic noir.
Recs or read alikes
~The Farmhouseby Chelsea Conradt
~When She Was Me by Marlee Bush
~Whispers of Dead Girls by Marlee Bush
Audio Standout
The audiobook edition from HarperAudio is an absolute masterpiece, earning a flawless 5/5 stars solely due to the brilliant performance by Brittany Pressley (a favorite). Pressley is an elite narrator who elevates this psychological slow-burn into a deeply immersive, claustrophobic experience. She masterfully captures Helen’s profound grief, the haunting weight of her PTSD, and the escalating terror of her situation with raw, emotional precision. Her vocal choices create an intense friction between Helen’s external attempts to stay calm and her shattering internal panic. Pressley doesn't just read the script—she completely embodies the paranoia of the farmhouse, making it impossible to stop listening.
Special thanks to William Morrow, Harper Audio, and NetGalley for sharing and advance reading and listening copy in exchange for my honest t houghts.
@JudithDCollins | #JDCMustReadBooks
My Rating: 4.5 Stars (overall)
Audio: 5 Stars
Book: 4 Stars
Pub Date: Sept 22, 2026
Sep 2026 Must-Read Books
Praise
"Call Off the Dark is my favorite kind of thriller: so moving about true love and the aftermath of loss, and at the same time, twisty, confounding and impossible to put down.” - Clare Leslie Hall, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Broken Country
“Unnerving and infused with quiet dread, Call Off the Dark by Hallie Shepherd is one of the most beautifully told, unsettling novels I’ve encountered. Shepherd masterfully examines the power of grief, loss, and the ties that bind us long after death. I was transfixed from the very first sentence—a stunning debut.” - Heather Gudenkauf, New York Times bestselling author of The Overnight Guest
"Call Off the Dark is a soulful, frightening, big-hearted novel about the many ways we find and lose love—and ourselves. A cinematic, unpredictable, stay-up-too-late journey into the dark heart of grief that will make you question everything before its final stunning revelations. Hallie Shepherd is a powerful, exciting new voice in fiction." - Katie Gutierrez, bestselling author of More Than You'll Ever Know
“Hallie Shepherd’s debut is a richly detailed and slow-boiling descent through the loss of a loved one into something much more frightening: the loss of oneself. The stages of grief have never looked so menacing.” - Bryn Greenwood, New York Times bestselling author of Nobody Knows You’re Here
“Hallie Shepherd serves sultry, homesteader thrills in this page-turning debut about one woman’s unraveling. Call Off the Dark is by turns moody, contemplative, breathless. Shepherd tackles the isolation of grief and the transformative power of letting go.” - Caroline Frost, award-winning author of Shadows of Pecan Hollow and The Last Verse
Call Off the Dark is a genre-bending thriller fused with a tender love story. Hallie Shepherd’s crystalline prose pulls you into one woman’s battle to recover her soul from menacing darkness—inner and outer. This compelling debut asks if love is truly stronger than death. The answer will haunt you. - Tess Callahan, author of Dawnland
About the Author
Hallie grew up on a farm in a small town in western Washington state (population 1,000). At night, the train horns echoed through the hills, rivaled only by the coyote howls. A voracious reader from an early age, she began writing a weekly column for the county newspaper at eleven. In college, she spent two years pretending she would stick with her computer science major before thankfully giving in to the inevitable and graduating with honors with a B.A. in English from Western Washington University. Since then, she has worked in the film industry as a screenwriter, producer, and actress, all the while knowing she would eventually return to her first love: novels.
Call Off the Dark is Hallie’s debut novel. It sold at auction in a major deal to William Morrow/HarperCollins in 2025 and will be released on September 22, 2026. She currently lives in Los Angeles with her filmmaker husband, Eric Colley, where she is always at work on her next story. WEBSITE
