Cover of Shackled

Shackled

From author Tom Leveen comes a taut, suspenseful novel about a girl's abduction that leaves her best friend emotionally paralyzed, until a chance encounter points her toward the truth...and a terrifying new danger.

Read more

Sixteen-year-old Pelly has a master plan. After years of therapy, medication, and even a stint in a mental hospital, she's finally ready to re-enter the world of the living. Pelly has been suffering from severe panic attacks ever since her best friend, Tara, disappeared from a mall six years ago.

And her plan seems to be working, until an unkempt girl accompanied by an older man walks into the coffee shop where she works. Pelly thinks she's seen a ghost, until the girl mouths "help me" on the way out, and Pelly knows she's just seen Tara.

Too shocked to do anything, Pelly helplessly watches Tara slip away again as she steels herself against a renewed spiral of crippling anxiety. But rather than being overcome by anxiety, Pelly feels more energized than she has in years. Determined to track down enough evidence to force the police to reopen Tara's file, Pelly's master plan takes a turn for the dangerous.

Pelly decides she cannot be shackled by her past—and the anxiety, fear, and grief that comes with it—any longer if she wants to save Tara. But in seeking answers through whatever means necessary, she'll come face-to-face with true evil. And not all the shackles are in her head...

Audience
young adult
Length
medium · 224 pages

Click a tag to see books like this one that share it. Point at it (on a phone, tap it) for less of it instead.

Read it? Sign in to help tag it.

Liked Shackled? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked Shackled. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. Audition & Subtraction Shares young adult, realistic fiction, friendship
  2. The Good Girls Shares young adult, mystery, contemporary
  3. The Night She Disappeared Shares young adult, mystery, thriller
  4. Stick Shares young adult, realistic fiction, contemporary

“People who read Shackled tend to reach for these next.”

  1. The Law of Loving Others
  2. Kindness for Weakness
  3. Killing Time in Crystal City
  4. Herobear and the Kid Volume 1: The Inheritance

“If you want more of the same (mystery about kidnapping), start with these.”

  1. The Last Good Day of the Year
  2. Afterward
  3. The Mystery of Hollow Places
  4. The Stranger Game

“If it was the thriller that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. Bad Blood
  2. All In
  3. Vanishing Girls
  4. Find Me

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. When Panic Attacks: The New, Drug-Free Anxiety Therapy That Can Change Your Life
  2. Tag Team
  3. Don't Panic: Taking Control of Anxiety Attacks
  4. Geeks, Nerds, and Cuddles