The Shadow Project

by Herbie Brennan

Overview

Danny Lipman is a thief . . . until one night he robs the wrong house. He inadvertently breaks into the headquarters of the Shadow Project, a secret government organization where teenage spies are trained to leave their bodies, using astral projection to travel around the world on deadly missions.

Danny is captured, but the Project leaders quickly realize he has a special gift. And when a key operative—the director's daughter, Opal—goes missing, he is offered a choice: join the Shadow Project or go to jail.

Danny joins and is quickly sent to investigate the Project's current target: a worldwide terrorist organization known as the Sword of Wrath. But as he gets deeper in, he discovers both the Project and the Sword of Wrath are far more than they seem. Danny and his fellow operatives are caught up in an ancient supernatural conflict and will have to learn how to survive in a world without boundaries of space or time, where the wrong choice could be their last.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780061992049
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	02/27/2024
Series:	Shadow Project Series , #1
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	367
File size:	566 KB
Age Range:	12 - 14 Years

About the Author

Herbie Brennan is the New York Times bestselling author of the Faerie Wars Chronicles and the Shadow Project Adventure series. Worldwide, his books have sold in excess of 8.5 million copies. He lives in Ireland.

Editorial Reviews

Danny's smart, independent . . . and a thief. One night, he breaks into what looks like a country mansion not too far from London only to stumble into the middle of a government experiment in astral projection and remote viewing-in other words, spying on terrorists from a safe distance. Recruited to join the project, he quickly finds out that things are not as they seem nor as safe as he'd been promised. "Remote" viewing gets up-close and personal, reaching out to include his frail grandmother as well as his new friends Opal (the director's daughter) and Michael (a descendent of African princes with secrets of his own). Some mysticism, a mean spiritual leader as the enemy, a touch of self-discovery and a look at the protagonists' deepest fears keeps the action moving. This is a quick, hard-to-put-down read, and if the premise seems improbable, there's just enough fact in the foundation to make it somewhat believable. It's all a bit too pat, but the interesting characters might well keep readers involved. Boys will be more attracted than girls, even with a central female teen character. (Science fiction. 10 & up)

Kirkus Reviews

A hard-to-put-down read.” — Kirkus Reviews

“Fans of Anthony Horowitz’s Alex Rider Books should be right at home.” — Booklist

“The kind of mind candy that action/adventure junkies will gobble right up.” — The Horn Book

From the Publisher

Fans of Anthony Horowitz’s Alex Rider Books should be right at home.

Booklist

The kind of mind candy that action/adventure junkies will gobble right up.

The Horn Book

Fans of Anthony Horowitz’s Alex Rider Books should be right at home.

Booklist

Gr 7 Up—Danny Lipman is a young thief who stumbles into a clandestine operation that he does not immediately understand. The staff of the Shadow Project allows him to escape after deciding that he shows natural talent for their work but not before bugging his jacket. Danny soon learns that the project is a joint MI6/CIA venture that makes use of teen operatives to conduct remote viewing, a paranormal activity that allows agents to gather intelligence without risking themselves. Or so they believed. Opal, the director's daughter and a skilled operative in her own right, is somehow detained while on a mission and Danny is brought in to attempt a rescue. He is enticed to work for them, in part by their promise to provide the best possible care for his Nan, who has just had a stroke. From that point, nothing proceeds as Danny or anyone involved in the Shadow Project imagined. Given the number of spy novels and those on the entire spectrum of the paranormal battling for spots on young adult reading lists, this book was probably inevitable. It's exciting, has a good range of characters, an appealing cover, and also feels like a series opener, also inevitably. It should have broad appeal.—Eric Norton, McMillan Memorial Library, Wisconsin Rapids, WI

School Library Journal