Call Off the Dark: A Novel

by Shepherd, Hallie · 2026

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.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, far from her polished Seattle existence.By day, Helen, who definitely wasn’t built for canning food and sewing dresses, contemplates setting her garden on fire. By night, she faces down insomnia and PTSD with her collection of poems by Plath and Poe—and daydreaming about her past with Tyler. But the routine of her “trad wife” life is broken when an unexpected traveler arrives: Isaac, Wade’s broodingly mysterious brother.Wade is stunned—Isaac died in a horrific farm accident years ago—and he quietly insists to Helen they are in danger. Helen isn’t sure what to believe.