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Kate Alice Marshall

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The Narrow Kindle Edition

by Kate Alice Marshall (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.1 111 ratings

Editors' pick Best Young Adult

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A deliciously terrifying novel about a ghost who uncovers a teen girl's best kept secrets while haunting her boarding school, perfect for fans of Lost in the Never Woods and The Haunting of Bly Manor.

A CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY BEST OF THE YEAR
A KIRKUS BEST OF THE YEAR

Everyone has heard the story of the Narrow. The river that runs behind the Atwood School is only a few feet across and seemingly placid, but beneath the surface, the waters are deep and vicious. It’s said that no one who has fallen in has ever survived.

Eden White knows that isn’t true. Six years ago, she saw Delphine Fournier fall into the Narrow—and live.

Delphine now lives in careful isolation, sealed off from the world. Even a single drop of unpurified water could be deadly to her, and no one but Eden has any idea why. Eden has never told anyone what she saw or spoken to Delphine since, but now, unable to cover her tuition, she has to make a deal: her expenses will be paid in return for serving as a live-in companion to Delphine.

Eden finds herself drawn to the strange and mysterious girl, and the two of them begin to unravel each other’s secrets. Then Eden discovers what happened to the last girl who lived with Delphine: she was found half-drowned on dry land. Suddenly Eden is waking up to wet footprints tracking to the end of her bed, the sound of rain on the windows when the skies are clear, and a ghostly silhouette in her doorway. Something is haunting Delphine—and now it’s coming for Eden, too.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Raves for The Narrow:

★ "Ghosts, secrets, lies, and loyalty.... Haunting."—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

★ "Impossible to put down."—BCCB, starred review

“With its carefully cultivated atmosphere of dread and uncertainty, this is a solid page-turner with several twists along the way to a bittersweet ending. A great choice for anyone who likes scary tales with strong romantic subplots.”—Booklist

“In this serpentine horror mystery, Marshall (These Fleeting Shadows) intertwines gothic ambiance and swoony romance while exploring hefty issues of abuse and manipulation set against a terrifying ghost story.”—Publishers Weekly

“Kate Alice Marshall has crafted a tautly plotted and emotionally sophisticated story which combines spooky fantastical elements with a more grounded examination of human relationships in all their flawed glory.”—The Nerd Daily

"An excellent sapphic dark academia with gothic vibes and plenty of suffocatingly suspenseful moments."—SLJ

About the Author

Kate Alice Marshall started writing before she could hold a pen properly, and never stopped. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with a chaotic menagerie of pets and family members, and ventures out in the summer to kayak and camp along Puget Sound. She is the author of the young adult novels I Am Still Alive, Rules for Vanishing, Our Last Echoes, and These Fleeting Shadows, as well as the middle grade novels Thirteens, Brackenbeast, and Glassheart. Visit her online at katemarshallbooks.com. --This text refers to the hardcover edition.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

They say the Narrow drowns all it takes, but they are wrong.
It is not the water that kills you, though it fills your lungs.
It is not the cold that kills you, though it steals the warmth from your very bones.
It is not the darkness that kills you, though it swallows you down deep.
Your blood chilled, your lungs burning, your eyes blind in the dark, you are alive when the vicious current slams you against the rocks, again and again. The first impact splinters your leg. The second crushes your ribs. The third is gentle in comparison, your skull clipping a sharp snag of rock, but it is enough to end your awareness of your brief, wild tumble through the drowning dark.
The current drags you down, a ribbon of scarlet blood chasing behind you. Down among the caves carved by the relentless rushing of the water, you are spun and tossed until you come to rest, wedged against some outcrop of stone, the endless flow of murky water pinning you in place.
Your eyes, empty, stare upward, as if searching for the light. But there is none down here. There is nothing but the cold and the darkness and the drowned.
They will search for your body along the shores, but they will never find you. They say that what the Narrow takes does not return.
They are wrong about that, too.

1
Every year, in those last hazy summer days before school begins, the students of Atwood go into the woods to cheat death. It’s a tradition as old as the school, observed in the strange, liminal week after students begin to arrive but before classes start. We make our way down in twos and threes and fours, some laughing and chattering, some silent with simmering nerves. Not everyone jumps, but everyone knows who doesn’t.
The four of us always jump. Veronica, Zoya, Ruth, and I. Even when we weren’t supposed to—Lower School students aren’t allowed, but in that first year, Veronica and I sneaked out on our own to fling ourselves over the Narrow.
It’s our senior year now. Our last chance to leap. And I’ve almost missed it.
I’m barely out of the taxi that brought me from the airport when Veronica comes striding across the campus lawn toward me, arms outflung. Her white-blond hair is long on the top and shaved on the sides, which accentuates the sharp angles of her face. She wears a loose white tank that shows off the black sports bra beneath, accessorized with a collection of silver pendants and bracelets. On me, the look would be Witchy Nervous Breakdown, but on her it’s pure glamour.
“Thank the goddess you made it! You almost missed the leap,” she declares, and I stretch a grin across my face to mirror hers. The cut on my lip has sealed itself to a whisper. The bruise at my lower back is a faint yellow, barely noticeable, but I tug down my shirt anyway. I keep my left hand in my sweatshirt pocket, and as long as I don’t jostle it, my arm doesn’t hurt.
“I thought about joining the circus instead, but then I remembered there are plenty of clowns here,” I tell her. I practiced the joke on the way here, terrible as it was. Fine-tuned it, orchestrating just the right facial expression and tone of voice. I shouldn’t have bothered. Veronica is my favorite person in the world, but she isn’t exactly observant.
“It’s supposed to rain later, so we’d better get moving if we want to get it done before classes start,” Veronica says, jerking a thumb over her shoulder. Halfway across the lawn, Ruth and Zoya stand together in a pose of expectant waiting. Ruth raises a hand to wave.
“You go on,” I tell Veronica. “I’ve got to get my stuff to my room.” All the way here, I’ve had a knot in my stomach. I’m not ready to face Veronica—or anyone. I can’t explain what happened a week ago—or what was happening all summer while she swanned around Tuscany and sent texts complaining about how much her parents were smothering her.
“Don’t be ridiculous. You can leave it here. It’s not like anyone’s going to steal it,” she says with a wrinkled-up nose. “Come on. It’s senior year. We can’t not jump.”
The taxi driver has finished unloading my suitcases from the trunk. I take a deep breath. I’m here. I’ve made it to Atwood. All summer, I told myself I just needed to get back here, and everything would be okay.
And it is okay.
I’m okay.
“Help me drag my stuff up on the sidewalk, at least?” I say brightly.
Veronica groans at the prospect of physical labor but obliges. She practically flings my roller bag onto the grass. I move more cautiously, forced to pick up each bag one-handed, still aware of the random aches and pains that ambush me when I move the wrong way. I’ve barely set the last bag down when Veronica seizes my hand and starts dragging me toward the woods.
“It’s been so boring without you, Eden. Just me and these losers.”
“I resemble that remark,” Ruth says. Zoya just offers a tiny finger-wave.
The two of them are a study in opposites, and it isn’t just because Zoya is almost six feet tall and the approximate width of an electron while Ruth is five-three and looks like she could flip a steer by its horns. Zoya looks immaculate as always, wearing a boldly printed top and fitted trousers she made herself under a tunic-length cardigan. She and Veronica are the fashion icons of the group. Meanwhile, when Ruth isn’t in her school uniform, she’s usually dressed like she is now, in running shorts and a tank, and according to Veronica, I have the fashion instincts of a nineteenth-century governess, tragically orphaned and tasked with caring for two polite but unsettling British children.
“Why’d you show so late? You’re usually the first one here,” Veronica says.
“I had some stuff to deal with at home,” I say. I paid to have my ticket changed to give the bruises time to heal.
“Everything all right?” Zoya asks softly.
I don’t quite meet her eyes as I shrug. “I’m here now.” The rest of the world doesn’t need to exist, at least for a few months.
“That’s right. You’re finally here, and we can finally jump,” Veronica says with pleasure.
“Say that a little louder, won’t you?” Ruth says, rolling her eyes.
“You mean I shouldn’t talk about how WE’RE GOING TO JUMP THE NARROW?” Veronica shouts. A few people glance toward us, including Mr. Lloyd, our English teacher, but there are no answering shouts of alarm or any rush to clap us in irons. Technically, jumping the Narrow is forbidden, and the teachers are supposed to stop you if they catch you, but they never try to catch you. Most of them did it, too, back in the day.
“Could you please . . . not?” Zoya says with a little burr of irritation. If she and Ruth are opposites, she and Veronica sometimes clash because they’re too similar. Both tall and willowy, the kind of build you could drape a potato sack over and call it high fashion—not that they ever would, since both of them have a keen fashion sense and the bank accounts to indulge it. Veronica is white, and Zoya is Black, but they even have similar bone structure, with sharp chins and big eyes. But Veronica is all brash energy and charisma, and most of the time Zoya seems like she wants to fold in on herself and disappear.
“Sorry,” Veronica says with a toss of her hair, unconcerned.
We start off together, Ruth taking the lead despite her short stature, thanks to her business-like stride, Veronica and me in the middle, and Zoya drifting just behind us.
The only way down to the Narrow is through a gap in the fence behind the old chapel. In my six years at the school, it’s never been fixed.
“Aren’t the boys coming?” I ask, glancing around for a sign of Diego or Remi—Ruth’s and Veronica’s boyfriends, respectively.
“No boys allowed. Just the four of us, one last time.” Veronica throws an arm over my shoulder.
One last year at Atwood, away from the world.
“Are you okay?” Veronica asks. She’s looking down at me with a quizzical expression, and a lie springs to my lips—yes, of course I’m okay. Why wouldn’t I be?
I’ve been lying to Veronica since the first day I arrived at Atwood. There’s no reason to stop now. My tongue nudges the lingering seam where my lip split, and I look away. “I don’t know. It doesn’t feel like I’m here yet.”
“That’s because you haven’t jumped. The real world doesn’t go away until you jump,” Veronica says confidently. And then we’re at the back of the chapel, and we have to break apart to walk single file down the path. We pick our way along in relative silence.
We hear it before we see it. For the deadliest body of water in the county, the Narrow doesn’t sound very threatening—no crash and rush of rapids or waterfalls, just a cheerful babble that suggests a friendly forest creek. At first glance, that’s all the Narrow is: a thin ribbon of water flowing amid moss-covered rocks beneath a swaying canopy of branches, the banks little more than one long stride apart. But appearances can be deceiving.
Only half a mile up, the little babbling brook is a river, wide and shallow. Then its banks tighten. Through some quirk of geology, they cleave together, forcing all that water through a channel only a few feet wide. Over the years, the river has carved a path not out to the sides but straight down. Essentially, the river turns on its side, running narrow, deep, and fast. So fast that it snatches anything or anyone unfortunate enough to fall into the water, and no matter how hard you struggle or how fast you swim, there is no way to fight the pull.
Legend says that no one who’s ever fallen into the Narrow has survived. Not only that, but the currents and the pockets and caves in the rock mean that any bodies will likely get trapped, never to emerge. No one who ever goes in comes out again. Or so they say.
Veronica and I know better.
By tacitly letting us get away with the jump, the staff can encourage certain limits. You only jump during daylight when the ground is completely dry, and only at the one small section where the boulders overhanging the water shrink the gap to a manageable four feet. Lower School students—sixth, seventh, and eighth graders—aren’t allowed, and there has to be someone on the other side to grab you if you slip. Officially, no student has fallen into the Narrow in forty years.
By the time we reach the river, there’s a crowd gathered. Other students, like us, trying to get their jump in before the rain starts. You can’t jump after the first day of classes. It doesn’t count.
A little knot of Lower School students clusters along the near shore. A couple of them are already wearing uniforms. A gangly boy in a He-Man T-shirt is bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet, arms swinging as he psychs himself up. I don’t recognize him, so I assume he’s a freshman—that is, in his first year at the Upper School. Lower School students are either collectively known as Littles or just by grade level. The Upper School is much larger than the Lower School. Not a lot of parents think it’s a good idea to ship their eleven-year-olds off to the middle of the woods to learn Latin. Ruth, Veronica, and I are all lifers, as Lower School veterans are called, but Zoya enrolled when she started high school.
“Hurry it up!” Ruth hollers, clapping. “You can do it! Don’t think, just leap!”
“Ten bucks says he can’t,” Veronica calls loudly, and the boy flashes her a panicked look. She folds her arms, one eyebrow raised.
“She’s really very nice once you get to know her,” I promise him, and Veronica snorts.
The boy gives one last full-body shake, sets his feet, and dashes across the rocks. They’re coated with shaggy green moss. Even a whisper of rain could make them treacherously slick, but dry, they provide plenty of traction as he takes three long strides and flings himself across the four-foot gap. He clears it easily, and the crowd on the other side catches hold of him, dragging him in for back slapping, hooting, and hollering.
“My turn!” Ruth yells, and charges forward.
“Go for it, Hwang!” someone yells, but by the time they get out the last syllable, it’s already old news. She’s on the other side, brushing imaginary lint off her shoulder.
“Let’s get this over with,” Zoya says, her faint Russian accent sharpening the th. She’s so tall, she can practically just step over the gap, but she does it in an elegant hop. On the other side, awed freshmen scatter, gawking up at her. She wraps her cardigan tight around herself and stalks over to Ruth.
“Together?” Veronica asks, putting out her right hand for me to take.
Her hand hovers in the air. My left hand stays wedged in my pocket, my forearm pulsing with dull pain. We always jump together since that first illicit mission down to the water. “You go ahead,” I find myself saying.
A frown tugs at the corners of her mouth. But then she wheels around, and with a whoop, she runs. She jumps. She lands in an ungainly crouch on the other side, wheezing laughter like a hyena, and bounces to her feet to beckon me.
“Your turn!” she calls.
I’m the last Upper School student on the near side. A group of jumpers are heading upstream, toward the bridge half a mile away. That’s another rule: you only jump once. Jumping back is tempting fate. For the Narrow is greedy and lonely and cruel.
We jump to defy it. We jump to feel alive and free. We jump because the real world can’t follow us across the cold water.
Ruth calls my name. Veronica stares at me, expression unreadable. I’ve been standing still too long. Gingerly, I take my hand from my pocket, gritting my teeth against the zips of pain that follow. I force myself into motion, running up the gentle slope of the big boulder that hangs out over the water. Dozens of feet have churned up the shaggy moss, tearing at it with every step, leaving small slick patches of brown. I plant my foot at the edge of the rock to leap.
Mud shifts beneath the sole of my foot, twisting my heel maybe half an inch to the left. I push off.
I’m in the air, but my balance is off. I hit the other side. My foot shoots out from under me. I pitch back toward the water. Someone in the crowd screams—
And Veronica catches my right arm. She pulls, and I stumble forward into her arms. Into Atwood’s embrace.
“You made it,” she says, eyes gleaming with pleasure.
Finally it feels true. I’m here. I’m home.
Everything is going to be all right. --This text refers to the hardcover edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0BL7HNC63
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Viking Books for Young Readers (August 1, 2023)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 1, 2023
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 1869 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 378 pages
Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 0593405145

Best Sellers Rank: #539,439 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #270 in LGBTQ+ Romance for Teens & Young Adults eBooks
- #701 in Teen & Young Adult LGBTQ+ Romance
- #1,217 in Teen & Young Adult Horror eBooks

Customer Reviews:
4.1 111 ratings

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Kate Alice Marshall

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Kate Alice Marshall writes horror and thrillers for all ages, from middle grade to adult. Her books have been nominated for the Washington State Book Awards and Bram Stoker Awards. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her family, where she spends her time gardening, gaming, and concocting stories of the uncanny.

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gary h mayo

Beautifully written

Reviewed in the United States on April 30, 2024

This book has a big mystery in it and had me going. Im enjoying Kate Alice Marshall a lot. I can't wait for her next book!

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Andi in Kansas

Amazing - Exciting, Creepy, Heartwarming, Heartbreaking

Reviewed in the United States on December 28, 2023

Verified Purchase

This book is an absolute gem! Despite being targeted at teens, I, in my thirties, was pleasantly surprised by its adult novel vibes. The narrative struck a perfect balance of tenor, excitement, and maturity, blending in a wave of emotions that felt like a nostalgic journey into my past.

The writing is impeccable, holding my attention effortlessly. I devoured it in just a few hours, and I must confess, the ending left me in tears. The bittersweetness of it all was heart-wrenching, yet immensely satisfying. Trust me, spending money on this book was a decision I don't regret one bit. Highly recommend!

Helpful

Caitlin

(dark academia, ghosts, lesbians, boarding schools, mean girls.)

Reviewed in the United States on February 14, 2024

***
The Narrow is a dark academia thriller perfect for a cozy read during the fall season. This is a ghost story that is set within the campus of a boarding school. Folklore of the school dictates that the Narrow is a body of water that runs the length of the school in which no student has ever survived a fall. Eden White is well-versed in this urban legend. Eden once saw a student, Delphine, down by the river, she fell in and she is still alive to tell the tale.
Eden has tuition trouble which leads her to being Delphine’s caretaker. Delphine has a rare disease wherein she cannot come in contact with any water, or she will succumb to death. After a couple of brushes with a supernatural being, Eden is desperate to solve the mystery of what happened both to Delphine and the

Helpful

Indre P

Another good story from a favorite

Reviewed in the United States on August 3, 2023

Every year I look forward to the YA Horror by Kate Alice Marshall. I was really excited to get my hands on this book!

And this one has grown so much in writing, but I also feel it has changed a bit in style. I usually really love the spookiness of her books, and this one just didn't deliver that for me.

This book is a bit of dark academia, since the setting is a boarding school. Our main girl, Eden gets to live in a special house, where another girl is staying. She cannot leave the building due to a mysterious illness, where outside water could kill her literally. Eden is there as a companion, as well as a keeper. But eventually Eden figures out that this mysterious illness is connected to a local ghost - the Drowning Girl. She is bent on figuring out what is happening.

Usually Marhall's books leave things mysterious - you're not completely sure if it was real or a dream. But in this book she takes the paranormal to the "real" level. The ghosts are real, people believe in them, they see them. I feel like that took a bit of spookiness out of the experience more. Also, this book is very much more focused on romance than her previous books. It is the big part of the story.

I did like how trauma is big part of the theme, and how not dealing with it actually creates more problems. I did like that there are solutions due to communication and explaining/hearing each other, rather than being scared to bring up one's problems. It showed a lot of good relationships. It just made my heart happy.

Overall a very well written book. I just wasn't here for the romance, and I wanted more spooky. BUT that's just me.

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Chrissy Brooks

Wow

Reviewed in the United States on September 16, 2023

Verified Purchase

I didn't know what to expect going into this book but it was beautiful and spooky and just amazing I'm sad how it ended but I think that is how it needed to end. Please read this book I think you will take so many things away from it. I will be thinking about this book for a long time

One person found this helpful

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Elle

Spooky paranormal mystery

Reviewed in the United States on August 12, 2023

This was a wild ride of twists and turns. It gave me all the feels. I found it heartwarming, bittersweet and thrilling. It follows the story of Eden. She has a pretty troubled home life and ends up having to stay at Abigail House because she can’t pay her tuition. At Abigail House she finds herself becoming the companion to the mysterious Delphine. Delphine once fell into the infamous Narrow. A mysterious fast moving river that runs behind Atwood school. The Narrow drowns all who fall into it but strangely Delphine lives after her accident. Del and Eden become very close but they soon find that something is haunting Del and they start to unravel the mysteries surrounding Del and The Narrow.

The plot starts off a little slower but I found that it was the perfect kind of slow build up. As a mystery/ thriller story all is not as it seems and every time I thought I had the truth figured out the plot would twist. I couldn’t put this book down and I loved this creepy paranormal elements. The characters were wonderfully flawed and relatable. This story isn’t just a spooky mystery. It’s about finding yourself, trusting your friends, overcoming abuse and finding love while being queer. It really has a little bit of everything without feeling overwhelming. If you’re a fan of spooky paranormal mysteries then I highly recommend this twisty YA story.

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Martina

Not your usual mystery

Reviewed in the United States on February 19, 2024

This one was interesting and I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it.

I did like most of the plot but I did get a bit confused with some stuff. It felt like too much was happening. It got overwhelming fast.

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