Thank you to the publisher, Amulet Books, for granting me an eARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review! 4/5 stars.

Stalking shadows was an incredibly refreshing take on the classic "Beauty and the Beast" tale, and also seemed to have subtle undertones and themes of other popular classic fairytales, such as Red Riding Hood. Just as promised, it was gothic, beautifully vivid, atmospheric, and the character relationships brought you deeper into the story.

We begin with the discovery of Ama being the town beast, and her sister Marie being forced to use their knowledge of herbs and perfume making to "mark" Ama's victims each month, to make sure her kills go as unnoticed as possible by picking people who "wouldn't be missed". But all goes sideways when a young child is killed, and Marie must do what she must to keep Ama safe and find the cure to her curse. This leads her to volunteer her knowledge of herbs to the Lord of the town, Sebastian, for his very sick little brother Lucien. Ama came home cursed a year prior, after being sent to work for Sebastian's family by Ama and Marie's father. She is convinced that his mother is a witch, and she is the one who cursed Ama. One small problem....both Sebastian's mother and father were killed by a beast. Ama.

I loved Marie's fierceness and determination to help her sister at all costs, while also still being very flawed herself. She's selfish, makes decisions without completely thinking them through, but also understands how her actions for her sister will effect those around her. Her relationship with Lucien was one of the most heart warming facets of the entire story, and I loved the slow build of her relationship with Sebastian. Her relationship with her father was understandably strained and borderline non-existent, and it was interesting to learn some of the history behind their current situation. I wish we had gotten more background information than we had, but what we did get added needed depth to Marie's home life. I also enjoyed the part he came to play towards the end of the book. In regards to the Woods Witch, I wish we would've gotten more from her father in regards to that story, as well as from the Woods Witch herself.

There were quite a few moving pieces in this story. I will say I was happily blindsided multiple times in this story, and it was satisfying to see things piece together unexpectedly. I definitely did not see the twist of Sebastian's mother being in a frozen state of time coming, or that Emmaline and her father had somehow bred wolf hybrids to kill the townsfolk, solely to gain notoriety when she found the "beast" to kill it. I do feel like her motives behind hating Ama and Marie were not as well founded as they could've been, and I feel like having the Woods Witch being partnered with Emmaline would've upped the stakes/shock a bit, since we didn't get much time with the Woods Witch after that reveal. And Marie ALSO being cursed? That was one thing that was in the back of my head the entire time, but I doubted myself because there weren't many signs throughout the story to fully suggest that possibility, so that definitely caught me off guard. It was great to see her come into her "curse" and accept it, since there truly was no cure.

There were some parts of the story where the pace slowed quite a bit, but to me those portions didn't last long before we were moved forward by new information or a new twist to the story. I feel like some things could've been integrated together a bit more with some additional editing, and some facets of the story could've been elaborated on or edited out completely to really tighten up the plot, since there were so many moving parts and pieces on the field.

All in all, I really enjoyed this story. It was unlike a majority of the retellings that I've read recently, and I was always left guessing and wanting more through the duration of the story. I'll be looking forward to Cyla's next book.