Shadow Club Books in Order

The Shadow Club books dig into what happens when ordinary, mostly decent kids let jealousy and anger push them over a line. Set in a suburban middle school, the series follows Jared Mercer and his friends as they discover how quickly pranks can turn into cruelty.

In The Shadow Club, Jared and his best friend Cheryl are tired of being second best. Jared is always just behind star runner Austin, and Cheryl always loses solos to the same rival. They gather a handful of other “almost‑there” kids and form a secret group dedicated to getting back at the winners. At first the pranks are petty and mostly harmless: a little humiliation here, an inconvenience there.

But resentment has its own momentum. As the Shadow Club’s jokes escalate, someone else starts pulling even more vicious stunts that none of them will own up to. Animals are hurt, property is destroyed, and Austin is gravely injured. The club members convince themselves that Tyson, an odd, troubled classmate, must be behind the worst of it. Their attempt to force a confession becomes a brutal beating that nearly kills him.

The truth, when Jared finally faces it, is harder to bear: the members of the club have each crossed their own lines, acting alone and then blaming Tyson for what they secretly wanted. The book forces both characters and readers to sit with the uncomfortable idea that “good kids” are capable of doing terrible things under the right pressures.

The Shadow Club Rising returns to Jared some time later. The original club is disbanded, but its reputation clings to him. A new student, Alec Smartz, is good at everything he touches and quickly becomes the school’s golden boy. When Alec is targeted by a series of nasty, anonymous pranks, everyone assumes the Shadow Club is back and Jared is in charge.

Tired of being accused, Jared decides to play into the image long enough to uncover the real culprit. As he digs, he finds that envy and anger are still simmering under the surface for a lot of kids, and that someone is using his old notoriety as a shield. Once again, he has to decide how far he is willing to go to expose the truth and whether he can repair the damage his earlier choices caused.

Together, the two books offer a close look at group dynamics, scapegoating, and the way reputation can stick long after someone has tried to change. They are suspenseful enough to hook reluctant readers, but the moral questions they raise linger long after the last chapter.