{A Strange Terrain Review} Silent Shadows by Katie West

Silent Shadows by Katie West
Series: Strange Terrain #1
on September 1st, 2026
Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Adult, Romance, Paranormal
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Opposites attract when a sex podcaster finds herself along for the ride with a paranormal investigative group in this “X-Files meets Twister” rom com.

Daisy Bennett desperately needs something new. When her sex & culture podcast starts losing steam, the last thing she expects is to spend the summer crammed into an RV with a crew of paranormal investigators chasing Bigfoot across the Southwest. It’s supposed to be an entertaining comeback story - follow the believers, record the chaos, and generate some new buzz.

Miles Adler has spent his life searching for answers most people laugh at. As the leader of a small field research team dedicated to unexplained phenomena, he’s used to skeptics. He’s not used to Daisy - the sharp-witted podcaster with a talent for getting under his skin and making him question whether some mysteries are worth solving. What’s worse, she actually listens to him.

As banter turns into late-night campfire conversations, and endless desert highways give way to hidden canyons and forgotten forests, the line between professional and personal begins to blur. Beneath the jokes and the theories, both Daisy and Miles are hiding parts of themselves they'd rather keep buried. After all, it's easier to chase mysteries than risk being truly known.

But when rival investigators threaten everything Miles and his team have built, Daisy must decide what matters more: the story that could save her career… or the people who have started to feel like home.

Sometimes the scariest thing isn't what's hiding in the woods. It's being seen for who you really are.

Silent Shadows is the first book in the Strange Terrain series - a swoony, slow-burn paranormal romance featuring opposites attract, forced proximity, found family, witty banter, road trips, cryptids, Bigfoot, hidden secrets, adventurous expeditions, and plenty of romantic tension.

I received Silent Shadows for free. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Take Twister and mix it with a dash of Mountain Monsters, Finding Bigfoot, and The X-Files, and you get an experience like no other. The first book in Katie West’s new Strange Terrain series, Silent Shadows.

I wouldn’t call this team Bigfoot Hunters. They could be better categorized as mystery seekers. The Strange Terrain team of Miles, Maya, Taylor, Jax, and Owen search for strange phenomena across the US in their RV, dubbed The Mystery Machine. When Podcast Host and Media Personality Daisy Bennett needs to reinvent herself after ten years of the same grind, she ventures out with the Strange Terrain crew to see what a Bigfoot hunt is really like. They even have a rival team of hunters led by the smarmy, unethical bottom-feeder, Grant Ridgefield.

I connected with these characters on so many levels. I connected with Daisy’s grind of constantly coming up with podcast ideas, as I’ve had my own podcast since 2014. I identified with the Strange Terrain crew as my household has always been in a stranglehold of the strange and unusual. From things that go bump in the night to beings from other worlds, even possible alternate dimensions, we’ve been interested in them.

Now, to the love story threaded into this Bigfoot ride-along. Daisy and Miles slowly connect at first, a pull-me-push-me situation. When chemistry and true understanding develop between the pair, the steam is inevitable. Daisy just gets Miles in a way no one outside of his circle does. She doesn’t make fun of what they are doing. She genuinely wants to understand their motivations and all the facets of their work. Miles falls for the real Daisy, not the shell she usually portrays to the world. Their professional interests are just the spark that leads the two to cross the line into the personal.

The love story and the adventure to find Bigfoot aren’t the only stars of the story. West takes the desert of the Four Corners of Utah, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico and makes it into a character of its own.

“As the sun sets, the red cliffs lose their sharpness, softening into charcoal shapes against the bruised sky, streaked violet and silver. Wind moves low through rabbitbrush, carrying dust and something colder rising from the underground.”

West truly places the reader in the wild environment with her characters.

While I won’t give any spoilers, the third act is unexpected perfection. I wanted more of their story, yet I loved how this interlude concluded. I know this is going to be a fabulous new series from Katie West, and I can’t wait to read what she has for us next.