Shadowland is a horror novel by Peter Straub.

[Just to be perfectly clear: the DNF in the title means “Did Not Finish”. So this is not going to be a review, just a summary of the impressions I had of about the first third of the book and why I did not finish it.]

Plot:
Tom Flanagan and Del Nightingale become friends when they go to boarding school together. One summer, Del invites Tom to his uncle’s house. This uncle, Coleman, is a magician and promises to teach Del and Tom the trade. But it seems that Coleman is not only an illusionist but practices actual sorcery.

As I said before, Shadowland starts out as a rather normal boarding school story, if rather dark and with a lot of foreshadowing. This is not generally something bad but if the book is touted as a horror novel, I expect differently. And when I choose a horror novel to read, I want differently. Now, I read a good third of the book (maybe closer to half of it) and the book just didn’t pick up pace.

It’s not badly written but it just wasn’t what I wanted to read. And it didn’t deliver what it promised, or at least not quickly enough. I kept going for as long as I did because I actually quite liked the writing style, but in the end, it wasn’t enough to keep me interested.