Groundhog Day is supposed to be harmless.

In Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, tradition repeats itself every winter: crowds gather, a groundhog is lifted, and a simple shadow predicts the season. But beneath the ritual lies something far older-and far hungrier.

Every year, someone vanishes.

When investigative writer Mara Vellum witnesses a shadow that doesn't obey the sun, she uncovers a forgotten bargain buried beneath celebration and folklore. As people begin to show disturbing marks and time itself bends around February second, Mara learns the truth the town refuses to remember: Groundhog Day isn't a festival-it's containment.

As the curse evolves and the shadow learns to move, speak, and hunt without waiting for daylight, Mara must confront an impossible choice. Break the ritual and risk trapping the world in an endless February-or feed the curse and become its willing witness.

The Shadow's Curse: A Groundhog Day Horror Tale is a gothic, psychological horror novel about tradition as sacrifice, memory as survival, and the terrible cost of keeping the world moving forward.

Some shadows don't disappear when the light changes.

They wait.