Shadows Before Dreams

Collection Details

Narrator: Ellie Henrys
Number of Stories: 5
Total Listening Time: Approx. 4 hours and 7 minutes.

• The Lantern Lit Sanctuary
• The Bird That Dreamt in Colours
• The House at the Edge of Asleep
• The Lanterns of Lost Tomorrows
• A Letter from the Year 1402

Five Stories of Stillness and Enclosed Night

About This Collection

Shadows Before Dreams is a collection of five bedtime stories for adults, each set within a sheltered or liminal space encountered at the threshold of night. The stories are available as both an ebook bundle and an audiobook collection, narrated throughout by Ellie Henrys. Across the five pieces — The Lantern Lit Sanctuary, The Bird That Dreamt in Colours, The House at the Edge of Asleep, The Lanterns of Lost Tomorrows, and A Letter from the Year 1402 — the shared atmosphere is one of quiet enclosure, gradual release, and the slow passage toward stillness. Each story is written in British English, without plot or conflict, and is designed for evening reading or listening.

Stories in This Collection

Floating lanterns light a path through an ancient forest, leading downward into a subterranean library where shelves are formed from living wood and books shift gently on their own. A silent keeper moves between the stacks, offering warmth without words. The space holds memory not as record but as presence, and the travellers who pass through it are received without question.

On a low hill above a small village, a bird rests in a sleep so still it might be carved from stone. Over days and seasons, the sky above begins to change — colours seeping through the dawn that have no common names, yet which every heart recognises. The village adjusts itself around this quiet transformation, gently and without drama, as though beauty were simply the natural weather of the place.

Thomas Hartwell climbs to his attic on a quiet evening with no particular purpose, and behind a stack of old postal directories he finds a wooden box wound in amber twine. The handwriting on the base is his own, though he has no memory of making the notation. He carries the box down to his chair, puts the kettle on, and settles in as the first rain begins against the window. The wax seal breaks cleanly. Inside, nestled in yellowed tissue paper, are letters that were stamped, addressed, and never sent.

As dusk settles over the village of Millhaven, residents make their way to the river carrying paper lanterns. Each lantern holds a written message — a path not taken, a future once imagined and quietly set aside. The river receives them without judgement, carrying them downstream and out of sight while those who remain on the bank feel something loosen in the chest.

Among the index cards of an Oxford archive, a scholar finds an envelope addressed to her in ink that should not exist. It leads her through unfamiliar corridors into a circular chamber where a medieval monk has been waiting, in his own way, across six centuries. What unfolds is less a discovery than a dialogue — patient, inward, and difficult to place in ordinary time.

Read the Kindle Edition

You can read Shadows Before Dreams as a Kindle ebook on Amazon.
The story is available in multiple Amazon stores worldwide.

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Listen to the Audiobook on Audible

Prefer listening before sleep?
The narrated audiobook edition of Shadows Before Dreams is available on Audible, performed by Ellie Hendrys.

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Listen on Apple Books

If you prefer listening through Apple Books, the full audiobook edition of Shadows Before Dreams narrated by Ellie Henrys is also available there.

This includes:

• audiobook
• Ellie Henrys
• Shadows Before Dreams

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