Stalked by Shadows

A Simply Crafty Paranormal Mystery, Book 1

By: Lissa Kasey

Narrated by: Tyler Kent

A missing girl, ritual murders, and a shadow stalking every footstep.

Alexis Caine survived an attack in the deserts of Afghanistan. An attack the government denied and discharged him for, leaving him broken and in a mental institution. What Alex saw that day in the desert continues to haunt him.

When a new job working as a bodyguard for a New Orleans ghost tour guide, Micah Richards, opens Alex’s eyes to a world of paranormal possibilities, he’s not sure he can believe his eyes. What if he’s not crazy after all? When a ritual murder in which two fellow tour guides die and a tourist vanishes, Alex wonders if he brought a curse down upon them all.

A shadow from the desert rears its nightmarish head offering Alex something he wants more than anything, but at what cost?

©2020 Lissa Kasey (P)2020 Lissa Kasey

Very thoughtful but still spooky.

The narrator made it work. Great New Orleans atmosphere. Realistic, complicated, likable characters. There's a soldier fresh out of Afghanistan with PTSD, a protective bisexual twin brother who's a cop, a sweet, attractive, former amateur porn star, and a trans friend who has the romantic attentions of the twin brother. The MCs call themselves weird, but I just think they were handling some very difficult paranormal situations and getting through them pretty well. I thought the writing where Alex is swallowed up by the shadow was very imaginative. The sex scenes with Micah and Alex were very tender, but still intense, with lots of explicit, graphic sexual descriptions. It's not often that one finds a character like Alex who insists that his lover be present and in the moment with him, completely connecting emotionally and spiritually during sex and not just escaping mentally into a preconceived sexual fantasy to get his rocks off.

A thrilling paranormal mystery!

This was so good! Filled with magic and mayhem this book is definitely a treat!
I must admit that I enjoyed the audio version way more than the ebook though.
Tyler Kent performs a gripping, engaging and thrilling audio delivery and narration.
I was intrigued by the world building right from the beginning and the Paranormal elements added to it made it all the more interesting.
I'm definitely looking forward to listening to the next one in this series.

Sweet f-ing mystery

I liked the characters and the mystery aspects of the storyline, but I didn’t enjoy the constant f-bombs throughout.

DNF

First, the narration is not terrible but it’s kind of robotic and the accents jump all over the place.
Second, nowhere in the blurb does it mention that porn and sex work are a major focus of the story, which is a trigger for some people including me.
Third, it’s just not believable. The anti police bias in a story with a major cop character doesn’t work for me, and the treatment of the mc by the police makes even less sense given his brother is a cop in that precinct.
Finally, I don’t know the race of the writer but it’s written like a white person writing nonwhite characters without a sensitivity reader. It feels kinda ick.

A good paranormal mystery with a side of romance

I loved the paranormal aspects of Lissa’s storytelling, the exploration into the unexplained and the aftermath of what the characters went through. While I enjoyed Tyler Kent’s performance, I didn’t feel as though he was “Alex enough”. Great portrayal of Micah, though.