Lost in Shadows by Anita DeVito
Release Date: December 12, 2016
Carolina Walker left her job in Washington, DC to do freelance investigative work back in her hometown in Kentucky. But strange things are happening and she’s pretty sure she has a stalker. Her uncle, the sheriff, doesn’t believe her nor does her brother, Nate. Then her home is broken into and her life is in danger.
Nate is serving overseas and can’t help Carolina so he sends one of his old Army buddies, Jeb McCormick, who now runs a professional security service. Jeb believes Carolina’s stories of being stalked and all of the strange things that have happened. Now he just needs to keep her alive, which is harder than it should be because he’s pretty sure he’s fallen in love with her and that means he is no good at doing his job.
I was swept up in the suspense of the first half of the book. Who’s after Carolina and why? Unfortunately I felt my interest begin to wane during the second part and I think it’s because the mystery was solved too soon, which meant that the latter part was waiting for the bad guys to attack. While the attack sequence was quite good, the last bit of it was recounted by the characters so the reader lost the immediacy.
I liked the characters of Carolina and Jeb initially. I also very much liked the fact that the “love at first sight” scenario, which I sometimes cynically pooh-pooh, was given credence by a research article. Ha! Unfortunately, I began to grow weary of Carolina and Jeb’s pushing each other away and being overly sensitive. Between their “selfless” conflict and the solving of the mystery, the ending dragged.
The supporting characters of Jeb’s brother, Butch, a country music performer, his new wife, Katie, a smartass architect, and her geeky cousin, Tom, added a great deal to Lost in Shadows and made me want to read the first novel in the series, Lost in Tennessee, because that was Butch and Katie’s story and I just found them to be funny, compelling characters.
I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
From Amazon: Lost in Shadows
rating: 
(4 out of 5 butterflies)