Stalking Shade by L.K. Below

Synopsis:

When the leader of Lori's secret organization goes missing, her life starts to fall apart. 

Lori is a member of the Order, a secret organization with an invincible leader, or so she believes--until he disappears. Their mission is all about protecting him, the Spenta Michos, and the Order Degenerates into chaos once he's gone. 

Lori is determined to find him, with or without the support of the other members. But a madman shadows her every move, and she can barely keep herself out of the growing pile of victims. To make matters worse, she has to deal with a persistent faux-vampire who seems to think she's meant for him. 

How can she save the leader of her religion when she can barely protect herself?

Review:

The concept of this book actually kind of interesting to me. When you think about it every religion has a person that is living that is super important to people who follow the religion, but normally that person is aware of the important role that they play. But in Lori's religion/organization, the Spenta Michos is completely unaware of the people protecting and serving him. It's a little bit unorthodox and kind of a cool concept so I went with it. 

This is definitely a book that doesn't have a slow beginning. It starts off right as the action is about to pick up. The Spenta Michos is missing, and Lori is shocked, and more importantly highly motivated to get him back. Only when she attends the first meeting to discuss his new missing status it seems like not a whole lot is being done to organize the search to find him, so of course she does what any self-respecting girl does and looks to find him on her own. 

There are some interesting characters along the way that Lori has to deal with. The first one you really get introduced to is Heaven, who I could totally picture from the bits and pieces the author gives you as she pops up along the way. She's kind of that annoying girl with a ridiculous name, who kind of things the sun rises and falls with her and her alone. I love characters I'm suppose to hate, and I didn't like her right off the bat. It actually made me identify with Lori, because listening to Lori's inner monologue made me think to myself, wow I would be thinking the exact same thing if I were her. 

From the beginning of the book you get the feeling that Lori is special, like she is different from everyone else. It turns out she is, she gets visions. Only unfortunately someone else seems to think Lori is special, and seems to be after her, and not in the good way. More like the I can't wait until I kill you kind of way. I liked the story from Lori's point of view. She is easy to identify with, easy to like, and easy to follow. 

If I had one complaint about the book it would be that it felt a bit to rushed. I think that the author could do a lot more with the material if it wasn't so rushed. The bones of the book are solid, I wish the author would have just taken some more time to flesh everything out more. Other than that I think it was a really solid book, and one I enjoyed reading. It's a quick read, and I think anyone who likes Urban Fantasy will enjoy it.