Marked by Shadows: MM Paranormal Romance Mystery

A Simply Crafty Paranormal Mystery, Book 2

By: Lissa Kasey

Narrated by: Tyler Kent

Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins

Publisher's summary

Who would have thought a crafting retreat could turn deadly?

An escape from the exciting life of New Orleans ghost tours sounded like a good idea at the time. Micah invites Alex along to experience a few days of crafts, fabrics, and hanging out with friends. Except the group is more interested in ghost hunting than costume making.

When a couple from the group go missing, Alex claims to see something in the dark. As Micah’s troubled history begins to catch up with him, he realizes that the shadows followed them from New Orleans. He’s not sure if it’s their demons causing trouble, or someone human who is murdering competition.

©2020 Lissa Kasey (P)2020 Lissa Kasey

LOVED IT!

I so enjoyed listening to this book. The narrator did a wonderful job in expressing Micah’s emotions, it was wonderfully done, brought a bunch of new feelings to me.

Enjoyable

It's not letting me review for the first book, so I'm going to review for the whole series here.

Narrator:

I've listened to his performance with the Kitsune Chronicles and did not like his portrayal with a female characters voice. This time around however, it was perfect. I'm glad I didn't say no to this series because of the narrator as I have before.

Story:

There's a lot of aspects of the story, but it's well done and integrated with each other aspect beautifully. I enjoyed how the author portrayed military PTSD. I think she did a great job with that as well as the other main characters response with it.
The romance part moves quickly and while I don't normally like that, it was so well done and more realistic with the characters characteristics.
I loved their characteristics and humor. The way they talked with and about each other. It's a well done love story and paranormal story.
This is one of the series I have already listened to several times.
The only thing I'm disappointed on is that I'd love to have more story into Lukas and Sky's characters and their story. I wouldn't mind a separate series of their story. The story left me hanging with them at the end but may not be the same for everyone.

Overall a good read and listen. It's a fun series with serious undertones.

I know someone commented about how one of the characters mentions he's glad he doesn't have as dark skin as his father and while it sounds bad, I feel like it's out of context. The context is more about showing the racism and judgement the character had witnessed his father and others go through in the past and his relief seems justified based on that.

A Lot of Fun!

I had such a good time with this book. Along with the relationship between Micah and Alex moving forward and becoming something really lovely, there's a wonderful paranormal side, and an absolutely marvelous crafting convention. That was super interesting and fun. I've listened to this book multiple times and love it every time.

enjoyed it - solid 4 stars

♦♦ If you haven't read Stalked by Shadows - start there, this is the second book in the series and although could be listened to on its own, it contains relevant background elements of the characters/story. ♦♦

Story comment: Would I listen to it again: yes ✔
Did the story keep me engaged: yes ✔
Was I invested in the characters: yes ✔

📖 I enjoyed this one more than the first. This book gives us some answers, builds on Alex & Micah's relationship, and provides a deeper look into Micah's past. The story is smart and fun and the writing felt tighter than Book 1 (although the middle did drag on a little long for me). I enjoyed the crafty/cos-play elements in the story and the way the "bad guy" in this book was interwoven with the overall "element" that haunts Micah and Alex. By the time I got to the concluding 'third act', I was so engrossed in the story I didn't want to turn it off. I look forward to the next one ... and more answers !!

🎧 Narration comment: I enjoyed Tyler Kent's narration and think he's done a good job narrating Marked by Shadows. He did a great job building tension and conveying emotion, each characters voice was clearly distinguishable and the rhythm, inflections and intonations all worked to bring the characters to life.

📝 < I received a review copy of this book at my request - it has in no way influenced my review. >

Starting to question the rating system on Audible

This is just not good and I am struggling to finish it. The main characters, Alexis and Micah (yeah stupid names), are so badly developed and written that you get the feeling the author was on a deadline and just vomited nonsense on the page for a check. The way mental health is dealt with you see no evidence of research. Alex calls himself "crazy" so many times it could be a drinking game. At one point he even introduces himself to other characters and says something like, " Haven't you heard? I'm crazy." Yet through out the book he complains about people calling him crazy but no one ever does. He is the only one saying it and he says it to everyone over and over . There should be more back story because other than PTSD, which is as common as a cold, and not being believed about shadow monsters when was he called crazy. Also, their relationship development is jumpy and creepy. There are so many times sexual thoughts and deeds are interjected at weird times. I just met you, you're my boss, how about I bring up your past career in porn and how I pleasured myself to you. Or fine a dead body and think about the semi I have because you bumped into me. I am even giving the performance 1 star because this takes place in the South with mostly southern characters but zero accents, except during one tour. I give lot of reviews and go easy because I understand everything isn't for everybody but this isn't for anybody. How was this 4.5 stars.