Charlotte Marshall still wakes up most nights screaming. She is still traumatized nine months after she faced the killer of twenty-three young girls. His name was Lawrence Pheares – she calls him a monster. But he’s dead now. She’s in counseling for PTSD; she’s taking intensive self-defense classes at Joe’s Gym; and she owns a top of the line security system for her home. Pheares wasn’t alone; he had a partner of sorts – Georgia. Georgia is free and alive and not to be taken lightly.

Charlotte is a writer. That’s how she found Pheares in the first place, or more accurately, he found her. She was doing research investigating the murder of several of the young girls. While she’s still deathly afraid, she realizes she can’t stay holed up in her home only going out to the gym every day and to her family occasionally. She joins an online research agency looking for missing people; it’s called FindMe. She begins engrossing herself in the disappearance of a man five years prior. He walked out of his law firm one day for lunch and never returned. But, Georgia is biding her time and waiting.

The first book in this series is Run. It is the story of Charlotte’s involvement with Pheare’s and his murder of twenty-three girls. I had not read Run before reading Stand, and I did feel like there was much I was missing. This is clearly not a series that should be read out of order. In the beginning of Stand, I felt that Charlotte was both strong and weak – strong because of all that’s she’d endured and was still had a determination to keep going — weak because she suffers with PTSD and relies heavily on routine to get through each day. I really liked Charlotte and I liked the people she worked with at the gym. Jack, FBI, also frequents the gym; he’d been her savior in her battle with Pheares. It’s a short read, but very intense. I rated Stand at 4.5 out of 5. ( )