Archive for the ‘Action-Adventure’ Category

GHOSTWALKERS BOOK 2: MIND GAME
Christine Feehan
Performed by Tom Stechschulte
ISBN:  978-0515138092 (Mass Market Paperback)
B000MEYIP2 (Unabridged Audio Book)
B001KPZ2KW (Kindle eBook)
July 2004 (Mass Market Paperback)
January 2007 (Unabridged Audio Book)
July 2004 (Kindle eBook)
Penguin Putnam/Jove Books/Recorded Books Inc.
Paranormal Romance/Sci Fi
Romantic Suspense
Thriller
Mass Market Paperback, Unabridged Audio Book, and eBook

Years before this story begins, a brilliant scientist, Dr. Peter Whitney (murdered in SHADOW GAME) once experimented on a group of orphan children with a marked tendency for having psychic ability.  One of those children Dahlia Le Blanc, was extremely difficult to control.  The experiments which enhanced her own psychic ability and amazing telekinetic talents when genetically enhanced made her a danger to others when emotionally upset (as well as made her violently sick).  Dahlia was sent off with caretakers and a handler to a remote spot in the Louisiana bayou.  Dahlia has been working for a covert arm of the government but now a traitor within that service has earmarked her for assassination.

Dr. Lily Whitney (from SHADOW GAME) has been looking for the rest of the orphans she had grown up with; who like herself had been experimented upon.  Finally learning of Lily’s whereabouts, one of the Ghostwalkers, Nicolas Trevane, was sent to rescue and bring Dahlia back ‘home’ so that she could be taught by Lily to control and learn to live with her emotions and alleviate some of the debilitating after-effects of her powers.  Nicolas and Dahlia forged a strong bond and the sexual attraction between them is mind-blowing but Dahlia is afraid that making love would send them both up in flames – literally!

*** In MIND GAME the second book in Feehan’s Ghostwalker series she brings us back to the group of men with military training and enhanced psychic skills she introduced in SHADOW GAME.  This follow-up delves deeper into this particular volume’s lead characters of Nicolas Trevane and Dahlia Le Blanc fleshing out their characters and motivations much deeper than was done to the leads in SHADOW GAME.

Both leads were incredibly interesting and powerful psychic talents, although Nicolas after having been taught some control lessons from Lily was much more capable of handling his powers and being an “anchor personality” in order to be able to help Dahlia to disperse a lot of her pent up energy.  Dahlia’s talents were both amazing and frightening for her and for this reader.  Feehan did a wonderful job in creating Dahlia’s talents and letting Nicolas in on some of it so that he could deal and try to help her. One of the parts I really enjoyed and wish would have been expanded upon later in the book was how with Dahlia’s help Nicolas was able to use the healing power his grandfather had always told Nicolas he possessed.   It would have been great to see the two of them use all that wonderful healing energy  for more amazing things.  Maybe in a future book?

Additionally, in spite of the thrilling adventurous pace, and gripping edge-of-the-seat excitement of the many near death ambushes and skirmishes, Feehan inserted some humor and laughter for our couple to lighten the mood now and again which alleviated some of the stress this reader endured while listening to the adventure.   And once again, as this was an unabridged audio book I listened to, I applaud the reader Tom Stechschulte for his amazing job of creating the many varied voices of the players in his performance of the MIND GAME.

Bottom line: Another stellar read from the brilliant Queen of the Paranormal genre and highly recommended both as a stand alone or read consecutively in this series!

Marilyn Rondeau, for www.ck2skwipsandkritiques.com