Shadow Touch (2006)

I liked this one even better than TIGER EYE, it was just so sweet to read Artur and Elena finding each other. The scene on the train was hot, hot, if only because of the people involved, and I thought the action was very well paced throughout. Can't wait to read my next Dirk & Steele! ( )

Once again Liu has delivered a fantastically paced paranormal romance with enough of a mystery intertwined in the book that I can't help but be desperate to read the next in the series. ( )

Second in Liu's Dirk & Steele series Shadow Touch gives us Artur's story (The enigmatic ex-Russian mobster first introduced in Tiger Eye.)

The story starts off revealing Elena Baxter, a kind woman who has felt like a freak her entire life because she can actually heal people. But little does she know how un-freakish her abilities are- and how far someone will go to steal them.

Working for the Dirk & Steele Agency, Artur is no stranger to the dangerous, nor the paranormal. When he's captured for information about the mysterious agency he works for, his life is turned upside down- but not by his abductors. Rather it's the angelic woman he chances upon in the hallways of his prison. With one touch she heals him and instantly forms a connection with him. Together, along with some of the other psychically gifted people imprisoned with them, they make their way to freedom- fortunately before the evil behind their capture can get the information they are after.

But the big bads are not about to give up without a fight, and as Artur & Elena travel across Russia, danger follows them- along with a profound love that will change them in ways neither of them could have imagined.

Shadow Touch starts off with a bang and keeps you engaged for the entire ride! Artur and Elena form an instant connection charged with emotion and heat. In the process they form a connection with the reader that takes you along with them as they learn each other and suss out the source of the danger surrounding them. I was with them on every page and couldn't put the book down till the last page! ( )

I jumped right into the second installment of this series not having read the first book, but as each book relates different adventures of various characters it didn’t matter. Marjorie Liu’s Dirk and Steele sci-fi romance series involves a clever and unique atmosphere of an American detective agency full of male and female agents all with interesting paranormal abilities.

Shadow Touch portrays the life of Elena, a Wisconsin farm girl who works as a hospital volunteer secretly healing dying patients with her hands on ability to cure wounds and terminal patients. Hospital members don’t question the mysterious miracles working around them and chalk it up to the will of God. While in the process of healing a cancer patient she is shockingly kidnapped and brought to a frightening remote Russian facility of scientists who are collecting people around the globe who have shown to have special inhuman capabilities. They experiment, torture, and brainwash their captives to extract knowledge of their supernatural phenomena, planning to use these special people for their own quests of power to control the world.

While imprisoned, Elena meets Artur, a Russian agent of Dirk and Steele who has the power of clairvoyance and the talent to see people’s histories with just one touch. He can read minds, thought speak, and track down killers with a simple touch to anything they have handled. He too has been abducted to this arena of mad scientists called the Consortium, and uncovers that they are an organization out to wipe out Dirk and Steele, rounding up all paranormals to be used for global domination. Corrupt, evil, and dangerous, the Consortium becomes Dirk and Steele’s new mission for elimination.

Elena and Artur fight for their lives as they struggle to break out, joining forces with two other prisoners they manage to free. Amiri is an African shape-shifter cheetah, and Rik is another shifter who’s animal form is a dolphin. The four blend their talents to find freedom, and the chase is on as they run for their lives across Russia being hunted down. Amidst this chaos Elena and Artur find love, a beautiful romance ensues as they learn to trust one another and feel a peace each has never found in another human being. Both grew up rejected and discarded by parents thinking them freaks, and this new solace to find another with the same background, fears and abilities is newfound ecstasy to them both. Although more fantasy thriller than a romance novel, Shadow Touch is extremely well written in a literary style, has great substance and a well threaded complex series plot intermingling from episode to episode, and injects sweet and gentle romance with enhancing sex scenes. I haven’t encountered a romance novel this accomplished in years and give Marjorie Liu two thumbs up and high praise. Both men and women will enjoy this innovative series. ( )

Dirk & Steele agent Artur Loginov is an empath who can sense a person's emotions and memories by touching them or an object they have touched. He is a very damaged man with a dark, ugly past as a former member of the Russian mob and is now using his talents to help rather than harm others.

Elena is a psychic healer who can get inside the minds of injured or sick patients to help them use their own mental powers to heal themselves.

Both Elena and Arthur come to the attention of an evil organization called The Consortium that intends to use people with these special skills for their own dastardly purposes. So Elena and Arthur are drugged and kidnapped (separately) and taken to an underground prison to be brainwashed into using their skills for evil.

The story was riveting and I finished it in one sitting. I'm a bit squeamish about blood and torture and I didn't care for some of the torture that was described. I also thought the prison scenes which went on until about the midway point took up too much of the book. During this time the reader doesn't knows were they are being held and I kept wondering 'where the hell are they?' And the identity of their jailers was also kept from the reader. All was revealed very slowly and made for a captivating and sometimes frustrating read. Artur and Elena meet in the hallway of their prison and make a psychic connection. Eventually they escape together with the help of some shapeshifters and that's when the action intensifies. Unfortunately, the suspense and intrigue overwhelm the romance which took a back burner, but it was still enjoyable with some hot sexual tension and steamy love scenes. (Grade: B) ( )