Predatory Game [Mass Market Paperback]

This was such an amazing book!
Although Saber moan and whined, like an average female (lol I felt I could relate to her when she did this!), you can't help but feel sorry for this young woman who didn't even know what fairy tales were. She is someone who has been treated disgustingly and abusively during her childhood by Whitney and his minions, and is always looking for a way out.
Jesse...well where can I start! lol. He is an amazing man who feels nothing but deep love and protectiveness over Saber - they've been living together for nearly a year and yet he has remained a gentleman and hasn't tried to make a 'move' on her.
Although I was a slight ...hmm uncomfortable with they're easy rapport (so used to the behaviour between the early relationships with the partnered ghostwalkers), I overcame this and enjoyed the book so much that it deserved 5 stars!
You don't have to read the first ones first (I didn't - I caught up afterwards and then read Predatory Game again), I strongly recommend reading all of them :D.
They're awesome! I wish I didn't have to wait a year for Kaden's story.

This is another story in the GhostWalker series by Christine Feehan. The GhostWalkers are a group of enhanced humans who have special talents including psychic abilities and extra physical strength. They are battling against the rogue creator of the GhostWalkers, Dr Whitney, and uncovering more complex intrigues as the series progresses.

Jess Calhoun is a GhostWalker, an ex-Navy SEAL who was seriously injured previously and is now in a wheelchair having lost the use of his legs. However Dr Lily Whitney-Russell has been carrying out some new medical treatments to try to regain the use of his legs although the experiments haven't yet worked. Jess has had a housemate for several months, Saber Wynter, who appears to be hiding from an abusive husband and who keeps herself to herself.

As the story begins Saber, living with Jess, feels that the time is approaching that she should move on. She's been running and hiding from Dr Whitney, creator of the GhostWalkers, for a long time. However she's not sure she can leave Jess, a man to whom she feels attracted. When they discover that they are each GhostWalkers their newfound close friendship is sorely tested. Each finds it hard to trust the other as they could be bent on betrayal. Saber's psychic powers enable her to be a silent assassin and her fear of Whitney and the other GhostWalkers means she wants to escape - but Jess won't let her. Particularly when it becomes clear Saber has a stalker who will stop at nothing to get at her.

Although this book refers occasionally to events in other of the GhostWalker books it's possible to read this one without knowing the other plots and to understand what's going on. However the complexity of the underlying plotlines of Dr Whitney and who is good and who is bad feels rather muddled in this story with Whitney seeming almost godlike in his power. Saber was a difficult character to like, mainly because she spends so much time trying to run away. I was also very unsure of her age which made some of the romantic elements a little uncomfortable; she tells someone that she's fourteen, she's known to change her appearance to make her look older, and she's continually described as slender, small, tiny etc. Jess appears to be the traditional fiction Navy SEAL type, obsessed with patriotism and honour and yet also having a soft centre.

This was a reasonable read but there were some slow patches, the coincidences or engineered sections of the plot were sometimes difficult to take in and there were many aspects of the plot left open-ended, for example whether the feelings between Jess and Saber were caused by the pheromones that Dr Whitney apparently introduced. The action parts were well written and interactions between characters were good in places but overall it wasn't an entirely satisfying read.

Originally published for Curled Up With A Good Book © Helen Hancox 2008

Saber has been in hiding and on the run for a long time trying to stay out of the clutches of Dr Whitney. She has been living with Jesse for nearly a year but although she has started to have feelings for him she knows she should be moving on again soon if she wants to stay safe. Jesse is a GhostWalker who was injured on a job and now works in the background unable to go on missions in his wheelchair. He knew Saber was on the run but assumed it was from a violent husband, neither of them had the slightest idea of the other's GhostWalker abilities. When they start to realise each other's powers they are both immediately suspicious thinking the other is out to capture them. In the months they have spent together they may have both started to develop feelings towards each other but can they put their suspicions to one side long for enough to learn to trust each other?

Predatory Game is the sixth book in the GhostWalker series and although the romance between Saber and Jesse makes it a standalone story I would highly recommend reading the series in order. If you start with this book you'll miss a lot of the background story surrounding the GhostWalkers and their abilities not to mention the conspiracy against them that they are only just beginning to get to the depths of. I suspect that Dr Whitney has a lot more surprises up his sleeve and I can't wait to see how things play out in the rest of the books. Although this is a paranormal romance series I would definitely also class it as a thriller as there is plenty of action going on alongside the romance.

One of the things I love most about this series is that although the heroes definitely have an inbuilt need to protect their heroines the heroines are anything but damsels in distress. In fact they all have abilities that make them formidable in their own rights and Saber probably has the most dangerous powers of any of them so far. I don't want to spoil anything for you by telling you what her abilities are so you'll have to read the story to find out so I'll just say I really enjoyed seeing what she was capable of. I also loved the fact that she wanted to protect Jesse and was willing to put herself in danger to do so.

Jesse may be in a wheelchair but he is dangerous in his own right, his GhostWalker abilities make him far from helpless and as an ex Navy Seal he certainly has the killer instinct. He is tough and protective but at times he could be incredibly sweet and I'd dare any woman to resist him. I thought they made a perfect couple and was routing for Jesse to break down Saber's defences.

The ongoing story of the GhostWalkers has me hooked and I can't wait to pick up the next book in the series. Christine Feehan has created a terrifyingly brilliant but completely insane villain and I have no idea how they are going to be able to stop him. I'm also fascinated by the various abilities the GhostWalkers all have and am curious to see what else she will throw at us in future books. If you haven't started reading this series yet get hold of a copy of Shadow Game asap - you won't regret it!