Lethal Game
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
The sparks of unexpected passion ignite in this electrifying GhostWalker novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Christine Feehan.
When Malichai Fortunes attacks a problem, he does it full force—a habit that earns the GhostWalker a painful injury and a forced vacation in San Diego, California. With nothing but physical therapy on the horizon, Malichai is starting to get restless...until a striking blue-eyed blonde makes all his senses come alive.
Amaryllis is kind and warm and sees beyond Malichai’s rough exterior, but he can tell there’s something she’s hiding. Her innate healing abilities indicate she might be a GhostWalker—albeit an untrained one. Malichai doesn’t think their paths crossing is anything more than coincidence, but he can sense that one wrong word could send Amaryllis running.
When strange events at his temporary retreat put Malichai on high alert, he knows he won’t be able to deal with the threat and keep his woman safe in his weakened state. But calling in his brothers means telling Amaryllis what he really is, and revealing that he knows the truth about her too.…
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Despite plenty of drama and vibrant secondary characters, Feehan's 16th GhostWalker novel (after Toxic Game) disappoints with inelegant prose and a wooden central couple. Malichai is a GhostWalker, a soldier physically and psychically enhanced by mad scientist Dr. Whitney, working with a covert military pararescue squad. When a rescue mission goes wrong and almost costs Malichai one of his legs, the women of his chosen family of fellow GhostWalkers force him to rehabilitate on a beach vacation in San Diego. There he finds himself drawn to Amaryllis, an employee at the B&B where he's staying who has psychic healing powers that lead Malichai to believe she may also be a victim of Dr. Whitney's experiments. Malichai realizes that Amaryllis is in danger from the deranged doctor and calls in his GhostWalker brothers to help protect her. Glimmers of the sexy, dangerous fun Feehan's fans will expect are subsumed in clunky exposition, awkward fight scenes, and overly convenient plotting. Series readers will be glad to revisit familiar faces from the vast GhostWalker universe but won't find much else to hold their attention.
Customer Reviews
energetic, dynamic and courageous characters
LETHAL GAME is the sixteenth instalment in Christine Feehan’s contemporary, adult GHOSTWALKERS erotic, paranormal romantic suspense series focusing on an elite group (4 teams) of enhanced men and women known as the Ghostwalkers (GW). These ‘super soldiers’ were once part of an unauthorized government experiment performed by Dr. Peter Whitney but several soldiers have, since, opted into the program on their own. This is US Air Force pararescue medic Malachai Fortunes, and B&B employee Amaryllis’ story line. LETHAL GAME can be read as a stand alone without any difficulty but I recommend reading the series in order for back story and cohesion.
Told from several third person perspectives including Malachai and Amaryllis LETHAL GAME follows in the aftermath of a rescue that went horribly wrong. Shot several times while trying to rescue a number of American soldiers injured and caught behind enemy lines in Afghanistan, Malachai Fortunes would use a second-generation ‘zenith’ patch to stop the bleeding before seeking medical help but Malachai would quickly discover that not all was going according to plan when a forced leave would reveal the continuing deterioration of his injured leg. Meeting Amaryllis, at a B&B in San Diego, California found our hero instantly attracted to a woman who was obviously part of Whitney’s orphan’s experiment. What ensues is the quick building relationship between Malachai and Amaryllis; the discovery of a home-grown terrorist plot; and the on-going breakdown of Malachai’s leg.
The relationship between Malachai and Amaryllis is one of immediate attraction but Amaryllis knows to reveal the truth could mean imminent death if anyone were to find out our heroine had enhanced, super powers. A psychic healer injected with several animal and insect DNA, Amaryllis knows it is only a matter of time before Dr. Peter Whitney discovers her whereabouts, and forces her into his breeding program. Malachai Fortunes knows Amaryllis is a Ghostwalker and his mate, and is immediately drawn to the feisty female but Amaryllis is reluctant to reveal her true powers, lest Malachai is a member of Whitney’s extraction team. The $ex scenes are limited but intimate and passionate without the use of over the top, sexually graphic language and text.
There is a large familiar and colorful cast of secondary and supporting characters including several Ghostwalkers from the other three Teams. Ken and Jack Norton make a cameo appearance; most of Malachai’s team and their significant others (Diego Campo, Ezekiel Fortunes, Gino Mazza, Team leader Joe Spagnola and Mordichai Fortunes, Draden Freeman, Trap Dawkins, Rubin Campo and Wyatt Fontenot) join our couple to take down a government led home-grown terrorist attack, as well as the return of Dr. Trap Dawkins and his mate Cayenne. Christine Feehan continues to address Trap’s behaviour by way of Asperger’s syndrome, found on the high end of the autism spectrum, an address meant to assuage the character’s deplorable behaviour in Spider Game (book 12).
LETHAL GAME is a bit of a departure from Christine Feehan’s recent style of writing in that the detailed, graphic violence, or mention of abuse and torture, are limited especially as it pertains to women and children. Our hero is not a manipulative, controlling, oppressive alpha male like many of the author’s more recent leading male characters but he is desperate to protect the woman with whom he has fallen in love.
I would also like to address the similarities between the author’s Dark Carpathians and the Ghostwalkers as it pertains to the ‘healer’s in both of her series. From the ability to ‘see’ into the body, and heal by psychic energy, alongside one or more additional healers is very reminiscent of the Dark Series, and their ability to heal. The descriptions and graphic details regarding the psychic surgery are familiar and comparable, almost parallel to the earlier works in the Dark series.
LETHAL GAME is a story of family, friendships, relationships and love; a story of power and control; of fate and love. The premise is engaging, entertaining and intriguing; the characters are energetic, dynamic and courageous; the romance is emotional and captivating.