A woman with a secret…The Federal Paranormal Unit is an elite squad of supernaturals dedicated to solving missing persons cases. Erica’s gift allows her a special connection with the crime, but it comes at a deep personal cost… Until now, she’s kept her gift a secret, even from the other members of the team. But this case will throw her together with Agent Trent Buchanan. He’s the object of her secret desires, but he’s also a cocky womanizer. She’d rather swim in shark-infested waters with a paper cut than admit she has feelings for him.
A man with one desire…
Wolf Shifter Trent wants Erica more than he’s ever wanted any woman. He’s spent years patiently waiting for her to admit that she wants him too. Working one-on-one in a race to find a serial killer, Trent’s patience and Erica’s resolve wear thin. When Trent discovers the truth about Erica, will he accept her for who she is? And can he protect her from the horrors that her gift brings?
A case that pushes them to the edge…
Erica will have to risk it all if she wants to stop the killer, and when she does, Trent may have to put his own life on the line to make sure his mate is protected…
Comment: I got this book because it seemed really interesting and I even chose it for one of the book clubs I belong to. I was expecting something but in the end the biggest surprise was by how disappointing the story was.
This is the story of Erica, she's an empath and works as federal agent for a Paranormal Unit where all the team's agents have some special skill.
Erica has to struggle to keep her face after she touches things of the victims she's investigating in a case because the leftover emotions the victims have affect Erica a lot.
Looking after her without her knowledge is her co worker and mate, Trent, although she doesn't actually know that as he didn't tell her yet. But the case they're working on currently affects Erica too heavily and Trent doesn't have another chance but to protect Erica and show her how important she is to him.
This isn't a very long story so all my issues with it might happen simply because the author was under a page limit and she wrote according to what she could.
Another explanation might be my own taste which could be misplaced as I can't seem to enjoy stories where things don't have a proper and structured world behind. The best thing I can say about this story is its potential but the way the author wrote kind of ruined it for me and I'll count the things that bothered me the most.
First, the writing itself. It felt like lazy to me. It might have been the page limit, but with the ideas presented, the author should have used a different tone or elaborated everything much more because too many things, short amount of time working on it makes for a rushed story that feels limited too and badly utilized. I mean, I wasn't overly interested in anything because the mood didn't incite me to, but if you're going to use many baits and you don't use them properly what does it feel like?
This "world" is supposed to be based on a paranormal team that goes around solving crimes but not only did it feel like the team's not that united or important, I don't know how that happened why it works that way, there's no setting up rules, precise ideas about why things work the way they do. Sure the team's work must be important but it wasn't a well executed segment in general.
The relationships between the characters were superficial and pointless. Sure the mighty boss cares about his workers but why, how, in what capacity? Why does their job means anything, why does that team exist in the first place? Erica and Trent are co workers as are others that we see mentioned but I never felt like there was any real or deep link between them even when we were shown them asking if the other was ok or something. Everything felt really shallow and automatic and there just because, not due to any real meaning.
Erica and Trent both have personal issues to deal with, Erica's seemed more emotional. Ok...but again their personalities didn't strike as deeper than what we saw, I wanted to connect with them, to know them, to care for them but the way they were shown to us wasn't that special.
Where and why do they come from the families they did? We see glimpses of their pasts and family mentioning but again it felt like just a means to an end, not to impart real meaning or importance to who they are and why.
Trent and Erica's relationship starts as an apparent love/hate sort of but they're actually interested and eager just pretend they don't. Of course this book tells me that they are fighting each other and shows me the opposite. How annoying, where's the interest in that? And, once more, it helps with the "rushed" feeling.
The way they work things out - lots of sex of course - also seemed unlikely considering Trent's a shifter. Can shifters in this world stay away so easily from a met, not telling her who and what they are? Little things that turned this into superficial and without depth, in my opinion.
The crime solving didn't add anything to the story, the way I see it. The villain is obvious but even if it was meant to be so from the start, I'd still feel this was badly executed, despite the attempt to turn on the emotional vibes when the victims were mentioned.
I'm really disappointed in this as I hoped for something intriguing, well structured and told but the writing didn't win me over, didn't feel well prepared, well thought, well executed. It feels like a story with potential that was done as quickly as possible with the ideas the author could manage.
Maybe I'm being unfair, but I don't plan on reading more by the author.
Grade: 3/10
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