CONSPIRACY GAME by Christine Feehan

CONSPIRACY GAME by Christine Feehan

What it's about...

Jack Norton is a Ghost Walker. Ghost Walkers are a group of genetically engineered and enhanced soldiers. The enhancements are not only physical, but pyschic as well. Jack goes on a mission to rescue his twin brother and a U.S. Senator in the Congo. In the midst of the rescue Jack gets cut off from the rescue team and ends up captured and tortured.

Briony Jenkins is traveling with her brothers and is a member of the family flying trapeze act, The Flying Five. The Jenkins act is invited to perform at a festival near the jungle where Jack is being held. Briony was adopted by the Jenkins family and has been treated her whole life by special doctors provided by her birth father Dr. Whitney. The same Dr. Whitney who performed the genetic experiments on the Ghost Walkers and a group of little girls. Briony is one of those little girls.

Jack escapes the rebels and heads to Kinshasha where the Flying Five are performing because Jebediah Jenkins is a former comrade in arms and may be able to help him get out of Africa. Jack meets Briony and is immediately attracted to her but does not believe they can be together. He leaves her behind thinking he will never see her again.

When Briony discovers she's pregnant by Jack she goes to him for his help to protect her during her pregnancy, teach her survival skills and to keep their child from becoming another lab experiment by the determined and demented Dr. Whitney. Briony only turns to Jack to provide protection and nothing else.

That is my blurb and you can see why I usually use one from the author site or Amazon instead. It's hard to give you the gist of the story without giving too much of it away.

I enjoyed this book very much. One of the areas of the paranormal that really intrigues me is that of pyschic abilities and telepathy. Rosario did a recent review of The Power of Two and mentioned the mind bond or link between the H/H. In that book the H/H communicate information to one another through a computer enhanced chip or link. In this book Briony and Jack can speak to each other telepathically due the the genetic experimentation that was done on them. While they don't actually read thoughts as much as they send thoughts to one another, when they communicate telepathically their thoughts or intention behind their thoughts is clear.

I like that. It eliminates the whole not understanding what the other person may or may not mean. They also have mental shields to protect themselves and to provide privacy of their thoughts. While I don't think I could live with anyone being able to just dip in and read my thoughts all the time (Carpathians) I do love the aspect of being able to sent a thought with its genuine intention behind it. I just love this whole aspect and am a sucker for it whenever I read it in a book.

Jack Norton is the definitive alpha in the military. He is absolutely confident in his abilities. He is both tough and tender. While Jack admits to being dominant and needing to be in control, Ms. Feehan makes an effort to tell us why Jack is this way.

Briony's adoptive family initially believe she is autistic because she withdraws from being touched. Due to the enhancements Briony has she absorbs the feelings and emotions of the person or persons she comes into contact with, like the huge crowds that come each night to watch her family perform. Coping with this has given her a steely core of strength. On occasion Briony does try to push the envelope of what she should do or attempt and a couple of times borders on TSTL, but remembering that she too is enhanced and feeling she can hold her own it is mostly forgivable.

The pregnancy is a big surprise to Briony because she believes she has been taking birth control pills for years. Part of the conspiracy by Dr. Whitney was to purposely get Briony pregnant to try to create a "super" baby.

Yes there is some tried and true stuff here, but the pacing is good there's lots of story and it was a dream to read...meaning the phrasing and flow went very smoothly for me. For me there was a little more depth and explanation of the characters than I've seen in recent books by Ms. Feehan and I certainly appreciated it here.

While the Carpathian story line has gone completely stale for me, this fourth installment of the Ghost Walkers was a page turner. I found myself along for the ride and anxious to read the next installment. So if you are still game for a good paranormal and you can handle an alpha male with a tender streak you'll like this book.

The next Ghost Walker book DEADLY GAME is due out in March 2007 and is Jack's twin brother, Ken's story. BTW, isn't it nice for these guys to have nice normal names like Jack and Ken? I thought so.