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Amazon.com: With just one touch, Jessa Bellamy can see anyone’s darkest secrets, thanks to whoever tampered with her genes. What she doesn’t know is that a biotech company has discovered her talent and intends to kill her and harvest her priceless DNA. Gaven Matthias is forced to abduct Jessa himself so he can protect her, but Jessa has a hard time believing the one man whose secrets she can’t read. As a monstrous assassin closes in and forces them to run, Jessa will have to find another way to discover if Matthias is her greatest ally-or her deadliest enemy.

Fans of Lynn Viehl’s Darkyn series looked forward to this launch of a new series, The Kyndred, centering on a small group of people who acquired special abilities after they “died.” Neither human nor vampire, these Kyndred were created by genetic manipulation done while they were children in the 1980s. Targeting orphans, each one has a different ability, just like the Darkyn do. Evil bio-tech firm GenHance is trying to round up these orphans now that they’re grown, to extract their special DNA and make all kinds of special potions out of it. Shadowlight is the first book in this new series, and it doesn’t disappoint.

I love the Darkyn books, and was glad to see some of the characters from that series appear in this new one. My favorite, snarky Dr. Alex, makes an appearance, while crime-fighting Samantha and her drool-worthy partner Lucan are here hunting down a bad guy. If there are to be no more Darkyn books, I hope that this series will keep us updated on what the vamps are doing by giving them secondary roles in Kyndred. Since Dr. Alex is also hunting for the Kyndred because of their mysterious connection to the Darkyn, it looks as though I’ll get my wish.

There are essentially two story tracks here. One is the story of the hero and heroine of the book, while the other is an over-arching story of the Kyndred themselves. Not all of the questions about the Kyndred were answered here, and I look forward to learning more about them and their role in future books. The hero and heroine, uber-licious Gaven Matthias and Jessa Bellamy, are the lead-off couple for the series and I hope Ms. Viehl carries them forward into future books like she did with Alex and Michael in the Darkyn books. There were too many questions about Matthias (no one uses his first name) and his history and role that I want answered! Like: if GenHance created the Darkyn in the 1980s, how come he goes back a couple of thousand years to Roman times? Who created him? At one point he calls Jessa “Jezebel,” but this never gets explained. My frustration is why I didn’t give this book 5 stars – I wanted to know all about him!

As an orphan, Jessa was experimented on by scientists at GenHance. She was adopted and raised by a loving man, who left her well off when he died. Unfortunately, she was killed in a workplace shooting that also took her fiance… and when she “woke up” she had the ability to touch people and know their deepest and darkest thoughts. She re-named herself and started a company that screened prospective employees for businesses, and was doing very well. However, now GenHance wants to recover all of the orphans it tampered with, and they’ve tracked Jessa down.

Matthias is also seeking the orphans in order to save them from GenHance. It’s a race to see who can snatch them first, Matthias or the bad guys. Just as Jessa is about to be grabbed by GenHance, Matthias comes to the rescue. He takes her to a secret underground compound, but Jessa isn’t sure she’s really up for this. He needs to convince her of his good intentions and enlist her aid in rescuing other orphans.

I would kill for my own Gaven Matthias. Seriously. Not only does he have the perfect manly bod and gorgeous face, but he’s the kinder, gentler Alpha that sets me a-flutter. No domineering jerk here! Just quiet strength, honor, integrity, and a whole lot of lonely-boy that made me want to kick Jessa to the curb and jump on him. Yum!

Ms. Viehl writes an intelligent tale about well-developed characters that don’t follow the cookie-cutter mold. I like how the women don’t automatically fall in with the guys’ plans. In the Darkyn series, Dr. Alex is STILL struggling with her conversion to vamp-hood (as is Samantha) even though she loves her fangy mate. In Shadowlight, Jessa has a hard time believing Matthias’ story about a vampire race, although I thought she took the whole deal about losing her company and her livelihood with unexpected ease. If character development continues into future books, then we may  see some angst developing. I hope so, because otherwise Jessa’s character is more jello-y than I like to see. The next book, Dreamveil, will be out in May 2010, and I’m really looking forward to it!

I just wrote a review of Noah Boyd’s wonderful debut novel, The Bricklayer, and you can read it here on the LibraryThing site. It’s the kind of book that would appeal to those who don’t particularly care for thrillers, because it delivers great characters in protagonist Steve Vail and his maybe-love-interest Kate Bannon. The heroes in thrillers can be very wooden and uninteresting, but Boyd does a nice job in introducing Vail, and I’m looking forward to reading the next book in the series!

Available on January 26, and you can pre-order now.

This first book in a new series by husband & wife team Ilona Andrews. It features 22 year old Rose, magically gifted and living in The Edge. The Edge is a small strip of land stretching between the Broken (the non-magical world we live in) and the Weird (chock full of magical beings and run by a hierarchy of nobles in a very feudal setting). Edge dwellers generally have a little magic, but are looked down on by the aristocratic Weird citizens. She lives a tough life, working a low-paid job in the Broken and trying to support her two little brothers Georgie and Jack. Because Rose is an unusually powerful magic-wielder, she also has to fight off kidnappers who want to sell her to the blue-bloods and Edge-dwellers who want her for breeding stock.

One day a blueblood warrior named Declan Camarine shows up wanting to take her back to the Weird as his woman. She pops him with her cross-bow and gives him a big HELLS-NO, and the game is on. Evil creatures are stalking the Edge and its citizens, and it’s up to Rose in an uneasy partnership with Declan to stop the killings.

One thing I love is when an author builds a world that grips me with its depth, multiple dimensions, and realism tinted with a reality brush. This world is fabulous, and I wish it had been set in an epic fantasy framework because I really wanted more slice-of-life from the Edge and Weird dimensions. I could just imagine what it would be like living there, and my mind spun off little fantasy stories set in that world. Big plus points here, and I hope the next book continues to build on it.

Another thing that hits my hot button is strong female characters. Rose is young, but her life has been hard. Seems like parenting in the Edge is an iffy proposition, and she’s had to deal with a crazy mother who was the local sleep-around and a runaway dad from early on. Realistic characters also do it – this world is people with the same loonies, abusers, and deadbeats as our own world. It definitely is not one where everyone makes nice to one another. In fact, you have to be careful even with your friends, because they all work off an “every man/woman for him/herself” framework. Rose is cynical enough to know how to play the game, but not so jaded that she doesn’t still have hopes and dreams of a normal life. But bad things can happen to good people in this world, so this isn’t a mindlessly cheerful outlook.

Rose and Declan are hot together, even when they’re not together. A good tale. The picture of Declan on the cover is a horrible one! From the description, he looks nothing like that and thank goodness! The little brothers, Georgie and Jack, steal the show. Georgie is a young necromancer, whose love of life makes him revive all kinds of sad dead critters at the expense of draining his own life away. Jack is a shapeshifter who is more comfortable in his cat (lynx) form than his human one. The way Rose loves and cares for these special little boys, and their love for her, brought me to tears several times!

I’m looking forward to the next book. This one is pretty self-contained, so it seems the next one will need to focus on another character. I’m hoping William, Declan’s tortured and gorgeous shape-shifting friend and army-mate, gets a book because we sure were teased enough!

For anyone who’s ever loved, hated, warred with, cuddled with, or generally been part of a magical duo called sisterhood, this little book will ring some bells and pull some heartstrings.  As one-half of a sister team, plus a gardener and a cook, I’m a sucker for sister stories, and this one didn’t disappoint.

Older sister Claire Waverly lives alone in the family home in North Carolina, where she runs a unique catering business that specializes in using flowers in the recipes. You see, there’s something a bit magical about the garden that the herbs and flowers grow in… the food can have unexpected side effects on those who consume it, and Claire is highly sought after in this small town college community. In particular, a crazily sentient apple tree that wants to tell people what their most important moment in their lives will be (usually a spectacular death), and Claire works hard to make sure that curious townspeople don’t sneak in to partake of the tree’s peculiar fruits.

Younger sister Sydney booked out of town 10 years earlier, when she turned 18, and Claire has had no contact with her. But one day Sydney shows up with 5 year old daughter Bay in tow, asking for sanctuary in the family home.  She has her own demons, but the distance between herself and Claire is such that she can’t confide. Throw in eccentric elderly cousin with a compulsion to give weird things to people, out of the blue, and you have a recipe for gentle magic to heal old hurts and show people a brighter, happier future.

The sisters have to learn to live with each other, and a couple of hot guys in the picture add some sizzle to the story. There’s no explicit sex, per se, but the love goin’ round is steamy enough to make you not notice.  There’s also a threat from Sydney’s past to complicate things, but this is late in the story.

The depiction of the relationship between Claire and Sydney is beautifully handled, and as someone who’s had her share of differences with a much-loved younger sister, I can say that it rings true. Not a lot of action, but definitely a lot of feeling. I really cared for these characters, and marveled at the strange and beautiful world they live in. It’s not a long book and is a fairly quick read, so give yourself and your sister a treat and check this little gem out!

The author, Sarah Addison Allen, is North Carolina born and bred, and lives there still while writing full time. Check out her website and read more about this interesting young author. On my reading list is her second book, The Sugar Queen, and her upcoming 2010 release The Girl Who Chased The Moon.