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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 have fallen in love with indie author Amy Lane’s Little Goddess series! These books have carried me away and I’m foaming at the mouth for the next book in the series, which is due out next year.

So far three books have been published in this remarkable series. The first book is Vulnerable, and introduces us to the world of college student Cory Kirkpatrick as she struggles to escape the dreary confines of her impoverished childhood home. Generally considered unattractive by her peers, she covers herself in heavy Goth makeup and clothing and has a major chip on her shoulder. A meeting with vampire Adrian opens her world, and leads her into a whole new existence as she encounters beings she once thought were only myths. The story, characters, and relationships develop over the next two books, Wounded and Bound.

A key character is Green, the sidhe elf who leads the community at Green’s Hill.  A fantastic collection of fey, vampires, lycanthropes and other preternatural beings live and work together, and Ms. Lane’s world building is astonishing.  There isn’t a whole lot of action in these books, as the emphasis is more on the characters and their relationships. But there is tension as those relationships develop – Cory’s evolution isn’t painless, and her introduction into the community causes major changes in some of the relationships – as well as from a threat by an evil vampire group.  I wanted to move to Green’s Hill! These characters truly pull you in and make you part of the story.

These are not typical paranormal romance books. They have a dark side, and all is not happily-ever-after. The conflicts are realistic, the relationships are heart-heartrendingly true to life, the sex is explicit and sensual (including menage and m/m), and I was totally carried away.  It’s a major oversight that a publisher hasn’t taken on these books, but I’m finding that many of the truly outstanding works these days are self-published, as these are. I think that Ms. Lane retains her creative freedom by going this route, and while I wish her every success, I’d hate to see that sacrificed to the whims of a typical publisher’s formula. I know, easy for me to say…!

If you want something with more meat than the typical paranormal romance, check these out! And Ms. Lane has generously provided lots of freebies on her website, Green’s Hill. Some wonderful short stories there, including the Jack & Teague series (they are secondary characters in her books), that tide me over between books.