Book 2), Mind Game (GhostWalkers

I kept waiting for something to happen, the main character was anoying, things like this "she was so small she looked like a child" I ask just how sexy is that supposed to be and the guy was big etc etc. Nobe that this story gets a star is very generous of me.

As I was reading this I kept thinking, is this over, somthing anything to bring this book around. (sigh) but we can't like them all.

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Content: Sex (explicit), violence / death, mild cussing, a few typos.
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I enjoyed Mind Game for many of the same reasons I enjoyed the first book in the GhostWalkers series. Loved the evolving plot, the suspense kept me guessing, and I enjoyed the camaraderie among the ghost walkers. Of course, I loved seeing Dahlia begin to trust in Nico's love for her. Feehan did a nice job portraying their developing relationship.

My heart went out to Dahlia -- I was happy to see her find peace and love and belonging. Freehan did a good job describing Dahlia's sense of isolation, exclusion, betrayal. Her seizures!! Rocking and crying in her sleep! Loved Nico's protectiveness and tenderness with her. Loved the scene when Max hurt her feelings, and Nico stood up for her in no uncertain terms, telling Max off. Loved the way the Ghostwalkers joked around with her.

The setting in the bayou was particularly well described, but I really cannot imagine anyone actually living in there, with gators on your front yard and sink holes surrounding your house.

Loved the early scene, when Nico first rescued Dahlia, single mindedly bringing her safely out of the swamp. Loved the scene where Nico and Lily helped Jessie Calhoun. No spoilers, but it was a special scene, and important to the characterization of Nico.

The happy-ever-after scene in the swimming pool at Nico's mountain ranch? Sweet! J

Why Not 5 Stars?

In my view, Feehan diminishes her suspense line with an overabundance of lovemaking. Sex and thoughts about sex interrupt the plot and slow the pace, sometimes making me nervous about Dahlia and Nico's safety (when snipers were hunting them in the ____ and they stopped to make out, for example.) And the flaming during sex didn't appeal to me. Silly. Hard to enjoy the moment worrying about the curtains catching fire.

Nicolas underwent a major character change from book 1 to book 2. In book 1, he was truly ghost-like, silent, watchful. He stayed in the shadows. Still waters running deep, etc. In book 2, he talked a lot!! I was disappointed, because I was looking forward to a man who showed his heart -- his love, loyalty, and devotion -- but didn't talk much about anything. (But I still enjoyed Nico in this book.) And IMO, that's a much tougher task for a writer. Ellen O'Connell did it fairly well in the native-American historical western, Dancing on Coals, where the hero doesn't speak to the heroine for the first half of the book.

Dahlia's intense devotion to Lily seemed a bit ludicrous. I know they loved each other as children, but weren't they only about 5 when they separated? ( It's not clear how old they were. I'm not even sure how old they are now, as adults.)

This was another great read by Feehan. It has all the ingredients for a romance to thrive in its glory! The action, the emotional depth, the characters development, the passion and sexual tension! I particularly like the Hero...very selfless and devoted man who worshiped the heroine and "most importantly, he was not a manwhore" I really appreciate the fact he was paired with the inexperienced heroine, that made them equal on that level! I did not had to read any of his sexual past and I sensed he was very reserved to that regard which worked for me perfectly...that is not to say, he was a beta hero! No he was a very sexy alpha male that knew what he wanted from the start and was not ashamed to admit it! I had a bit of struggle with the heroine at the beginning when she would reject his advances due to fear of hurting him, but I would prefer if she was more into him and more willing to risk to be with him! It got better, as I went further and I fully supported them as a couple! I wish more heroes like Nicolas would be the presence in romance books! This hero fully deserves this title! he is a caring, considerate man that put the heroine's needs above his and is a stable pillar for the heroine as much as emotionally as physically..because sex is not everything in a relationship..but deeper foundations that he thoroughly represented here!

A basic problem in writing romance series books is that, after the characters are hooked up and presumed to live Happily Ever After, the author doesn't have much more to say about them. So how do you write a sequel?

Feehan has adopted a popular, if inadequate, response to this problem. After hooking up Lily Whitney and Ryland Miller in the first of the Ghostwalker series, she changes her characters' names to Dahlia Le Blanc and Nicolas Trevane, changes the setting from San Francisco to New Orleans, and tells the exact same story over again.

The retelling is a bit forced. After a fairly good villain in the first installment, the main villain here shows up only long enough to get captured. Some of the plot twists are really never explained. And the prose style throughout reads like the work of someone who's publishing several novels a year, which Feehan is now doing, and doesn't have the time to express herself in a fresh, cliche-free style.

I can't really recommend this except for hard core fans. The first and third books in this series are both somewhat better.

This was another great read by Feehan. It has all the ingredients for a romance to thrive in its glory! The action, the emotional depth, the characters development, the passion and sexual tension! I particularly like the Hero...very selfless and devoted man who worshiped the heroine and "most importantly, he was not a manwhore" I really appreciate the fact he was paired with the inexperienced heroine, that made them equal on that level! I did not had to read any of his sexual past and I sensed he was very reserved to that regard which worked for me perfectly...that is not to say, he was a beta hero! No he was a very sexy alpha male that knew what he wanted from the start and was not ashamed to admit it! I had a bit of struggle with the heroine at the beginning when she would reject his advances due to fear of hurting him, but I would prefer if she was more into him and more willing to risk to be with him! It got better, as I went further and I fully supported them as a couple! I wish more heroes like Nicolas would be the presence in romance books! This hero fully deserves this title! he is a caring, considerate man that put the heroine's needs above his and is a stable pillar for the heroine as much as emotionally as physically..because sex is not everything in a relationship..but deeper foundations that he thoroughly represented here!

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Content: Sex (explicit), violence / death, mild cussing, a few typos.
**********
I enjoyed Mind Game for many of the same reasons I enjoyed the first book in the GhostWalkers series. Loved the evolving plot, the suspense kept me guessing, and I enjoyed the camaraderie among the ghost walkers. Of course, I loved seeing Dahlia begin to trust in Nico's love for her. Feehan did a nice job portraying their developing relationship.

My heart went out to Dahlia -- I was happy to see her find peace and love and belonging. Freehan did a good job describing Dahlia's sense of isolation, exclusion, betrayal. Her seizures!! Rocking and crying in her sleep! Loved Nico's protectiveness and tenderness with her. Loved the scene when Max hurt her feelings, and Nico stood up for her in no uncertain terms, telling Max off. Loved the way the Ghostwalkers joked around with her.

The setting in the bayou was particularly well described, but I really cannot imagine anyone actually living in there, with gators on your front yard and sink holes surrounding your house.

Loved the early scene, when Nico first rescued Dahlia, single mindedly bringing her safely out of the swamp. Loved the scene where Nico and Lily helped Jessie Calhoun. No spoilers, but it was a special scene, and important to the characterization of Nico.

The happy-ever-after scene in the swimming pool at Nico's mountain ranch? Sweet! J

Why Not 5 Stars?

In my view, Feehan diminishes her suspense line with an overabundance of lovemaking. Sex and thoughts about sex interrupt the plot and slow the pace, sometimes making me nervous about Dahlia and Nico's safety (when snipers were hunting them in the ____ and they stopped to make out, for example.) And the flaming during sex didn't appeal to me. Silly. Hard to enjoy the moment worrying about the curtains catching fire.

Nicolas underwent a major character change from book 1 to book 2. In book 1, he was truly ghost-like, silent, watchful. He stayed in the shadows. Still waters running deep, etc. In book 2, he talked a lot!! I was disappointed, because I was looking forward to a man who showed his heart -- his love, loyalty, and devotion -- but didn't talk much about anything. (But I still enjoyed Nico in this book.) And IMO, that's a much tougher task for a writer. Ellen O'Connell did it fairly well in the native-American historical western, Dancing on Coals, where the hero doesn't speak to the heroine for the first half of the book.

Dahlia's intense devotion to Lily seemed a bit ludicrous. I know they loved each other as children, but weren't they only about 5 when they separated? ( It's not clear how old they were. I'm not even sure how old they are now, as adults.)

A basic problem in writing romance series books is that, after the characters are hooked up and presumed to live Happily Ever After, the author doesn't have much more to say about them. So how do you write a sequel?

Feehan has adopted a popular, if inadequate, response to this problem. After hooking up Lily Whitney and Ryland Miller in the first of the Ghostwalker series, she changes her characters' names to Dahlia Le Blanc and Nicolas Trevane, changes the setting from San Francisco to New Orleans, and tells the exact same story over again.

The retelling is a bit forced. After a fairly good villain in the first installment, the main villain here shows up only long enough to get captured. Some of the plot twists are really never explained. And the prose style throughout reads like the work of someone who's publishing several novels a year, which Feehan is now doing, and doesn't have the time to express herself in a fresh, cliche-free style.

I can't really recommend this except for hard core fans. The first and third books in this series are both somewhat better.

Dr. Whitney had experimented on Dahlia La Blanc when she was four years old resulting in amplifying her psychic gifts and her inability to relate to people. Part of Dahlia's people disconnect is due to her realization as a young child that adults feared her as a powerful mental freak, but also because she absorbs their emotional charges that she can only release through a violent discharge.

Years later, Dahlia has recovered stolen intelligence information for the Feds, but for the most part lives a hermit's existence avoiding people because excitement on her part leads to dangerous infernos. Someone assaults her swampy home and kills her caretakers, but has not attained the final objective yet when Nicholas Trevane of "ghostwalkers" arrives at the battlefield seeking Dahlia; he too is a by-produce of the Whitney experiments. They must work in tandem to uncover who amongst their teammates has turned traitor, but the attraction between Dahlia and Nicholas is so great, she fears she will combust and take a city with her.

MIND GAME is an exciting paranormal romance that not only stars two delightfully unique characters with an interesting relationship dilemma (sort of like Ladyhawke) and the return of the stars of SHADOW GAME enhance the action. The non-stop action hooks the reader as the ghostwalker world of Christine Feehan seems real even with danger, treacherous intrigue, and romance with a fabulous paranormal twist.

Harriet Klausner

I had enjoyed some of the earlier Dark /Carpathian series books, but finally I got so turned off by the horrible writing in some of the later ones that I swore off buying any more Feehan books. (The absolute worst Feehan book was an abomination called "The Scarletti Curse" -- possibly the single worst-written book I have ever read. The Carpathian book "Dark Gold" was pretty awful too, though not NEARLY as bad as that Scarletti thing.)

Her writing style had seemed to stagnate into infantile sentence structure (maybe Grade 5 at best) combined with over-the-top lurid but extremely repetitious sexual prose. The same phrases and situations were repeated over and over even within a single book. There were always lots of "molten lava," "erupting volcanoes," "so beautiful she/he took his/her breath away," "power clung like a second skin," "she/he turned him inside out," and on and on and on. The characters came to have interchangeable personalities and the perpetually victimized heroines were always needing rescuing by steely-thewed, jealous-to-the-point-of-homicide, brooding men. Because these men were basically interchangeable, their dialogue was sprinkled with apparently random foreign phrases, usually in French or Italian, that apparently served to demonstrate the hero's coolness (often hard to perceive otherwise) and distinguish him from all the other men running around.

So, when I saw a copy of "Mind Game" at the library, I almost passed it by. SHE should have paid ME for reading that Scarletti thing, so the fact that I didn't have to pay wasn't enough by itself. But then -- what the heck? -- out of curiosity I decided to see what Ms. Feehan was up to in this new series, of which this is the second book.

The writing style of "Mind Game" is so different compared to the many earlier Feehan books I read that I consider it quite possible that Ms. Feehan has at last hired a competent ghostwriter. There is a sparse sprinkling of Feehanisms -- by my informal running count 4 "volcanoes," 1 "volcanic," a "he was so beautiful he took her breath away," and at least one "turned him inside out." (Any good ghostwriter could have deliberately added those.) But by gosh there is an interesting story, the characters have depth and definition, the sex scenes are hot without being so ludicrously repetitious and floridly written, and I was sorry to have the book end.

Wow!! If the book represents a new effort at higher-quality writing by Ms. Feehan, I salute her. If she has sensibly hired someone to write her books for her, then I salute him or her. Either way, this is actually a good read and holds promise for a good series.

It would be nice if this dramatic improvement manages to spread into Feehan's Carpathian series. Otherwise, I think it's about run its course.

I really enjoy Christine Feehan's paranormal novels and of course had to give her newest GhostWalker series a try. I was disappointed with the first book, Shadow Game. Although the premise was a good one, the storyline and pacing of the book was slow and labourous at best.

However, the sequel of Mind Game is much better written. Unlike many who might not have liked Dahlia, I thought her character was very plausible. Given her background coupled with her dangerous psychic abilites, her actions were not surprising and rang true for me. Nicolas was perfectly played off as well, his background and motivations fleshed out in order for you to really like him (he is a much different man in this book than in the first.) Both the hero and heroine worked well together.

The pacing of the book was fast, so you never had a chance to get bored. Other GhostWalker members were introduced, and I think their presence was important in the storyline. One- you understanding how well their powers work together and how important they are as a group. Second- it helps the heroine learn she is not alone in the world.

My only complaint was with the ending. I felt the it left open a few loose ends concerning the NCIS spies. Were all captured? Are they loose agents left in the end that were not caught? Perhaps these questions get answered in other GhostWalker books.

All in all, this book was really good. I hope the next one is just as good. Good job, Mrs. Feehan!

Her code name was Novelty, but Dahlia Le Blanc was so much more than a mad scientist thought her. Despite or because of the tortures she went through growing up, she developed into a woman with amazing gifts. Yet her blessings isolated her from everyone who could help her, who could love her. It made her a perfect target for an assassin, but one of the people who was allowed to care about her is in a position to help save her. Lily (from Shadow Game) remembered the girl who was her friend, and now as part of the Ghost Walkers, she sends Nicholas Trevane to find Dahlia and make her safe. As it happens, Dahlia and Nicholas' gifts and love are a perfect match, making them an unstoppable team. It also makes for twice as much temptation and even more danger.

**** Christine Feehan continues to amaze readers. This series is worlds removed from the Carpathian land, with edgier action and a different kind of heat. Once again, she makes the unbelieveable seem possible. ****

Amanda Killgore

Dahlia was born with special abilities. A wealthy doctor experimented on her. Then she went to work for the NCIS. Unknown to her there are other people similar to her. One of them is her rescuer who has been tasked to retrieve her alive when somebody tries to kill her. In running away from danger and searching for the traitor, these two find out that they complement each other. The writer puts their encounters in wild and expressive descriptions. Most characters possess paranormal powers. They are trained to survive and live among people by one of them, Lily. It is also an appropriate touch that all of them have money, thanks to the trust funds arranged by their tormentor, the ambitious Dr. Whitney. The first half of the book deals with Nicolas saving Dahlia. The second half concentrates on finding the traitor who wants Dahlia dead. The subject of family and friendship is the main focus throughout the whole story. It is an action-packed tale filled with passionate feats, witty banters, conflicting emotions, and mentions of the other person's name in conversations.

It surprised me that the sex was so outstanding between the two main characters and it was never documented that either one of them (especially Nicolas) had ever been sexually involved with anyone in the past. Nicolas even admitted he didn't know how to handle a woman. Why was Dahlia on birth control when she was supposed to be a virgin? She never came in contact with any other people, beside Milly, Bernadette and Jesse in the bayou. And Dahlia claimed she had never been touched by a man. But when she had sex with Nicolas for the first time, she acted like she was well experienced. And how old was Dahlia and Nicolas anyway? That was the confusing part to me. When I read a book, I guess I like to know the little details about the characters, this one lacked somewhat in that area. The other somewhat confusing part was the main characters, including the Ghostwalkers, beyond normal mental abilites, although I caught on later on in the book. Overall, it was a good read. I wonder if Gator will have a book next, hmmm.

This is the second book the Ghostwalkers series, in which military men volunteered and had their psychic abilities enhanced. The scientist who did enhanced their abilities also did it earlier to a group of naturally psychic little girls, who have since grown up. Nicholas, a Ghostwalker, is sent to find Dahlia, a woman who was one of those little girls and is now a secret operative. Dahlia senses energy, manipulating it so that she can walk upside down, start fires, camoflouge herself. But someone in her organization has betrayed her, and Nicholas and her end up on the run from assasins and searching for the truth.

Feehan has written many books, and this is one the best. The relationship and the action is passionate and realistic. There are no cliched or boring moments. Each character is strong, active, and their powers merge in a very interesting way. In addition, the entire Ghostwalker team from Shadow Game is back, and the team-play really makes the book stand out. Highly recommended.

I fell in love with the Ghostwalkers. This book is about Nic and Delia.Nic is half Native American half Japanese stands over 6ft tall with a rock hard body. Delia is alittle bitty thing but strong. Her life has been hell and finds Nic when she thought she lost it all. It is fast paced with lots of action and hot love scenes. Christine Feehan never disappoints me.

I am listening to the audio version - hard to skim this way!

The premise was great - yes, its been done before but this seemed like a nice re-telling. Taking children to enhance their psychic abilities and finding more abilities than expected... now the children are grown up and dangerous. And angry. OK... I was really ready to like this. BUT the two main characters keep doing the same scene over and over and over and over...

The hero is a well disciplined military type - sent in to rescue her - and who finds himself freaking out because he is so attracted to her he can barely think about getting her out of harm's way with his sudden sexual obsession and she keeps getting sick from trying to control her abilities to keep from setting fires and he keeps going on and on and on about how he cannot control his discipline ad nauseam this is repeated over and over and over and OVER! as they go different places while pursued by nameless thugs.

Sorry - I could not finish it. I hope I can figure out how it ended by looking at the reviews here, but I am better than half way through and there is still no real story. Just can take any more!

From reading the other reviews I guess you either love her or you hate her. This is the second Feehan book that I've read, the first one was Wild Rain after which I was hooked. Her books are fun and have that little extra that I miss when I read my usual fluffier Harlequin novels. I loved this book. The storyline was gripping; I could not put it down. I really enjoyed the dialog and 'connection' between the two main characters. It was very believable and extremely entertaining. I even laughed out loud at times. The sexual 'energy' was intense (boy would I LOVE to have that kind of chemistry), and the sex was hot. Who wouldn't want to actually feel what their lover was thinking?

So what if he is part American Indian and part Japanese with a name like Nicolas Trevane. Stranger things have happened. As we see quite clearly in this book.

This is one of my keepers. There was enough mystery, suspense, comedy, and of course romance, to keep me well entertained for a few hours. In addition she opened the door for several other characters. I would love to read Gator's story. He's so hot, it promises to be sssizzzzlin'.

I suppose I was lucky that I borrowed it from my public library, so even if I hated it like some other readers, I could still respect myself in the morning.

I've enjoyed Feehans Dark series for many years. I read the first book in the Game series several years ago, meant to keep up with it but life got in the way. I'm excited to start the series over again.

Mind Game is the second installment of the Ghostwalker series. I think it's the best one so far because the two main characters are lonely people who find comfort and love in each other. It features Captain Ryland Miller's (from Shadow Game) best friend, sniper Nicholas Trevane and someone Lily considers family, her childhood friend Dahlia LeBlanc.

Lily has been searching for the people her father, Peter Whitney, has experimented on, and strives to correct his inhumane mistakes. Dahlia is basically a human energy magnet. Her body is hyper sensitive to energy, allowing her to do incredible things such as walking on the ceiling, acrobatics, and knowing what others feel. Like all things, it has its drawbacks. Dahlia cannot be around anything intense or she'll go into a seizure since her body will absorb the energy. She is forced into isolation and lives in a sanitarium with people who appear to be her caretakers.

Unlike Dahlia, Nicholas prefers to be alone. He's always been quiet, calm, decisive and in control, but somehow Dahlia manages to shatter his control. He shows up to fetch her during an attack on her home. Given the circumstances and her terrible childhood, she's reluctant to trust anyone, and doesn't think Nicholas' appearance is just simple coincidence. Having no other feasible options, she pairs up with Nicholas to find out the people responsible for destroying the only place she could go back to.

Nicholas accepts what they have more easily than Dahlia does. He tries to soothe her emotional pain the best he can. His protective actions often conflict with Dahlia's independent disposition. He's set on living life with her in it.

Nicholas' personality is reflected during their many pulse pounding sex sessions. He can be tender and gentle or primal and rough. Dahlia seems to have no problem matching his different styles.

This book is recommended for those who like anti-gravity theories, suspense, action and mystery.

After Shadow Game, I wasn't expecting much more than the same old overused Feehan lines, but was pleasantly surprised. Only once did I have to cringe through the line, "Her eyes are too big for her face" (where I immediately picture the heroine looking like a Power Puff Girl). I was also thankful for the lack of telepathic discussions repeated out loud that were so prevalent in Shadow Game.

I loved learning more about Nico and found him to be a wonderful character. Dahlia's talents were interesting to read about, even though her character was very annoying (similar to Destiny in Dark Destiny). The interaction between the Ghostwalkers was delightful.

All in all, a good read. Not a book I will read over and over again, but I'm not disappointed I spent the $$'s.

This is the second in the Ghostwalker series by Christine Feehan.

Daliah is one of the girls who were enhanced by Lily's father. The Ghostwalker's have found her but an enemy has too.

Nicholas Trevane is sent to retrieve her and bring her to the rest of the Ghostwalkers so they can help her learn to live as normal a life as possible.

Daliah lives in the bayou. She is unable to live around people. Her talent makes her dangerous to upset. Since Nicholas is an anchor he hopes to help her control her abilities. She is an energy magnet.

He finds her as her enemies destroy her home and kill her friends. Only her handler lives and they are tortureing him. She and Nick set out to save Steve and find out who is trying to kill her.

Lots of adventures and dangers along the way. If you liked SHADOW GAME you will like MIND GAME.

I hate to write negative reviews, but I wish someone had written one like this before I bought this book. I've never read any of Feehan's books, so maybe this was a bad place to start.I recently got into paranormal romance after reading JR Ward's great vampire series, and found myself trolling the stacks for something in the same vein (no pun intended). The telekinesis thing seemed interesting, so I picked this one up. Now, keep in mind, I read a of pulp fiction--fantasy, romance, sci fi. My standards are not absurdly high or anything. A good story goes a long way toward making one forget the occasional awkward expression or turn of phrase. But this was some of the most awful writing I've ever encountered. I mean, phrases like "hidden secrets" abound. How about "unknown mysteries"? "Dark blackness?" "Painful agony?" Ever heard of a redundancy? And that's just one obvious and concrete example. The overall style is leaden, syntactically repetitive, boring in the extreme. the love scenes are embarrassing. Again, I hate writing negative reviews and maybe the writing won't bother most people. But if you have any kind of feel for the English language, stay away from this writer. I can't believe how many books she's published. I guess once you get your foot in the door with a publisher, standards go out the window. The sad thing is, the plot was interesting. I might have given it a star or two just for that, if I'd been able to finish it. I really hate to be mean, since I always get annoyed by reviewers who just mindlessly trash stuff because it's not to their taste. But this book is genuinely bad.

I read Shadow Game as was very disappointed after the hype. The story was convoluted and hard to follow. I enjoyed the premise of the story (Very rich high IQ scientist experiments on children and soldiers to enhance their psychic abilities). I was looking forward to a fast-paced well-developed story line. Instead, the secondary character development was extermely vague. It was almost as if she were squeezing out the story during down time from other things. The story line was shallow and easily figured out after the first 50 pages. Ultimately, it appeared to only be a set up for the next book (Mind Game).

I am reading mind game now, and this is definitely a Christine Feehan book. The primary characters (both of them)are fully developed with all the background and detail needed to follow the story intent, Although, there are a lot of secondary characters that don't seem to have any bearing on the ultimate goal (who is the mole in the Naval Criminal Investigation Service)other than to kill or capture Dahlia but, they do not bog down the story with unnecessary information.

Nicholas on the other hand, is awesome. His character is so well developed, I feel as if we grew up next door to each other. There is a feeling of continuity in Nicholas' actions and methods from the first book to this one. There is a sense of logic to the way his character is written.

Dahlia on the other hand is a bit confusing. At her as a primary character (after the first 20 pages), the writing appeared stilted. It was almost as if Ms Feehan did not know whether Dahlia was going to be a strong heroine aware of her weaknesses but dealing with them or if she was going to be weak and whiney (like Destiny in the Dark Hunter Series). After the first 100 pages, Dahlia evolves into a very strong character who know what she wants, pushes to get it, and still understands what her handicapps are and how they will affect her mission and those around her.

The initial mission in the book (to save her friend and handler Jesse Calhoun) appears thrown in for filler. As if Ms Feehan could not find a thread to hold the book together and decided there had to be a reason for the two main characters to continue traveling instead of heading back to Lily and Ryland's

estate.

Even with these flaws (which are not all that obvious) I am still enjoying the give and take between the two main characters. While the Dark Hunter Series may have run its course, I think this one is just starting to get good.

Zzzzzzzzzzz..... Boooooriiiiing.... I couldn't quite believe the reviews that gave this book 4 or 5 stars. They either read a completely different book or they gave it such a high rating simply because it's Christine Feehan (who, for yet another unknown reason, they love).

I decided to try Mind Game after reading the summary on the back cover - I had never read a Christine Feehan book and after this I probably never will. The premise was what made me buy the book; Dahlia, a woman with heightened psychic abilities, is pursued by a killer and the only person she can trust is a dark, handsome stranger named Nicolas Trevane (a man who's part American Indian and part Japanese and yet his name is Nicolas Trevane... Hmmm..) The first warning signs flashed through my mind in the first chapter. The style of writing, the dialogue between the characters just seemed so... stiff and unreal. It even became repetitious at times; in the first few pages she seemed to love the word "obviously", which she, obviously, used again and again... obviously. Still, since I payed good money for the thing I kept going... And I found myself skipping and skimming through pages because it's just so damn boring.

Don't buy this book. If you must, borrow it from the library, borrow it from your friend, but don't actually pay money for it.

Another small, fragile, damaged woman hooking up with a large, powerful, dangerous man. Give me strength. This book was just boring. The same four facts about each of the characters kept being repeated over, and over, and over again. The plot just skipped from one point to the next, never really making things clear - why was that guy thrown over the rail of the boat, why did the secretary apparently have items belonging to her nephew in her bedroom, how the bad guys know who was on the staff of the sanitarium, what was the point of the build-up about Nico's untapped healing strength when all he did was basically staunch the flow of blood, etc.?

Of course, the hero has to have the required mystical background - a Lakota shaman paternal grandfather and a Japanese martial arts master maternal grandfather, and of course he was raised by both of them. Just once, once mind you, I'd like someone who had a Lakota background to have had an unexceptional childhood, parents who didn't live on a reservation, and with no shamans in the background. Or to have Japanese grandparents who worked for Toyota. He was also rather one-dimensional, with his supposed lack of socialization/relationship skills being totally unbelievable. He's basically sex-on-a-stick yet he's uncomfortable around woman? Yeah, right.

The heroine's "psychic gifts" stretched even my credulity. She can counteract the force of gravity, and make herself invisible too, by making the molecules in her body spin faster? She unwillingly gathers energy from strong emotions around her and has to discharge it by creating fireballs and setting things on fire, without ever burning herself? She's basically lived her entire life in contact with less than 10 people, people who never had any revealing conversations with her, yet she's socially functional?

The ending of this book seems to be setting up the upcoming ones. You just know that the GhostWalkers are going to be searching out the other women who were experimented on as children by Dr. Whitney, and each one is going to be matched up with a GhostWalker. More damaged women, more alpha males. Ho hum.

I don't think that I can read any more books in this series. I thought the first one was extraordinarily dumb and this one wasn't much better.