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This is the fourth story in Feehan's Drake Sisters series about a family of seven sisters, each with a different inherited magical power.
Dr. Libby Drake is the good girl of the family, and, in keeping with her non-magical profession, her magical talent is healing.
She's had a long-standing crush on Tyson Derrick, a genius research scientist who balances his hours in the lab with extreme sports and volunteering on a search-and-rescue team.
Granted, at first glance Ty seems to be a typical romance-novel, too-good-to-be-true hero, and he is, but he's also well-developed and his unusual combination of occupations is well-explained. The physical things make him feel alive, and the adrenaline rushes fill the gaps left by a lack of emotional connection to other people.
He's begun realizing this, though, so he's been trying to date, and to be closer to his cousin, with whom he lives 3 months of the year. Unfortunately, it seems that he has to change to have an emotional life, because other people get bored with his conversation, and resent the time he spends in his lab.
Until Libby, who, amazingly, is interested in what he has to say, and likes hanging out in the lab with him.
Boring others is the least of his problems, though. It seems that someone is trying to kill him. His rescue harness is sabotaged, and the resultant fall is nearly fatal. It would have been fatal if Libby hadn't felt a strong compulsion to risk her own life by healing him.
As a scientist, Ty can't accept the existence of magic, but he likes and respects Libby, so he can't believe she's a fraud, either. So he decides her family must have brainwashed her into believing she can heal people by magic. The closer he gets to her, the more determined he becomes to save her from their machinations.
The scene where the sisters set him straight is by itself worth the price of the book.
One of the problems I've found with books in this sub-genre is the ease with which vanilla humans accept the paranormal. Granted, I wouldn't want to waste most of the book having the non-magical character questioning his/her sanity or spoiling the story by running off screaming, but there needs to be a middle ground between that and instant acceptance. I think Ty's character was very believable in that aspect. I especially liked that his reaction to his initial hypothesis that the Drakes were con artists was that Libby was unaware of the con and that he wanted to protect her. It was very sweet.
And of course, I always like brainy characters, particularly in romance novels, where I don't find too many well-written ones. Ty and Libby are brainy, and Feehan still manages to make them realistic characters rather than stereotypes. Ty is rather socially inept, but not comically so, and it's as much due to his upbringing as to his brains. And, most importantly, neither one of them is lacking in logic or common sense.
I did guess whodunit fairly early on in the story, but I liked Ty and Libby so much that I didn't really care.
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I have been buying books and music from Amazon.com for awhile now and have always been very satisfied. I have a choice of new or used and have always found when buying used they are always in good condition.
I highly recommend shopping with Amazon.com.
Donna
NC
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I have fallen hard for the Drake series. I think it would be neat to see how these girls handle parenting and see how Elle's kids get into trouble...or maybe she will surprise us and not have any kids (Jackson doesn't seem like the "daddy" type). Anyways, I loved Libby in this book even though she is not one of my favorites of the sisters. It brought a new perspective to the good girl. I loved the character Tyson, but was a little surprised at how easy he was able to accept the magic. I thought for sure he would have a hard time with it being a science guy. I knew in the end he would open up to it, but I really thought he would feel betrayed with the new knowledge of "real" magic in the universe. Kind of like the whole bewitched movie, but he got his big head around the idea awfully fast. I was totally shocked by the bad guy though...didn't see that one coming at all. Awesome read. I am going to buy the next couple of ones.
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This book is a great addition to the drake sisters series and is an awesome example of what christine feehan can accomplish.
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Try and read them in order. They are love stories with an edge and of course the "magical bits". These are particularly clever. I have now read them twice. I really enjoyed them and hope that Christine Feehan writes alot more.
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