Shadow Touch
A Dirk and Steel Series, No 2
Marjorie M. Liu

Avon Books / HarperCollins Publishers
January 25, 2011/ ISBN 978-0-06-201989-9
Paranormal Romance
Amazon

Reviewed by Linda Young

Artur Loginov is a member of Dirk and Steel, a detective agency on the outside, a secret and private agency on the inside. He uses his special abilities to help others and track down killers. Upon returning home one night after searching a gruesome crime scene, he is attacked and kidnapped. When he wakes up he finds himself in a facility where people like him are studied and tortured. Somehow he must find a way to escape and contact his people.

Elena Baxter works in a hospital. Unknown to others, she is a healer. She secretly visits terminally ill patients and heals them. After healing a child, she was shot with a tranquilizer and kidnapped. She woke up in a room that was like a cell. What did they want with her?

Artur and Elena come together and must fight to save each other in order to save others. They must stop an evil woman from trying to gain power over the mafia and eventually the world. But what they discover is that they have a connection that goes beyond anything they could have imagined. With Artur’s touch he can do wondrous things. With Elena’s powers she can heal and more. But, together, they find a connection and a passion neither ever thought possible.

This is a re-release of the second book in the Dirk and Steel series. It is also the second book of Liu’s that I have read and reviewed for MyShelf, the first being In the Dark of Dreams. Liu has a unique style of writing that took me a little time to get used to. However, I like it more and more with each of her books that I read. In Shadow Touch she introduces a few more of the agency’s unique people who find and help others with unusual abilities. Artur and Elena’s story is filled with drama and a trip though Russia. Liu does a wonderful job of walking you through the streets of these towns and making you feel like you were there. There is passion, romance, hide-and-seek from those following them, and an evil man stalking Elena. What more could you ask for?

Reviews of other titles
In The Dark of Dreams, bk 1
Shadow Touch, bk 2
The Red Heart of Jade, bk 3
Eye of Heaven, bk 5
Soul Song, bk 6