Shadowed: Brides of the Kindred #8

Shadowed
Evangeline Anderson
Brides of the Kindred, book eight
ebook, 344 pages
Published July 19th 2013 (first published July 17th 2013)

Nina is a normal Florida girl with a job and a life and a grandmother she adores. But lately she’s been having disturbing dreams. Dreams of a man with a shadowed face—a man filled with pain and need and desire only she can slake. She fears him but at the same time, the dreams leave her breathless with need. Who is this dark stranger and what does he want of her?

Reddix is a Touch Kindred with an inverted Touch Sense—he can’t touch with his mind like others of his kind. Instead, he is doomed to endure their emotions like a physical invasion every time he’s around anyone. Desperation drives him to kidnap Nina—the girl he has been dreaming of. But he doesn’t take her out of love but as a sacrifice to one who claims she can cure his affliction.

Snatching Nina from her job, Reddix takes her on a journey to the stars that ends in disaster. Now, marooned on a strange planet they will have to learn to work together in order to survive. Can Nina forgive Reddix’s attack and gain his trust enough to heal him…or will his fate remain forever Shadowed?

Ah, yesss. Another BotK book. Keep 'em coming, Anderson!

Its been quite a while since I had a character who was physically pained by others' emotions. That being Rydan Corvis of the Sons of Destiny series by Jean Johnson.

Rydan was awesome.

But Reddix is so much more on so many levels. One of the Touch Kindred, males that bond to their females through a spiritual touch, Reddix is cursed with the much feared RTS disease. Reverse Touch Syndrome. He has no hope of ever finding his perfect mate and lives with the agonizing torment of physically feeling the emotions of everyone around him.

Pity is an acid seeping down his spine. Remorse is a knife to his ribs.

And now that Saber has abdicated his claim to the role of Clan Overlord to be with Lissa, it falls to Reddick, friends since childhood, to take his place or else civil war will befall his people. As if matters couldn't be worse, Reddick has been betrothed.

Reddick needs to mate. He needs an heir. He needs a cure, just long enough to make the two happen. To make the two possible. Two percent in, and I was in love with this book!

Nina is half Welsh/half Native American with a small chest and big behind. ...What? It's comical enough to be noteworthy. Twelve years ago, she lost her mother to cancer. She's been left with a gambling-addicted, alcoholic of a father and a loving, adopted grandmother who insists Nina bears a healing touch. For months now, in typical Kindred Bride fashion, Nina has been dreaming of a man whose face is hidden. A man, she believes, needs her help. Atypically, Nina is ineligible to be claimed as a bride due to her Native American heritage.

To get his cure, Reddick strikes a bargain with a swamp witch. He abducts Nina for the necessary blood to brew a potion that will numb his RTS. What he discovers, unexpectedly, is that Nina's touch alone mutes the effects.

Meanwhile, Saber and Lissa agree to return to their home world and face the wrath of their people for their 'incestuous' relationship. Lo and behold, the two find they are not alone in their affections. Almost all of the younger generation has fallen in love with one another. Yays. A happy ending in sight.

Reddick and Nina go well together, despite and because Nina is so damned empathetic. The woman can't bear to see anyone in pain, even her kidnapper, and she cries alot. There isn't much that threatens to keep the two apart. Truly, only Reddick's fears are the villain here.

And by the end, we have introductions to the protagonists of the next installment. Maggie, an academic nerd prone to being clumsy. And Therron, son of the swamp witch and Reddick's half-brother. He was fathered by a Touch Kindred and simultaneously changed by a demon. Aside from that, he's a class eight felon that has been tormented in chains his whole life. Should be... entertaining, to say the very, very least.

4 out of 5 stars.

Book nine, Chained, is TBA for sometime in 2014.

While researching Chained's release date, I stumbled upon Purity, along with this note from the author: While PURITY is not a book of the Kindred series, it IS science fiction erotic romance. So if you like the Kindred, I’m reasonably sure you’ll enjoy PURITY as well.

Previously in the series: