Early Review: Touched by Corrine Jackson
Touched by Corrine Jackson
Sense Thieves #1
Being sent to live with her estranged father offers a clean start and she is eager to take it. Enter Asher Blackwell. Once a Protector of Healers, Asher sacrificed his senses to become immortal. Only by killing a Healer can a Protector recover their human senses. Falling in love is against the rules between these two enemies. Because Remy has the power to make Protectors human again, and when they find out, they’ll becoming for her—if Asher doesn’t kill her first.
Remy has the ability to heal others with her touch, but that ability comes with a price as any injuries she heals become her own. Due to her stepfather's abusiveness, she rarely get a break from the pain as she struggles to heal both her mother and herself. When he finally takes things too far and it can't be covered up any more, Remy is sent to live with the biological father she never knew. Still she's determined to make the best of things and hopes this fresh start will lead to a much calmer life. Those hopes go out the window when she meets Asher Blackwell and she learns terrible secrets about herself and an age old war. Caught in a forbidden romance, one with deadly consequences, Remy's life is more in danger than it ever was. Luckily she has had a lot of practice with staying alive because she'll need those skills if she is to have any hope at surviving what is to come.
Remy is truly an amazing character. She has been through so much abuse both physically and mentally, yet instead of breaking like most people would have, she found a way to make herself stronger. Granted, in doing so, she largely cut herself off from her emotions and others, but she wasn't cold, far from it actually. In fact it only took a little time once her situation started to improve for her to start opening herself back up. It just amazes me that someone who has endured what she has could still be so compassionate. I mean even putting aside being abandoned by her father and brutalized by her step father, she still wouldn't have had an easy life since her healing gift is its own form of torture. Every time she heals someone she knows that she will be pulling their agony into herself as their injury becomes hers. The fact that she so willingly heals others knowing that one time their injuries may just prove to be too much for her and she will be unable to heal herself. She is probably one of the least selfish and most sacrificial characters I have ever had the pleasure of reading about. Seriously I am in utter awe, and even if the rest of the aspects of the book had not been as enjoyable as they were, Remy's character could have easily compensated, I just loved her that much. Luckily she had an awesome story and a great cast of characters to make this book a truly fabulous read.
Touched was more focused on the romance rather than the paranormal aspects, which was a little disappointing to me. Don't get me wrong, I loved the budding relationship between Remy and Asher and felt that there was just the right amount of build up to make it more than believable. It's just that I would have preferred a little bit more focus on the Healer versus Protector aspect since I generally gravitate more to books that center more on the paranormal rather than romance. So I guess it's more of a style preference issue than anything. Another thing that pulled it away from the paranormal was that the biggest threat in this book was decidedly not supernatural in any way which honestly left me scratching my head a bit since the characters missed some rather obvious things in that area. I guess they were too busy looking for the paranormal threat to come that they didn't look elsewhere.
When I took a step back to look at the book and my frustration with the lack of any real developments in the Healer vs Protector aspect, I realized that this is a trilogy, so it wouldn't have been a good idea for the author to put all her eggs into one basket. I just found myself yearning for so much more, but I guess that could technically be a good thing depending on how you look at it, since because of this, I am now desperate to get my hands on the next installment. In fact, between Remy and the rest of the great characters, along with the incredibly intriguing story, Touched was a whopper of a read and I highly recommend snatching this puppy up pronto!
(Received a copy from the publisher)
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