Customer Reviews

Mind Game

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

"Mind Game" is the second book in Christine Feehan's GhostWalkers series. This novel stands on its own, however, and it is not necessary to read the first book in order to appreciate this one. I think the plot and pacing are much better in "Mind Game" than in the former novel, however, and the characters are more fully developed.

A deceased scientist, Dr. Peter Whitney, had experimented on a group of gifted orphaned children decades before the story begins, in order to enhance their psychic abilities. While part of the experiment worked and the children's abilities were increased, the doctor was unable to control and utilize their talents. The children were all left psychologically deformed. They do not have the defenses, or shields, normal people do to protect themselves from sensory overload. This overload causes terrible headaches, inability to concentrate and sometimes severe seizures. When Whitney saw that his experiments were not proceeding in the direction he planned, he asked for military volunteers, disciplined officers from the special forces, and attempted the same experiments with the same results. These military psychics became known as GhostWalkers because they were eventually caged, no longer considered human, and were forced to escape and live in the shadows. Whitney's adopted daughter, Lily, one of the children used in the experiments, discovers her father's military victims. She moves them into a mansion which has been overhauled to provide the men with protective facilities, where they can live and train to immunize themselves against this sensory overload.

In Lily's search to find the children she grew up with, she discovers that one of her dearest friends, Dahlia LeBlanc, has been living a hermit's existence in a secluded residence in the Louisiana bayou country. Dahlia works for a US government intelligence agency, where she retrieves stolen, top secret technologies and information. She remembers very little of her childhood with Whitney and believes she is insane. Her government handlers, in order to control her for their own purposes, have told her that all her memories of former friends, like Lily, are products of her imagination. Dahlia has amazing telekinetic abilities which she is unable to control and can cause damage to other people if she becomes overly excited. Any strong emotion she feels turns into energy which causes fires. Unknown assassins attack her home while she is away and murder her nurse and caretaker - instead of their real target, Dahlia.

Lily Whitney sends GhostWalker Nicholas Trevane, a very strong silent type, to rescue Dahlia, and bring her back to be with the other GhostWalkers. Dahlia thinks she is the only one possessing paranormal gifts and doesn't realize what was done to her years before. Trevane walks into the attack on Dahlia's home and the failed attempt on her life. He becomes determined to find and destroy her assailants. Trevane almost kidnaps her when she does arrive and finds her companions dead. She agrees to go with him when he triggers her memory about Lily and briefly explains the situation. However, the danger is just beginning as violent death follows the two, who begin to form an extremely intense and unusual attachment.

This is a riveting story, a real suspense thriller, filled with romance and the paranormal. Very original and a terrific read!
JANA

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.

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!

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!

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.

I love stories with a paranormal aspect to it and I have devoured every book I have ever read. Except this one. I could not get to the point of the story for all the steamy sex that went along with it. I'm talking Every Chapter I skimmed pages before I got to anything that was relevant to the story.
Dr Whitney was a horrible researcher that bought orphans so that he could experiment on them. Nicolas Trevane was a GhostWalker that was sent out to find Dahlia La Blanc and bring her back to Lily Whitney, the only adopted daughter of the now deceased man. She taught each of the GhostWalkers tricks of their minds from telekenesis to using energy up before fires start (which is what happened when Dahlia became too emotional). She taught them to be able to mingle in society even if short periods of time. The charectors were mostly solid and the story might have been readable or even perhaps enjoyable if it were not for all the sex in every chapter. If I had wanted a book about sex, well then I would had bought this book, and written a wonderful review.

"Mind Game" is the 2nd book in Christine Feehan's Ghostwalker series. Nicolas Trevane is an ice-cold sniper for the military. And he is part of a group of soldiers who took part in an experiment to enhance their psychic abilities. Many years ago, the man who conducted the experiment, Dr. Peter Whitney, did the same thing with a group of young orphan girls. But there were major complications and he found homes for all the girls except one. That girl, Lily, he adopted himself.

Since Whitney's (supposed) death, Lily has been searching for the other women who were part of that long ago experiment. She found out that one, Dahlia, is living in the bayous of Louisiana. She has been working as some kind of agent (we later learn, for NCIS.) But she is isolated, due to her "abilities." Nicolas volunteers to go find her and help bring her back to reconnect with Lily.

When Nicolas gets to her home, it's under attack. He is unable to save the two nurses who lived there and helped raise Dahlia. And her military handler, Jesse, has been tortured and is dragged away. Fortunately, Dahlia had not been home when her home was targeted --and Nicolas intercepts her as she approaches, saving her from the danger.

Dahlia has series problems associated with her abilities. Energy surrounds her like a magnet. And when emotions, violence, or something similar, overwhelms her, she becomes violently ill; she has seizures; and when it's really bad, she starts fires. Fortunately, Nico is an "anchor." He can help calm the minds of other psychics. And he becomes the first man, really the first person, Dahlia is able to spend any significant amount of time with. Their attraction is fast and fierce. But she fears it, because she has never known any person she could ever trust to stay in her life.

She does care about Jesse, though, and she works with Nico to find and rescue him. In time, she meets Nico's fellow Ghostwalkers and warms toward them. As readers, we learn that our original band of Ghostwalkers from "Shadow Game (GhostWalkers, Book 1)" aren't the only ones that Whitney made from military recruits. Jesse is also one --and there are several others we are introduced to (like the Norton twins) --some of which will later have their own books.

There's a-whole-lot of sex in this book. And it is very steamy. I like Nicolas as a male lead. He's the strong, silent type. But beneath still waters, something runs deep in him. Not the least of which is a molten heat that sets pages on fire.

There's also some intrigue. Something about military plans for a stealth something or other. But to me, all that is just backdrop for the character development and love (ok, lust) story. This series really gets better by Conspiracy Game (GhostWalkers, Book 4). 3 1/2 stars.

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.

Great beach read. Hated to put it down to eat dinner. Really liked the characters. I look foward to reading the other book in this series.

This is the second in a new series by Christine Feehan and the first book of hers I have read. The book begins with a Dr. Whitney in the past with a young girl that he is coaxing/badgering/punishing into performing telekinetic and other "psychic" tricks. The young girl, Dahlia, is only four years old and is an orphan that Dr. Whitney acquired. He uses as a bribe to get her to perform a promise to be with her friends, some other little girls named Lily, Rose, and Flame. The reader can also tell that the nurse feels sorry for Dahlia.

We come to the present where Lily Whitney-Miller, Dr. Whitney's daughter, who also possesses psychic skills is meeting with others similarly talented who call themselves "Ghostwalkers." Lily and her husband, Ryland Miller, are showing tapes to the other Ghostwalkers of a friend of hers, Dahlia LeBlanc, that Lily believes she has found. Dahlia's powers are incredible and now she is being targeted by traitors and Lily wants someone to go to her and protect her and bring her back to Lily so she can help her. Lily has been helping the Ghostwalkers by teaching them to rebuild barriers and defenses that were torn down during the processes they were put through by Dr. Whitney. Lily has her father's notes and videotapes. Nicolas Trevane volunteers to get Dahlia. Dahlia can be dangerous as her emotions and other people's emotions affect her and she gathers the energy to herself and can burst rooms and building into flame.

Of course when Nicolas arrives at the island where Dahlia's "home" is in the Lousiana bayou, it is already under attack and Dahlia isn't even there. The plot from here on involves Nicolas and Dahlia learning to work together to control her energy and also both running from those trying to kill her while they hunt down who the traitor is that led them to her!! Lots of excitement, plot twists and very steamy sex scenes between Nicolas and Dahlia. If you like the paranormal/psychic and very hot romance, this is a very good read!