THE REUNITED by Shiloh Walker

Publisher:   Berkley

Date published:   February 5, 2013

ISBN:  978-0425246979

Genre:   Suspense, Paranormal

Book format: Paperback

Obtained via:  Publisher

Reviewed by name and email address:  Gina Ginalrmreviews@gmail.com

 

In an organization made up of gifted people, Joss Crawford has the most unique of all gifts. Well not that he and his associates consider what they have…what they do…as gifts. They are psychics, psychics with abilities that go beyond peering into the future or reading tarot cards. They are a special unit of the FBI and are led by the enigmatic Taylor Jones. Jones himself isn’t without feeling. He just contains it better than almost anyone else. It was due to his own traumatic experience he formed his unit of psychics and together they go after the worst of the worst in criminals.

Joss’s gift goes beyond mere psychic ability. He has the power to take on any other psychic’s skill. In essence he mirrors their ability. It tears him up emotionally, sends him to the pit of despair, but he continues on his course because he is a man on a mission. Somewhere out there is the woman he loved and lost—in another life time. He knows what happened to her all those many years ago and this time he’s going to make sure she stays safe.

Dru Chapman has her own unique skill set and she too is on a mission. Her nightmares have led her to the worst being imaginable and she is engaged to him. Time and again, despite a desire to leave, to just run, she sticks to her mission because this man is one man who needs to be stopped. When she allows herself into his mind she sees the horrors he has inflicted and her resolve to stop him once and for all keeps her on the path. She too remembers a long ago love. A man from another lifetime.  When she encounters Josh she knows in an instant who he is but her mission takes precedence. Will that long ago life repeat itself with both Joss and Dru once again dying without the chance to be together? Or this time will they survive?

THE REUNITED by Shiloh Walker is the third book in her FBI Psychics series and in many ways the darkest of the books so far. When I read the first in the series, THE MISSING, I had a hard time putting the book down.  It was one of those reads that you start and you soon find yourself sitting up till the wee hours of the morning telling yourself “One more chapter, one more and I’ll go to sleep.”  And then you find the sun is rising and you DO have to put it down to go to work. (Fortunately for me I have a commute that allows me an hour’s worth of reading each way.) Book two, THE DEPARTED was just as good—I really liked Taylor Jones’s intensity. He is really something once you get to know the character and see his vulnerability. THE REUNITED brought together the characters of the first two books so I initially thought it signalled the end of the series. I was happy to see it is not the end and that more books are to come—I really do like the concept. THE REUNITED deals with issue of human trafficking—not a very pleasant subject. Based on a lecture I attended given by a member of the Bay Area human trafficking task force I can say that Ms. Walker tells a very true to life story with the added elements of psychics entering the battlefield to bring its perpetrators down.

Ms. Walker’s voice is a bit different in THE REUNITED and it didn’t quite resonate with me. Given Joss’s gift he picks up the thoughts of a number of the other characters as well as dealing with his own past life remembrances. Dru as well has thoughts from others in her mind all of which made for multiple points of view. While the different minds were separated out so that you knew a switch had happened there were still too many thought processes going on. At times I had to go back and re-read sections to be sure I was getting just who was doing the thinking and talking.

As I said, I recently learned that the series will be continuing and I am looking forward to book 4, THE PROTECTED. I have learned my lesson though when it comes to a Shiloh Walker book—start it on a night when I don’t have to get up the next morning because I’m simply unable to put them down until I have read them cover to cover.

This is an objective review and not an endorsement of this book.