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So I liked the first book of this series despite some reservations with some of it's more fantastical elements. I love Rachel and Mason. I like how she is so snarky and a cynical. I like how he is so hunky and serious. And I like how the two of them are slowly becoming a team.

The plot follows a bit from the first book, it is like an offshoot of the lingering plot elements from that book. So not my favorite, but I am hoping this would tie it up. It did.

The suspense element was great and it was nice seeing the supporting characters getting a little more time in the sun especially Rachel & Mason's niece and nephews respectively. I was enjoying the book until it got to the end.

When the killer was revealed. Sigh. That is when I said to my book 'Really, book? Really?'

I am still gonna read the next one if only to see what happens next with Mason's truly screwed up family. And because Rachel & Mason are such strong character draws.

This book has such a great premise and and interesting conflict between the two main protagonists that it pains me I could not rate it higher. But there was one major element of the story that I simply could not dismiss that kept taking me out of the book.

The story set up is fantastic. It plays around with the idea that recipients of organs from a donor will begin to exhibit some facets of that person's personality. This is a concept that I have seen before and as the basis of a thriller it is always fun to say 'what if...'

Rachel De Luca is a famous author of self help books. She is also blind. As the book begins she is looking for her missing brother. A troubled young man who has often made himself absent for weeks at a time because of his struggles with addiction. But this time feels different. He's been gone too long and Rachel is worried.

I must say I loved Rachel. She was a stand out in this book and I enjoyed how the author positioned her. She is this beloved author who has helped countless people with her self help books. To her readers and the public she is this beacon of light (Imagine her on Oprah). But, hilariously, Rachel is a foul-mouthed cynic who really does not believe in he pablum she spouts. The author does a good job of making it clear that Rachel has contempt for the shit she shovels, but not the people who scoop it up. In that vein you kinda like the raw energy of the character who really rather has no fucks to give. I dug Rachel. She definitely does not suffer from any sort of cliche heroine stuff.

Mason Brown is a cop who becomes connected to the case of Rachel's missing brother. And in the course of the investigation he meets Rachel and likes her. I also liked how the author positioned Mason. In another book he would have been your typical, heroic and very good looking detective who manages to help the damsel in distress and track down the bad guys. And to some extent this is Mason, except it isn't. He does something so shockingly unethical in the beginning of the book that I was kind of surprised the author went there. But also very gratified, because, yeah, I could see it. And it made the resulting conflict between Rachel and Mason feel organic and very high stakes.

But in the meantime, Rachel gets a cornea transplant that restores her sight...but also gives her a little something extra.

I am going to put the rest under spoiler because I can't discuss my issues with the book without spoiling some plot elements:

The plot/dilemma is really delicious. The reader has all the information, Mason has a lot, but is missing some critical pieces and Rachel has a lot less but is rapidly learning more. The author does a good job of pulling the threads together so that Rachel and Mason start to come to the same, wild conclusion.

But this is where the book lost me. I LOVED the set-up like I said. I could even roll with the idea of donor recipients getting some parts of their donor's personality (I don't really believe this but for the sake of suspense thriller fiction I will), and possibly one of them inheriting the serial killer compulsion. What I couldn't roll with was the idea that the compulsion to kill was some sort of self aware entity with a spoken POV!! who chose which of the donors to inhabit based on how it somehow tested their receptivity to the idea of serial killing. Seriously, the need to kill was conceptualized like an incorporeal alien presence that jumped from the dead killer at the point of death into another person via the donated organ. I just couldn't with this concept. Just. No.

In an otherwise smart book, this felt unutterably lame.

But wait there's more... it (the entity) knows somehow that Rachel is a threat so is uses her new corneas to, I dunno, terrorize her by showing her these things?

Besides that there as also a bit too much coincidence in that Rachel chooses to join a donor recipient support group where at least two other people in the group also received organs from the killer. What are the odds? So of course we have some ready made suspects.

I was so bummed by that piece of WTF that it really hung over my enjoyment of the story. Still I liked Rachel so much, I also liked what the author did with Mason and how she created the conflict that I tried to ignore that woo-woo piece and concentrate on the stuff I liked.

Rachel and Mason are attracted to each other and act upon it with a night of sex. But I wouldn't really categorize this as romantic-suspense because they really don't try to be romantic with it. it is there and will probably blossom as the series goes on, but in this book they really have way too much going on to spend any energy romantically.

Even with my WTF reaction to that one major plot element, I do plan to continue the series. I liked the protagonists and the writing was fun.