Dangerous to Touch / Jill Sorenson. 2008

Jill Sorenson's debut novel came to me (free!) when I won a contest over at HelenKay Dimon's blog last month. I can't remember reading anything out of the Silhouette Romantic Suspense line before, so I was looking forward to giving this one a try. Here's the blurb:

All her life Sidney Morrow had tried to repress her disturbing psychic visions. Until a vision of murder shattered her fragile serenity. She had to go to the authorities—make them listen. But Lt. Marc Cruz didn't trust her one bit. In fact, the sensual homicide cop treated her like a suspect. And sent her senses haywire.…

The dark-haired beauty knew something about the serial killer Marc was after. But he was certain "visions" had nothing to do with it. Determined to be her constant shadow, Marc wasn't prepared when desire blindsided him—and put them both in the path of a relentless killer.

This one had a really interesting premise which made the heroine, Sidney, appealing to me. Sidney has a psychic ability to receive visions or thoughts from someone she touches. As a result she doesn't like to touch other people and ends up leading a rather lonely existence. She needs a hero who will accept her as she is and understands that he won't be able to hide anything from her. The book opens when Sidney finds a stray dog. After touching the dog, she gets a vision of a murder and she ends up taking the dog to the police and becomes embroiled in the investigation of a serial killer. Lt. Marc Cruz is the detective assigned to the case and it isn't long before he and Sidney become involved. Marc has issues of his own and he's forced to deal with them in light of Sidney's "gift."

For the most part I really liked this book. It was well-written and drew me in right from the first. Only one thing really bothered me. Sidney's psychic ability gave her an unfair advantage in the relationship when she could touch Marc and sense things from him. A couple of times she even lept to wrong conclusions based on something she "saw." It seems Marc realizes that by simply being with her, his life would be an open book to her. There's a point where he makes a comment to his friend that he thought he'd like to be in a relationship that had total honesty. In a way, Marc has no choice about being honest, yet he never really asks Sidney for this in return. She keeps a lot to herself; because of past experiences she does have a hard time opening up to Marc. But I would have liked to see Marc and Sidney discuss the imbalance in their relationship and how they'd have to deal with it. Also, at the end of the book, I would have expected Sidney to know Marc's feelings with more certainty. Over a month has passed at this point--what? she's had no more visions or feelings after being with him so much? That seemed a little inconsistent.

Otherwise, I thought this was a solid, suspenseful read, and a pretty fine debut. I look forward to reading more books by Jill and am happy to recommend that you give this new author a try.