A Book Review: The Missing by Shiloh Walker

By jen

We are taking a break from our regularly scheduled bitch fest about Politics to review a book.  Yeah, if you do not like it, bite me!  I like books and you folks could stand to broaden your horizons.

I was lucky enough for Shiloh Walker to send me an ARC (Advance Reader Copy) of The Missing for review and well I am giggling with happiness because of it.  I have read her Hunter series because it falls squarely into my favorite genre, Vampire Porn. The Missing is a paranormal book, but reads more like a suspense thriller with a romantic twist than a paranormal fang romp like I usually read.  I have never seriously reviewed a book so this will be new for me.  Shiloh asked that I be honest about it and I intend to be that and my typically demure self.  I will base my rating on the Five Star system like the hotels do it.

So here goes it!

The Missing by Shiloh Walker

Pros: Strong characters, fast paced, and lots of dialog (she doesn’t kill you with setting the scene)
Cons: Appalling lack of vampires!  Just kidding… mostly.
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Release Date: est. November 4th 2008

Taige Branch our main character is a psychic.  She sees things, terrible things; sometimes before they happen, sometimes after, but almost always about kids.   She is an outsider and doesn’t like to be around people because of all the static they project making hard to function.  She meets the exception to this rule as a teenager, his name is Cullen.  Seems Cullen doesn’t broadcast his every horny thought like most of the boys she encounters.  After he saves her from a nightmare situation their fate was cemented to one another.  She believes she has found The One (no, I am not talking about Obama) and he believes she is the perfect woman.  He understands and doesn’t judge her talent, even though it is often painful, frightening, and just plain crazy when she has her visions.  In Cullen she had found her safe haven of acceptance and peace… until his mother is brutally murdered and he blames Taige for not seeing it and stopping it.

Jump ahead over a decade and Taige is now working on a special task force with the FBI along with other people with talents akin to her own and making her way through life, still unable to move on from Cullen but using her talent for the good of mankind, you know the drill.  Cullen is an author and a widow, raising his young daughter alone and still having hot dreams about Taige.  As you would expect situations happen which bring them back together; namely his daughter Jillian gets abducted and he goes to the only person who can help him, Taige.

I will not go into great detail here, but it is technically a Paranormal Romance so they get their HEA (happily ever after).  That said, this is not sappy, syrupy, heaving breasts, or sweet nothings.  This book is dark and not a feelgood romance so if that is what you are after, you might want to skip this.  For me, it is what made me really enjoy it.  I cannot read books which even moderately approach mushy.  If I read anything with mush at all it is heavily balanced by violence, death, and general mayhem, and raunchy sex.

I think what I enjoyed most about this book is while it is obviously paranormal fiction, there was a very strong reality in the tone.  This was accomplished by the realness of the relationship between the characters and the great loss they suffered individually. I cannot tell you how many books I have read where the relationship crap is so stupid I either roll my eyes or just skim the text.

The blaming of Taige by Cullen after his mother’s death is human nature in a moment of anger and grief.  I am not sure the author intended it, but Cullen learned quickly that Karma is a bitch.  Granted he always felt guilt for what he did to Taige, but not enough to go make it right.  He married another woman who died giving birth to their daughter.  Karma hit number one in my eyes, but then I am a tad of a fatalist.  Karma hit number two: Jillian (the daughter) is a psychic much in the same way as Taige.  I will not give away much more in the way of details, but suffice it to say by the time our pair is reunited you do not want to have him suffer any longer and you do not feel Taige is a pushover for taking him back.  Plus, he is hot and well that makes up for a great deal of assholish behavior, admit it.

Another reason this book worked for me was because the relationship wasn’t the source of the central conflict.  This book was about a serial killer and missing children, the romantic arc was just what made the darkness bearable for the characters and the reader.  Without the relationship between Taige and Cullen the book would have been just depressing.  Without the missing children and serial killer it would have been just another romance novel.  The mix was perfect and the characters infinitely likable and terribly flawed; just how I like them.

Life and love in a romance novel, even the non-mushy one, is often portrayed as two characters fighting against odds to come together and once they do it is all roses, unicorns, and carebears.  This is not how things go in real life, we all know it and this book doesn’t even try to fake it.

The book doesn’t end with rainbows shooting out anyone’s butt.  It ends with them finally finding their way back to each other after death, near death, violence, pain, and suffering, and the reader knows even then it is not going to be an easy road.  The gift/curse our main character has isn’t going away. The psychic child isn’t going away.  The FBI task force isn’t going away…etc.

I guess the question I have is when do I get to read more about Taige and Cullen?

(Note:  There is some fairly explicit sex in this book, though pretty lightweight in my eyes; but what do I know?  I read Lora Leigh like it is crack and she is a dirty filthy broad of the best sort.)

Thanks again to Shiloh Walker for letting me read this before it hit the shelves.  It was a pleasure to read.