Touched by Corrine Jackson

#1 Touched (A Sense Thieves Novel) by Corrine Jackson
[Kindle Edition]

Remy O’Malley heals people with touch—but every injury she cures becomes her own. Living in a household with an abusive stepfather, she has healed untold numbers of broken bones, burns, and bruises. And then one night her stepfather goes too far.

Being sent to live with her estranged father offers a clean start and she is eager to take it. Enter Asher Blackwell. Once a Protector of Healers, Asher sacrificed his senses to become immortal. Only by killing a Healer can a Protector recover their human senses. Falling in love is against the rules between these two enemies. Because Remy has the power to make Protectors human again, and when they find out, they’ll be coming for her—if Asher doesn’t kill her first.

This is Book One in the Touched trilogy.

Book cover

  Lovely book cover to start off the trilogy! I like the darkness that features throughout most of the cover – which hints dark times ahead – however, there’s the light coming from the top right giving me the impression that something good is going to come out of this book. Or that God is looking down on the characters and giving them a sense of peace – linking with that, He could be watching and giving them a little hand with all of the glitter sparkling against the sun’s rays. Another interpretation could be that there’s hope in the book and the glitter comes as a good twist in the plot.

  I like the rose in, I presume, the main characters hands – Remy O’Malley. If you look closely at the edges of the rose, it’s starting to blacken … I think that there is a romance in this book (clearly stated in the blurb), but that love is tainted with darkness. That the darkness is only beginning to spread on the rose, as the relationship has only just blossomed, and will continue to spread as the book and trilogy continue to go on – spreading like a disease. A disease that keeps tearing the relationship apart.

  Or maybe … it’s a forbidden love?

My excitement

  Finally the whole trilogy is out! This book came out in November 2012 and as soon as I read the blurb and sample, from Amazon, I knew I was going to love it. I looked it up on Jackson’s blog to see how many books this series was going to feature, as you have read – three.

  Cue happy dance …

  So I had to be a patient girl and set a task for myself to wait and until all three books were out.

  Let me tell you, it wasn’t easy.

  But I kept myself busy with other books in the meantime – yummy!

Book review

  Let the book review begin.
 

  At first we are introduced to a fight with the man of the house – Dean. Remy steps into the apartment and instantly knows that pain will be bestowed on her as Dean, her stepfather, is completely drunk and her mother, Anna, is lying on the floor unconscious. Also that the first lines of the book are ‘Okay, this is going to hurt like hell’ provide a bit of a clue! I was a bit apprehensive when Remy provoked the intoxicated Dean to come after her – giving her mother time to recuperate and keeping the focus off her. I understood why – to protect Anna – but I felt fearful for her knowing that whatever Dean was going to dish out, she would be in a lot of pain. I noticed, as Remy continued to goad Dean, that she never referred to her mother as Mum, but called her by name. I thought that this was a bit odd, but later found out that ‘… Anna loved Dean more than anything. More than [Remy].’ I found that heart breaking and I was a disappointed in Anna, because she’s supposed to protect her child and not let monsters like him get anywhere near them. I was in disbelief that after what Remy had done to Dean, Anna still scolded her fighting against him.

  But Remy’s used to the pain and still heals her mother after a fight with her step-father. Remy has an ability to help wounded or diseased people and when she heals them, their wounds or diseases transfer to her, so that she has whatever they have. But luckily, with enough energy, Remy heals her wounds on her own.

  When Dean and Remy are fighting, Remy’s in a choke hold and suddenly – out of nowhere – there’s a flash of red light that comes from her to Dean and makes him collapse … Strange …

  Later, we see Remy in the hospital with her mother by her bedside and Remy heals her and in return Anna tells her to behave next time otherwise Dean will do this again – but Remy has heard it all before and doesn’t care – she’s just tired that her mother keeps Dean around.

  Suddenly Remy’s father walks in.

  She doesn’t particularly like him very much.

  

  Why? I hear you ask?

  Well, Remy resents her father – even bordering on hatred – because he wasn’t been around to help her when she needed him while he was playing his own happy families. But this time, Ben isn’t playing the weakling he was all those years ago. And I feel proud of him when he says very firmly to Remy, ‘You’re coming to live with me.’

  HALLEJUAH!!!

  Thank the Lord that she’s going to have a break from all the chaos that surrounds her mother!




  Now … this is when the fun starts!

  After some arguing and screaming, we see Remy on the beach, looking into the ocean and analysing if living with Ben is the correct choice or not. But, in the corner of her eye, she notices a camera pointing in her direction.

  Ladies and gents, this is where we are introduced to our yummy and sexy Asher Blackwell.

  Remy studies the fine specimen as he snaps away on his camera and takes in that he has ‘deep-chocolate brown hair fell in long waves to his neck.’ Is it me or is it that he sounds like a beach boy? *sighs dreamily*

  ‘Sharp planes and angles defined his tanned face.’ Oh dear … I loooooooove when a boy has sharp facial features – screams masculinity! It’s suddenly getting hot in here … I absolutely agree with Remy that she describes the fine young male as ‘striking’. What is not to like with a tan, hair and face like that hey? Please correct me if I’m wrong.

  ‘Full, sensual lips and a square, shadowed jaw completed the rugged picture ...’ No need to elaborate on this part people. Just see previous point.

  ‘… marred by a two-inch white scar …’ *pants* ‘… that slashed through one eyebrow to the top of one high cheekbone.’ Oh. My. Days. Amigos. OK, OK, forget about the beach boy look, he is most definitely, a bad boy.

BAD BOY ALERT  BAD BOY ALERT  BAD BOY ALERT  BAD BOY ALERT  BAD BOY ALERT   

  Houston, we have a problem.

  ‘And his eyes … their dark green colour that reminded [Remy] of the woods that hugged the marine.’ I love the woods, it gives me the thought of freedom, rebellion and a sense of danger – never knowing what’s lurking in the shadows behind the trees. You could think of Asher’s chocolate brown hair representing the trees in the woods and you don’t really know what’s behind trees, do you? Since when Asher’s hair is long, it’s like a cover for him to hide behind, so no-one can get close to him and know his dark secrets.

  Fitting, don’t you think?

  As Asher continues taking pictures, Remy gets angry and paranoid that he’s taking photos of her – pitying her. She marches over to this mysterious boy and tries to take the camera away from him. But what do all cocky bad boys do?

  They laugh.

  He laughs at her attempt to capture the camera, but she unexpectedly falls. Asher shows his concern and offers to help, but being a brave and fearless heroine, Remy ignores it and gets up – gritting through the pain slashing though her ribs. Remy is sceptical of the young boy and decides to walk away, but it wouldn’t be fun without him following her, would it? Asher grabs her arm and looks at her. Remy takes the opportunity to scan him, to see if he’s got any injuries or illness and also to use his energy to heal herself.

  Ash’s eyes widen.

  Tell- tale signs show from this that:
  1. As Remy is scanning Asher, it doesn’t stop – which normally it does.
  2. Energy is being transferred from Asher to Remy and that nobody should really feel it.
  3. There’s a sudden blast of green light that flashes between to two of them.
  

  Who is this Asher Blackwell?
  

  And what is he up to?
  

  After introductions to the rest of her father’s family, she retreats to her room and thinks about the boy from the beach and gets warning bells, ‘bells sounding in [her] head clamouring “danger, danger” when [she] thought of the future.’
  
  The next day, Remy is woken by her half-sister, Lucy. Lucy asks a few questions, seeing how she’s feeling and so on, but Remy tends to give short answers – finding the bubbly girl weird. 

  Well, I can’t say anything in the matter, since I am weird and bubbly. But in Remy’s perspective, yes, Lucy is weird.

  She helps Remy get dressed to go to the Underground with her friends. Since Remy doesn’t have an awful lot of clothes – or nice ones in fact – Lucy gives her one of her shirts. Remy is taken aback by the gesture and thinks that ‘nobody was this nice’ and says sincerely, ‘Thank you, Lucy, for the shirt. And the welcome.’

  The Underground is where our beautiful Asher Blackwell is at the time, but Remy is caught looking at the boy and is told by Lucy to stay away from him and his family because he is the sort of guy that breaks your heart.

  Well, aren’t they all like that?

  Lucy enforces this by saying that, ‘Dad would have a freakin’ heart attack … it’s our job to worry Dad, not kill him’. So, we assume that Daddy dearest does not like certain heart throbs, does he?

  However, what Jackson has very sneakily puts in throughout the book is that Remy keeps on picking up that her father has arrhythmia – where the heartbeat beats irregularly.

  A few pages later, we meet the lovely and hotter-than-Ash, Gabe Blackwell, Ash’s older brother. Please don’t get me wrong, to those who are fuming that I imply that Gabe Blackwell is hotter than Ash. But that is only in the looks department.  Not the personality department.

  Still at the Underground, we see that ‘[seeing] his features up close, [she] was captivated, though [her] appreciative perusal was impersonal’. Even though she wasn’t really interested in him, such a strong attraction towards him made me think that nobody could have that effect on anybody. Admittedly this is fiction, but it’s what the personality counts in this case.

  When I read this part, I thought, ‘the hottest guys have to be total prats in a family don’t they?’ (Yes, some can be nice but, in a book like this, someone has to be unlikeable).

  Let’s continue to admire the ‘hotter-than-Ash Gabe Blackwell’, ‘almost too beautiful to be real, his appearance left [her] cold’. Well, this where we are not super fans of Gabriel. But writing ‘almost too beautiful to be real’ gives us the feeling that this fine, young man has a supernatural feel towards Remy. But, since you’ve read the blurb before reading this review, you obviously know that he is supernatural.

  Problem solved.

  As our heroine continues to study Gabe, ‘for some inexplicable reason he reminded [her] of a predatory shark who’d sensed blood and circled in for the kill’. This gave me some thoughts of what Remy feels towards Gabriel Blackwell.
  1. That she seems intimidated by him
  2. That he is:
       - Fierce
       - Dangerous
       - Taunting
       - Sneaky
3. The most important part is that since Jackson/ Remy gave Gabe used the shark metaphor, it tells me that he hunts and kills his prey.

  *Sings ‘foreshadowing’*

  The Blackwell family, Asher, Gabriel and Charlotte (Lottie), go to the same school as Remy does, surprise, surprise. Since Asher is in some of Remy’s classes and hangs out during lunch – they spend a lot of time with one another.
  It’s all very hot and cold to me.

  One minute they don’t like each other, the next they do but, when Remy’s walls go down, Ash throws it back in her face and vice versa. Then, when they come to a par and like each other, our lovely Gabriel comes along and stirs the cauldron for trouble. It goes on like this for nearly the whole book – which is rather tiresome to be honest.

  WHY CAN’T THEY JUST BE HAPPY FOR ONCE!!! GAH!!

  The action is nicely spaced out throughout the book so I don’t get bored, which is nice –those who’ve read the previous review know that I love my ‘healthy’ dose of action.

  In Chapter 9, tragedy strikes. But before they pass away, they pass on some rather nice information to Remy to stew on. It wouldn’t be paranormal romance save-the-world book if the main character doesn’t get confused at stupid riddles or partial sayings, would it?

  Now in this type of genre of book, there is going to be some history that will need to be covered for the main character as well as the readers.

  But sadly this is where I get bored with information and the MASSIVE paragraphs. So I normally take it in my own stride and eventually get past the MASSIVE paragraphs, which can take a while depending how long it goes on for. But this is me, I like action stuff and the ‘OMG’ scenes.

  The breakdown of what everyone is:

  Remy is a Healer – which is self-explanatory.

  Asher and his family are Protectors.

  Basically they have:
   - irregular heartbeats
   - cannot touch or taste
   - they are immortal
 

  That’s all I’m givin’ ya folks.

 Later on in Chapter 9, they go to Anna’s apartment to get some things, but while Ben is out, Dean the-crazy-dude comes along …

  After that fiasco has passed, Remy gets the iPod out that she retrieved from her mother’s home and listens to it which brings up some interesting things …

  What could it be? *Ponders, while stroking imaginary beard*

  But in the last third of the book is where weird things start to take place.
  1. Someone rats out to the other Protectors that Remy is a Healer
  2. Strange phone calls to the house are being made
  3. Remy’s feeling watched
  4. Dean comes along to say hello
  5. Epilogue – bit of a shocker to some people, but if you’ve read a lot of books in this genre – like I have – it isn’t rocket science to know what’s coming.

  There some clues (one or two) in this review I have left for you to dissect if you want to investigate, but if you would like to be surprised on what occurs, then please read it.

  I would totally recommend this book to anyone who likes fast paced, supernatural lovey dovey (but not too much) and save-the-world books.

  This book on Kindle is £1.08 and is approximately 304 pages.

  I would give 4/5 stars

  Book 2: Pushed by Corrine Jackson

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10822395-touched?from_search=true

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Touched-Sense-Thieves-Corrine-Jackson-ebook/dp/B008L3ALV6/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1405531150&sr=1-1&keywords=touched+corrine+jackson

Katie x