Conspiracy Game- by Christine Feehan

ISBN- 0-515-14216-1

A man afraid of love, is saved by a woman who will force him to face his greatest demon. The one he sees in the mirror each morning.

Each new book of Ms. Feehan's that I read only serves to remind me why she is one of the leading figures in the romance genre. I can honestly say I have become both a fan and an addict of her work. And this series of books that delves into the shadowy world of genetic experiments, physic's, and military special forces, has grabbed me in a way I never expected.

Jack Norton is one of the team of Ghost Walkers, he's a genetically enhanced sniper and he's sworn never to let a woman get close to him. With good reason. He see's in himself the man his father was. One with the capacity to love too deeply, to become obsessed with the woman he falls for, and capable of committing the same foul deeds he witnessed his father commit. The last thing he wants is a woman in his life in case he gives into the darkness within his soul and becomes the very murderer that his father became.

Briony shares the same gifts Jack has. Yet unlike Jack, and the others we've met in this series of books, she doesn't know what she is, or what she is capable of. But her enemies do, and they have plans for Briony, and the children she could bring into this world.

When Jack and Briony meet, the sparks fly. This is no meeting under the soft moonlight, and with gentle music playing in the background. Jack is hurt, dying, having escaped the clutches of a man who has tortured and abused him when a mission went wrong, the same man who abused his twin brother. He's a walking dead man when he stumbles into Briony.

He warns her, stay away from him. Keep her distance. As he leaves her, after initiating her into the world of sex, passion and desire, he warns her. Keep your distance, don't come to find me, because I won't be able to give you up again. These aren't just words offered to a woman in the hopes she will not turn up on his doorstep again, this is a plea, a prayer to save her from the obsessive, controlling man he knows himself to be.

But Briony is left with a secret, and Jack is the only man who can protect her. Staying away from him quickly becomes an option she doesn't have the luxury to choose...

Ms. Feehan walks a delicate line in this novel. Jack could easily become the abusive man his father obviously was. She touches, carefully, on the cycle of abuse that can occur in families, and shows us another way. A man who accepts the danger he could be, and struggles against it. In Briony, Jack faces both his chance of salvation and the key to his damnation. But he can't let her go, he daren't let her go, not unless he wants to condemn her to a life in the hands of their enemies. And they won't be gentle with her, or the secret she holds beneath her heart...

Ms Feehan has done it again with Jack and Briony, I couldn't put this book down. I sat up until 4am on the first night, reading until I knew I had to get some sleep or face the children in the morning as a zombie in training!