The Young Riders meet The Vampire Diaries in this tale of brother versus brother and blood-magic set in a gaslamp fantasy world. Book 1 in the Deadly Touch Trilogy.
Llew has a gift. Her body heals itself from any injury, at a cost to anyone nearby. Llew’s father disappeared when she was eleven, leaving her orphaned, as far as she knew. Since then, Llew has learned to survive the streets of the gold-mining town of Cheer – full of opportunistic men and desperation. It’s a hard existence made tougher when her so-called friend accuses Llew of murder, sending her to the gallows.
Llew’s Aenuk ability to absorb life means she doesn’t stay dead for long, but she does leave a trail of death behind her.
Escaping the hangman’s noose sees Llew fall into the hands of Jonas: the man with the knife and the Karan power to kill Llew’s kind. …
The Young Riders meet The Vampire Diaries in this tale of brother versus brother and blood-magic set in a gaslamp fantasy world. Book 1 in the Deadly Touch Trilogy.
Llew has a gift. Her body heals itself from any injury, at a cost to anyone nearby. Llew’s father disappeared when she was eleven, leaving her orphaned, as far as she knew. Since then, Llew has learned to survive the streets of the gold-mining town of Cheer – full of opportunistic men and desperation. It’s a hard existence made tougher when her so-called friend accuses Llew of murder, sending her to the gallows.
Llew’s Aenuk ability to absorb life means she doesn’t stay dead for long, but she does leave a trail of death behind her.
Escaping the hangman’s noose sees Llew fall into the hands of Jonas: the man with the knife and the Karan power to kill Llew’s kind. If Llew can nurture the attraction he has to her, maybe she can keep that knife from her heart.
But lurking in the shadows is Jonas’s half-brother, Braph: the man who has learned to combine Aenuk and Karan powers into infinite and addictive magical potential.
Healer's Touch is a fantasy novel flavored with a wild west setting, steampunk-like technology, enough romance to draw you in, horror to keep you hooked, and just enough sex to keep things spicy.
Llew's gift/curse carries her from her comfortable surroundings in a dreary mining town called Cheer into the arms of a deadly enemy. While there are a few moments of joy, the story carries on relentlessly from one town to the next. Bedroll and campfires abound on good days.
A lot of people die. Yet, Deb Howell manages to spin an engaging tale of suffering and sacrifice into one of hope and redemption.
If you like your fiction with a harder, darker edge and a pounding pace, this is the book for you.
