I received this book for free from the library in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Source: the library
Spider Game
by
Christine Feehan
paranormal romance in Paperback edition that was published by Jove on January 26, 2016 and has 464 pages.
Explore it on Goodreads or Amazon
Other books by this author which I have reviewed include Dark Predator, Savage Nature, Spirit Bound, Darkest at Dawn, Samurai Game, Dark Storm, Leopard's Prey, Air Bound, Hot Blooded, Viper Game, Power Game, Earth Bound, "Dark Crime", Covert Game, Judgment Road, Toxic Game, Vengeance Road, Fire Bound, Bound Together, Shadow Warrior, Leopard's Wrath, Wild Cat, Cat's Lair, Vendetta Road, Lethal Game, Desolation Road, Leopard's Rage, Reckless Road, Dark Whisper
Twelfth in the GhostWalker series and revolving around men and women who have been psychically and physically enhanced. The couple focus is on Trap Dawkins and Cayenne.
My Take
This story was so annoying, primarily due to Feehan’s portrayal of dominance. Didn’t ring true for me. Most of the time I wanted to smack him silly. Of course there were other…annoyances…
Trap assures Cayenne that he’ll give her time to get comfortable, and every time he talks to her, he’s pressuring her to give into him even as he says he’ll give her time. There’s the sudden whacked-out verbal attacks he makes on her. WTF? He flips between accepting her as the skilled, trained assassin she is and then treating her as an incapable person. He’s taking her out in public but doesn’t want to warn her about the tribulations of being with him? What’s with that? Okay, yeah, he loves her and doesn’t want her hurt. So put her on her guard!
View Spoiler »I see the theme as life, as in everyone deserves to live and be respected. God knows, Whitney and Violet aren’t big on this one, but the GhostWalker teams are all for it. That everyone has value. Unfortunately, a secondary theme seems to be whining. Lots of whining about how Trap has to stay alone…oh, woe…he can’t put another woman in danger, he needs this woman, she’s perfect for him… Thanks to that third-person dual point-of-view, we get to hear Cayenne as well. Whining about how unworthy she is. How incompetent she is. How terrified she is of others. How she hates shopping. How she…yadda, yadda, yadda…
On the other hand, it was sweet how much Trap appreciated Cayenne’s gifts to him. After all, what do you give a billionaire? Normalcy.
I’ve been wanting to know, forever, just why a billionaire would want to join the army and then enter the GhostWalker Special Forces program, and Feehan finally provides a believable reason.
The Story
The Cajun dive in the middle of the godforsaken swamps wasn’t exactly Trap Dawkins’ idea of fun. But the GhostWalker wasn’t there for a good time. He was looking for her. Cayenne. It’s where she found her victims. Poor suckers. Then again, who wouldn’t want to leave a place like this with a woman like her?
It’s not Cayenne’s fault. Locked up, experimented on and never knowing kindness, she was bred this way — with a heart of pure venom. Trap understands her. He survived his own dark past, and he shares her desire for getting even. But now Trap’s greatest danger is Cayenne herself. Because what’s inside her is hard to control — especially when it’s aroused by a lover as reckless as Trap.
The Characters
Cayenne, paired with Trap, considers herself flawed — everyone who came into contact with her, feared her — and she was slated for termination by Whitney. Never having been out of her tiny cell, she has no concept of how to function in society.
Dr. Trap “Iceman” Dawkins is a control-freak billionaire scientist gifted at everything as well as a GhostWalker who had changed his name from Johansson. He had had a family Drusilla, Brad, and Linnie. His father’s two brothers, Bobby and Richard, are alive, so far. Trap intends to find his uncles and kill them.
The rest of his GhostWalker unit…
…includes Dr. Wyatt Fontenot (Viper Game, 11). He’s married to Pepper, a seductress who can kill with one bite, and they have not-quite-two-year-old deadly venomous triplets: Ginger, Cannelle, and Thym. Draden “Sandman” Freeman, a successful model, doesn’t sleep much but can put others to sleep and can run for long distances at great speed. The Fortunes brothers include Mordichai, Ezekiel, and Malachai. Gino is almost impossible to see.
Iris “Flame” Johnson, a GhostWalker who is amazing with computers whom Whitney used in his cancer research, is married to Gator, Wyatt’s brother (Night Game, 3). Jaimie Fielding is another GhostWalker married to Mack McKinley, a GhostWalker Marine (Street Game, 8). Diego and Rubin Campo. Joe Spagnola is Team Four Leader.
They all live around Nonny, Wyatt’s grandmother, who cares for them all as family. She’s a traiteur using plants to help heal others.
Lily Miller is Whitney’s daughter and despises her father. She’s married to Captain Ryland Miller, a GhostWalker, in Shadow Game, 1. She’s another brilliant woman and is working hard to fix what her father has corrupted.
The GhostWalker concept was…
…conceived by Dr. Peter Whitney to create psychically enhanced soldiers trained in every kind of combat. He began his experiments on girls, as they were expendable. They were combat-trained, enhanced, used for cancer research and for breeding. There are four teams of GhostWalkers. An anchor is a GhostWalker who can ground another one. John Butler is part of a Super Soldier assassination team that includes Jerrod.
Senator Violet Smythe is a GhostWalker full of excuses whose voice can talk you into anything; she’s out for herself. Ed was her senator husband. Doug Levi is a reporter.
The Huracan Club is…
…a Cajun bar in the middle of the swamp. I am wondering why the emphasis on that shiny, gleaming, unscathed piano. I think Delmar Thibodeaux owns the bar. Pascal and Blaise Comeaux are vicious men whom the swamp dwellers fear.
Chantelle’s is a whorehouse. Alain Daughtry is an idiot of a shoe salesman. Mrs. March is a very cool saleslady in a clothing shop. Wilson Plastics had been a cover for one of Whitney’s compounds and owned by Braden. Joy had been the woman who dumped Wyatt for not wanting what she wanted.
The Cover and Title
The cover has a deep, deep brown background with Cayenne playing Cirque du Soleil as she poses upside from long strands of her webbing from a scene in the book, although in that scene, she’s naked. The author’s name is large and at the top in a yellow green while the title is tucked into the bottom right corner in a metallic red with the series information below that in white.
The title is all about Cayenne and her Spider Game.
