Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Red and Scarlett by Jordan Summers



Red is set in the year 2160, 150 years after the last world war. This war apparently decimated almost everything, leaving the earth pretty barren and desolate. It also left the Others, genetically-enhanced humans who were created as "super soldiers" (from what I can tell, vampires and shapeshifters). After the war the government was not able to dispose of them all and they live in secret. This future society is very Big-Brotherish, with videocoms and traffic control cameras and people having to be registered to live in "pureblood" society.

Our heroine, Gina, has been having weird dreams where she wakes up with blood on her clothes but doesn't remember going out. Gina is an international police-type who comes upon a murder scene that her department writes off as an animal attack but she knows it's not. She takes a few days off to travel to a border town to investigate. She ends up asking the Sheriff, Morgan, for help questioning the citizens of the town and an attraction builds, which they both fight. Another woman's body is found, and Gina doesn't know it but a 3rd body has been found. Morgan knows something about Gina she doesn't know about herself, and he is having a hard time controlling his increasing lust for her. As they investigate the murders, they realize there's more going on than meets the eye.

Scarlett starts out with Morgan and Gina together, working on her powers, and it's not going well. He tells her to be patient but she's frustrated because she can't control them. Then, Morgan sees an add on television for a clone woman and child - his wife and child who died many years ago. He's got to leave Gina in town to go find this clone lab and destroy the samples - he doesn't want his wife cloned to be used as a whore. While Morgan is gone, weird things are going on in town. Gina is being framed for murders and the townspeople are accusing her of cheating on Morgan. The only people who are standing by her side are a few members of her new tactical team and a vampire. Meanwhile, Morgan is not having any luck obtaining the clone samples and is realizing there are some weird things going on at the company.

I have to say, truthfully, I was not thrilled with these books. In the first book I found Gina to be an inconsistent character - tough as nails but she cries in Morgan's arms when she has a nightmare? I found myself having to read sentences twice and scratching my head, and the foreshadowing felt forced. I enjoyed Scarlet more, the characters were rounded out a bit better, and the story flowed well. I will say that I'm not a big fan of future stories, so that could be part of my problem. I wish I would have checked them out at the library instead of buying them.

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