3.5 Stars
I loved the premise of the story with its paranormal elements, as well as Ms Feehan's writing style and the humour. However, I didn't like insta-love between Lily and Ryland and found it difficult to connect with the characters. Also, the pacing was a bit slow in places.

This is book 1 in a series about an elite group of warriors with psychic abilities. I was immediately drawn to this idea and the reviews i read before starting, they convinced me to give it a shot. Because this was the first book i expected there to be some dry set up, which in this case for me was all the scientific discussions, and jargon. While some I thought was necessary, after a while i was just bored. What I did like was the idea of military men volunteering for test and study of psychic ability only to be taken advantage of and used in the pursuit of money and exploitation. The dialogue and relationship between the men of this group I enjoyed and could feel the bond between them.

What I could not get into or believe was the chemistry between the hero Ryland the heroine Lily. For some reason it seemed forced and not very believable. The sex they would have with each other "in their heads" I found unbelievable, not that the descriptions were not hot, they were, just didn't do a thing for me.

Then there is the heroine Lily, daughter of a multimillionaire scientist, she has psychic abilities as well, she has had the best of everything. Sheltered most of her life, she had the best teachers of every field. We are told her intelligence is far superior to your average everyday woman, or man for that matter, and of course she has a heart of gold, feeling sympathy and anger for the men she found basically locked up and treated no better then lab rats. Lily was perfect and I found that unbelievable, I couldn't connect. I would have liked her to have a few flaws, other than she had the best cooking instructor in the world and still couldn't cook...

What I was attracted to in this story was Ryland, hot military man, loyal to his team and a real duty to what is right. I loved the camaraderie of this group of men, the humor and loyalty, and the humble beginnings of most of them. That enough made me happy enough to keep reading and finishing this book, and it is enough to convince me to keep reading this series and hoping it was just a fluke I didn't enjoy this one, that I will love the rest.

Sorozat indító kötetnek tökéletes volt. Lefektette az alapokat, megismertük a főbb szereplőket, ráadásnak kaptunk egy érdekes pszichés kísérletezést és korrupt katonákat.
A végén sok kérdés maradt még, plusz kaptunk egy kis betekintést merre haladhat majd a történet.
Ebből egy nagyon jó sorozat alakulhat ki.

Now this book wasn't bad, better than some series-first that I've read but I also couldn't help but think it could've been better. Maybe I wasn't in the mood for this, maybe I was too tired at times to concentrate but it took me longer than I intended to finish it.

This one's about a leader of a group of men who have enhanced psychic abilities, they're called Ghostwalkers which I thought was a cool name, and the daughter of the scientist who experimented on them. All these men are pretty alpha but thankfully the heroine wasn't all that intimidated by the hero despite his "me-man-me-protect-you" kinda behaviour. And when on more than one occasion that he shook her. Yes, when he got frustrated he shook her, and I specifically remember reading "his hands itching with the need to shake her", What? That wasn't pleasant for me.

At some times, the dialogue between the hero and the heroine didn't make sense to me. It seemed like they would start off with a subject and than suddenly the whole conversation goes someplace else. It's like they were on a different level of understanding that I wasn't allowed access to -does this make sense?-

What bothered me a bit was the heroine's incredible unsureness of her feeling both towards her father, who experimented on the man that she didn't know about, and Ryland Miller, our alpha male hero. Especially with the hero, she seems to believe the enhancement of psychic abilitiees extends to their emotions for one another and that the lust she feels for him is artificial. That just didn't make sense to me, sorry. And so she had this I love him/I hate him/I love him/I hate him thing going on for about half of the book that made it less believable for me when she actually finally gave in to her emotions.

One other thing that really bothered me was to read the heroine's name whenever the hero talked to her. It was like he was trying to memorize her name and etch it to the reader's mind. I don't think he said one sentence without saying her name. Lily this, Lilly that. It gets tiring reading it after a while. I believe the intimacy and adoration can still be described without the mention of your lover's name in every single sentence.

If I'm not mistaken there were also some grammatical errors in the book that had me reading some sentences twice.

I know this sounds like a negative review, but I thought it still was a good enough start to a series, especially since I found myself intrigued by a couple of the other Ghostwalkers. I already have some of the other books from this series and will read them also, hopefully it will get better.

Oh, and just in case this sounded really negative, let me tell you I liked the book so much better near the end, with the funny dialogues from all the Ghostwalkers and Lily's house staff/family, they made me smile a lot. If the whole of the book was like those last couple of chapters, I would've definitely given this a higher rating.

This is not my first Christine Feehan rodeo and I knew “what I was getting myself into” but yet I had to try as the blurb sounded so interesting. And it was but still I am only able to rate it with 3 stars maximum… why ? you ask ?

Simply because this author has a tendency to be so brilliant in creating an amazing surrounding that the plot and the characters get lost in that surrounding. I read several books from Ms. Feehan’s “Dark” series and I loved them because this trait of hers for being so perfect in creating a world just worked really well for that series. Here ? not so much….

There was so much focus on the surrounding that I even had a moment when I was rechecking the names of the characters because I forgot for a second. And then in the second half of the book we suddenly get all the names of the team and their traits thrown at us it felt like the author noticed he missed out on the introduction before.

It was too much …

When I choose to read this book I saw a review that said “if you found this book boring – please give at least the second book in that series a try” and I think I will but I am not sure when. Maybe it is the same experience I made with the “Dark brotherhood” … I was only able to get into it after I tried a second time.

Let's see

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Amo las series de Feehan. Es una de mis autoras favoritas!!!

Si bien, esta fue una relectura... me encanta el universo que crea la autora, en donde se desarrollará la historia. Es fascinante.

Sus personajes... tan complejos e interesantes. Lily... es una prota badass...!!
Y Ryland... lo adoré!!!! Su compromiso y honestidad... woooow!!

Confieso que tengo muchas interrogantes respecto a los personajes secundarios... que estoy segura que sabremos más en los siguientes libros!!!

If I finished, I think I would have rated this 3 stars. but I couldn't finish it. And I can't really understand why. I mean, I like sci-fi military types. And the narrator, despite being male (not that I have anything against that, but some men fail at reading female voices) was quite good. My biggest problems were (1) I couldn't really get connected with Ryland or Lily. (2) the action part of the story didn't really intrigue me, and (3) we don't meet the rest of the team until halfway into the book.

So about (1), they didn't have the chemistry or interactions that make for a sizzling romance. Everything was tell (about their feelings), rather than a spark that you could hear from their words. I know it sounds crazy, but they just didn't have it. (2) Since the first half of the book was primarily in their mind or dream world or whatevs, the story was damaged by lack of movement. Ms. Feehan puts lots of effort to create their relationship, that everything else stands still. In fact, we only get minor tidbits of Ryland's interactions and plan with his men. And (3), come on, male interactions are what makes these books so fun. True, we did have Lily interacting with her family, but they aren't getting their own books. How are we supposed to get attached when we don't even get a glimmer of personality from any of them. Maybe we will, in the 2nd half, but I'm bored.

I know I sound harsh, but that's it. I've been giving a lot of chances for this one, and I think I should just face the facts. It's not for me.

DNF at 55%.

This was just too boring. Nothing really happens. Too long sentences and conversations. Endless dialogue about medical things, that aren't real (because paranormal) but whatever. I don't care about this, it doesn't make any sense anyway. All the problems were thought on in dialogues. Lengthy and one sided dialogues.
Heroine wants hero, but she's always in her head, telling herself not to react. That these are just pheromones and things, not real feelings. She always pushes him away, making spectacular excuses. And then after the first time they had real sex, she converts to this shy thing that has problems with her body. Guess what? It's not perfect. But who's is? And she always thinks about all the perfect women the hero could have been with. She didn't even have any reasons to think such things. Total turn off.
The Hero went caveman on her. He loves her, wants to protect her, never leave her. He talks about kids and such. Insta-love. He's relentless. I liked him way better than her.

But I just couldn't read anymore. I was at 55% and not one step further ahead than at 30%.

One more dropped book for 2017. This hasn't been a good year for me so far. I seem to be choosing books I end up disliking...

Shadow Game could be the one and only book I dropped at 5%. It's that bad. The story seems interesting until you start reading. The writing isn't good enough and the author seems to be all over the place.

An example of a detail I found really annoying is the following. The main character is a marine black ops with psychic abilities (he can read minds). Enter the beautiful young woman, who is like ice but will fuck the main character at some point. She can read minds too of course. So, the logical thing to happen is that the black ops marine, the member of an elite force, who according to the writer looks at you and you pee yourself, thinks that his maleness is strongly attracted by her femaleness. That was the point I wanted to barf. I tried to read some more but then he kept on thinking about how hard he is and how much he wants her and how he wants to protect her femaleness (barf again). They had met for five minutes.....

Also, the author thought that it was logical for the enemies of the main character to stand in his cell and start arguing about him and about their secrets. In front of the deadly human machine who can read your mind and you believe that he wants to kill you. Logical...

To make matters worse, I had to reread paragraphs because when the main character thinks, it's not clear what the woman is able to read from his mind. Sometimes she can read everything, sometimes what he can let her read. Whatever suits the writer best at each point....

I don't think I will read this author ever again. I enjoy a good romance novel but I need a plot and a book which doesn't insult my intelligence.

Lovin' this so far!

This was a GREAT start to the Ghostwalkers series! I loved the Gov. conspiracy, the action, the paranormal aspects, hot and steamy love scenes and of course a HEA.

If you love Christine Feehan's writing, you'll LOVE this series as well............

The plot was cool, and the writing great. I did struggle with - and soon started skiming - the sex scenes. One is fine, but the author had 3 distinct ones that were all written like it was the first time. They were long and repeatative (which is why sex scenes are nevet clever or original. There's only a few ways to word something before it's all been done before).

2.5 Stars

The story concept was what had gotten my attention in the first place--that, and I’d seen a lot of praise for Christine Feehan via reviews in the reading community. Unfortunately, what seemed to work for everyone else in Ms. Feehan’s books didn’t seem to work well for me in Shadow Game; which is a sore disappointment because I was looking forward to diving into this long-running paranormal series about a psychically enhanced elite of Military Special Forces.

I figured there would be a lot of potential and a lot of good stories you could dabble with using that premise.

Unfortunately, my biggest take away from Shadow Game was how Lily Whitney and Ryland Miller are so meant to be that we need to be subject to flowery prose and tacky, unnatural dialogue for 80% of the book, and also how Lily has very “generous breasts” (what does that even mean?)--there are repetitive conversations about their romance and how much they love each other and all the detail about how they're lusting after each other.

Apparently, “the ground moved” when these two meet for the first time, they cannot stop thinking about each other, they knew they were “meant to be together forever” at first sight, they can’t stop lusting after each other, and Lily has very feminine curves, and generous breasts. Did I mention that Lily Whitney has very “generous breasts”?

You know, it’s enough to mention it once--that Lily Whitney has a bit of a cynical complex and is extremely modest about her looks despite the fact that she admits to having more feminine curves (wide hips and big boobs), even if she doesn’t look like a supermodel. I can handle her being humble about her own physical appearance and being cynical about men falling for her.

But I don’t need to be reminded time and time again that she has very “generous breasts”. These same two words just keep popping up: when she’s putting her clothes on, when she’s examining her own body, when she’s doing the horizontal with Captain Miller, when she’s sleeping in the nude, when she’s covering her body with a lab coat, when Ryland is feeling her up… Apparently it’s extremely important to the author that her readers know that Lily has very “generous breasts”.

At least a different description for big boobs would have been appreciated.

Shadow Game was all about the romance and the sex. The entire psychic military forces and unethical human experimentation conflict got overshadowed. And the writing style was very much “Tell” instead of “Show.” I felt like the author wanted us to understand exactly what point she was trying to hammer home about her characters and it was a little annoying.


Anyway…

Dr. Peter Whitney has been conducting experiments on volunteer military personnel to create an elite force of silent fighting machines, the strongest group of soldiers anyone has ever seen. Captain Ryland Miller, in an effort to help with this research that is supposed to help their country, volunteeers himself and some of his men to enhance psychic abilities that they may already naturally have.

But even before Dr. Whitney dies, Captain Miller notices that something strange and much more sinister is happening with the experiment and his men. At least three of the soldiers have died as a probable side effect of the experiments, and no matter what Ryland says, no one is doing anything to help them.

Lily Whitney is brought onboard the project by her father, but not long afterward, telepathically witnesses her father’s murder. Before he dies, Peter Whitney warns her to be careful--that someone is messing around with his project, that the soldier’s lives are in danger, and that she needs to “find the others” and undo what he did that was wrong.

Not long after that, Lily discovers that she had been part of a similar project her father conducted years ago, as a child bought by him who showed signs of natural psychic ability. And along with her, there were several other little girls who had also been a part of Dr. Whitney’s experiments to enhance psychic abilities. And now these girls are scattered throughout the country because Peter Whitney couldn’t deal with the terrible consequences of his careless experiments.

So basically Lily must help the soldiers learn how to use their abilities and shield against excess noise and she must find the other girls and help them as well.


As I stated, the premise to this book was an intriguing one. And when I found out about the other girls and the psychic enhancements Lily had been a part of when she was a child, I got a little excited. It would be interesting to read about our military men, also dubbed the GhostWalkers, go in search of the rest of the girls while fighting crime or going on military missions. I was thinking, “Ooh, there are others out there, like Lily, with psychic enchancements who had been trained as a child.”

That sounds even more interesting than a simple psi-ops story with military men being the psychically enchanced GhostWalkers. It doesn’t hurt to add some girl power to these stories.

But if the rest of the books are going to be anything like Shadow Game... I don’t know how much disappointment I can take. I kept waiting for the book to start bringing up other plot points and connecting all the dots, but Shadow Game was determined to be all about the “Lily Whitney and Ryland Miller” romance that moves mountains and shatters ground and has mind-blowing sex.

And the romance wasn’t even all that inspiring. They meet, they develop instalove that will live on forever and ever, all time eternal. And Lily is the typical innocent virgin who has never been with a man before and is a Mother Theresa type. Ryland Miller is the typical alpha that I hate reading about (yes, there are alpha males I like reading about and Captain Miller does not meet the requirements). For one thing, he comes off as kind of an asshole; he likes to manhandle, he likes to get possessive and territorial, and the next time a man tells a woman to quit her day job because she’s a woman can meet my fist, even if it IS for her safety and even if she CAN live off of the inheritance her father left for her.

On top of that, I think he might have a problem with listening because he gets all angry and upset listening to Lily go on about her father’s experiments before he even actually hears what she’s trying to tell him. He jumps to conclusions too quickly and really just needs to take a chill pill and calm the heck down.

The most exciting parts of the book were when the group starts planning their escape from the research lab facilities and whenever there was talk about Peter Whitney’s experiments.. I was hopeful that things would start getting relevant and exciting when something other than romance and sex happened… but then Lily and Ryland get together again and we continue the romance route from there.

And every few random scenes we’d bring up the experiments or the conspiracies or something else that was non-romance related. But those are sparse and far and few and ultimately veer back into the romance anyway.

If there was a bit more tactful humor and more likable characters, maybe I’d be more inclined to get into the next book, just to see if things pick up a little bit better. A first book in a series is sometimes a little shaky; maybe the author is testing new ground and hasn’t gotten her ideas solidly built yet.

But the characters were merely “meh” and so I made the decision to set this series aside and come back to it some other time.


Final Thoughts: With an excellently intriguing idea, I had really hoped for more from this book than simply a romance based on a paranormal premise. GhostWalkers has a lot of potential for some really great story lines, being a long-running series and all. And with eleven installments, I’m sure it managed to find some footing somewhere and I’m sure there are plenty of people who are in love with the series.

Unfortunately, while the book wasn't completely terrible, I’m just not sure it’s the right book for me. I can only wonder about the rest of the series and whether or not it could be right for me some other time.