Shannon C.’s review of Healer’s Touch by Kirsten Saell
Fantasy erotic romance released by Samhain 19 Aug 08

When I read Crossing Swords, I knew that Kirsten Saell was going to become one of my favorite authors. It also helps that she’s good people, too. And yet, I didn’t pick up this book from my TBR for a while, because I like to savor my favorite authors in small doses. Which is why, despite the fact that Ms. Saell has another book out, I’m only now getting to this one. Read on for my thoughts.

Healer’s Touch is set in the same universe as Crossing Swords. It features Aru and Viera, a healer and whore who played major roles in the first book. Aru, who is this world’s equivalent of a fallen angel, has kept eight centuries of celibacy, clinging to devotion to his former wife. Yet, he finds Viera hard to resist. And it doesn’t help that Viera wants him, and is willing to seduce him at any cost.

Viera is a very different sort of character from Lianon of Crossing Swords. I think this is one of the reasons this one didn’t quite become a keeper for me. I like Viera well enough, and I think it’s awesome that Ms. Saell used a whore as the heroine in her book. But Lianon she wasn’t, and I did have a few moments where I was nearly drawn out of the book because I thought Viera was a little too mercenary. Then again, I suspect she is the sort of character that would manage to charm me out of my misgivings if I met her in real life, and for every mercenary moment, she’d do something that proved what a sweet person with a big heart she was.

Aru is one of those stiff-necked heroes who is all buttoned-up and proper. He is one of those quietly tortured heroes that I like a lot, and he was very definitely a beta, which is my favorite type. I loved that basically, there was no way he was going to win this little contest of wills. That being said, he did have a few martyr tendencies that made me shake my head a couple of times.

As Ms. Saell said in an e-mail to me, this book is essentially one long seduction. I’m not sure I would have believed anyone could actually wring that much of a story out of a prolonged seduction, Ms. Saell does so wonderfully. I loved watching Aru gradually begin to succumb to the many and varied ways Viera used to seduce him. This was one of those books where none of the sex felt gratuitous. And since Viera and Aru were already friends at the start of the story, I believed in their romance.

In addition to Aru and Viera, we get a great secondary romance between one of Aru’s patients and an apothecary. Karal, said apothecary, absolutely stole the show in whatever scenes he was in, and I hope that Ms. Saell does more with him.

I do have Bound by Steel, which is the third book in this series, on my TBR, and I will definitely be revisiting this world again soon. Fans of fantasy romance should pick up this series. The characters are great, the world-building is subtle but well-done, and the plots are interesting!

Grade: B+

Summary:
She’s determined to break his eight centuries of celibacy—at any cost!

Darjhian healer Aru has been in exile for eight hundred years, barred from the Deathless Land and parted from his wife. Now fallen from grace and no longer immortal, he can never return to her.

Yet he cleaves to his marriage vow and holds himself apart from everyone—especially Viera, the former prostitute whose sexual energy provides the power needed for his healing work. She presents a temptation he must constantly hold at bay if he’s to keep to his vow.

Viera isn’t interested in fighting temptation. She wants Aru. He wants her. What could be simpler? After three frustrating months working with him, her need for him has reached the breaking point. He claims he can never touch a woman again, but Viera isn’t the type to take no for an answer.

Over four glorious nights, she shows Aru everything he’s denied himself for eight centuries. But a shadow hangs over their passion. Aru is keeping secrets about the nature of his mortality. And now he faces a terrible choice…

Break Viera’s heart, or risk destroying her with the knowledge of what he truly is.

Warning: This title contains: graphic sex, including anal sex, f/f and m/f/f; bad language; inappropriate use of a kitchen work surface; flagrant tickling of ivory; and a wagon-load of good, old-fashioned voyeurism.

Read an excerpt.