Just One Touch by Maya Banks: Review


Posted May 15, 2017 in review Tags: , , , ,

Just One Touch by Maya Banks: ReviewJust One Touch by Maya Banks
Pages: 256
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Series: Slow Burn #5
Genres: Paranormal Romance, Romantic Suspense
Source: ARC, Edelweiss
Also by this author: Brighter than the Sun
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Number One USA Today and New York Times bestselling author Maya Banks continues her suspenseful and sizzling Slow Burn series with the fifth book featuring the men and women of Devereaux Security Services.
She can heal with a touch…or kill with a look.
Isaac, one of the toughest recruits of Devereaux Security Services, has no problem risking his life to save others. But when Isaac is tasked with taking down a female assassin—one with the power to wipe out life in the blink of an eye—he quickly realizes this job is a complete game changer.
Yet once he catches up to Maggie and captures her, fully intending to bring her in, he makes a startling discovery: She’s not the cold blooded killer he’s been led to believe. He quickly realizes that Maggie is in great danger and vows to protect her at all costs. Even if it means taking on the agency he has absolute loyalty to.
Maggie has the power to choose who lives or dies—and she hates her existence for it. Hunted ruthlessly by a group that will stop at nothing to manipulate her, she can’t afford to trust anyone, not even a man who promises to keep her safe at all costs. She wants to believe in Isaac—but she can’t afford to be wrong. If she is, it’s not just her heart at risk…
Thousands of lives will pay for her mistake.

So, several weeks ago I read Brighter than the Sun by Maya Banks and was blown away. See, years ago, I had tried an Maya Banks book and it did not work for me. As it turns out, it was in the Slow Burn series. Given my new admiration for Banks, I decided to give Just One Touch a shot. My reading tastes have evolved since my first attempt at this series and I felt pretty good about giving this a shot.

My first step whenever I start a book is to head to good reads and mark the book as “Currently Reading”. So I head over and happen to glance at a few of the reviews because people were PANNING the book. I was a bit nervous to be honest. I had already had one bad experience with this series. But, I pushed onward and here is why I think I was able to enjoy the aspects of the book that others panned.

First, I approached this book as more of a paranormal romance instead of contemporary romance or romantic suspense. All of the heroines in the series prior all have ‘powers’. Jenna, our heroine, can heal people with her touch. So, right away, my brain classified this as more of a paranormal romance and in doing so, I was not as rigid in my expectations. See, if I think its PNR, I am more likely to believe ALL the things. So, I accept that she can heal people; why then can’t I also accept the love at first sight thing? To me, if you have supernatural elements in a story and I as a reader accept them, then I can’t complain when something else seems too unrealistic. So many people on goodreads complained about the super fast insta-love. Um, so you don’t have any problem with the girl healing people with her hands, but you totally cannot understand love at first sight?!? If there were no paranormal elements in the story, I would agree that the insta love in this book is SUPER fast. But the story is filled with out of the norm things, so why is insta-love so frustrating to people?

Ok, so rant over. Jenna escapes from a cult who was keeping her prisoner to use her talent. She meets Issac when she tried to steal his car. And then people are shooting them. Literally, the action is non stop from page one. You get Jenna’s story in the snippets she shares as she and Issac grow closer so there is always an air of mystery as to who the bad guys really are. You also get all the DDS guys and their wives in the story so if you read and enjoyed the previous books, you get to see past characters take a roll in Issac and Jenna’s story. Jenna’s naiveté, why understandable given her life, got a bit tiresome at times. That was my biggest struggle with the story overall. Just One Touch is actually a pretty quick read! Honestly, that worked out well for me because I could never find a good stopping point in the plot. I will admit that there are pages upon pages of flowery professions of love that I got bored with real fast. Seriously, there were times when all they did was profess their love for like an entire chapter. Then something would happen and then another chapter of professions of love. While I am obviously willing to accept the insta-love, even I was rolling my eyes at all the love talk. I mean at one point, Issac actually says he feels like he took out his still beating heart and presented it to her. We get it….move on!

If you like a suspenseful romance with paranormal elements, Just One Touch by Maya Banks is a perfect pick for a weekend binge read! Danger, supernatural powers, and fierce love burn on every page!

 

  • POV: 3rd
  • Tears: no
  • Trope: insta-love, supernatural
  • Triggers: View Spoiler »
  • Series/Standalone: series (while its not necessary to read the previous books, I do think you might enjoy it more if you understood the whole series since the characters are fairly unique!)
  • Cliffhanger: View Spoiler »
  • HEA: View Spoiler »
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Books by Susan Stoker, Kaylea Cross, Katie Reus…then you will probably like Just One Touch!

Just One Touch

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Isaac lay quietly in the dark, staring up at the ceiling, his thoughts consumed by the blue-eyed angel in the next room.

Would she be able to sleep? And if she was, did nightmares plague her dreams?

What was it about her that called to a part of his heart and soul that had never been breached before? He could come up with plenty of reasonable explanations, like the fact that she’d saved his life. Or that he’d made it his life’s work to protect the innocent. Or the fact that she was lost in a world of which she had little understanding or knowledge. Or the fact that she needed him.

But the simple truth was that he needed her every bit as much as she needed him, and he couldn’t come up with a reason that made any sense to him.

He’d come across plenty of victimized women who’d desperately needed help, his protection, DSS’s protection, but never had he been even remotely possessive of them. He’d done his job, and it never failed to enrage him and rile his protective instincts.

It was who and what he was; he’d never be a man to stand idly by while a woman was in danger or being abused.

But his angel wasn’t just any victim. She wasn’t just any woman in trouble and in need of protecting. And he had no idea what to do with that realization. He couldn’t even call it a realization, as if he’d just been struck by an epiphany as he lay there with no hope of sleeping. He’d known it from the moment she’d touched him, laid her hands on him, and he’d felt her in the very depths of his soul.

It wasn’t sexual—wholly—because he’d be a damn liar if he didn’t want her with every breath in his body. It was spiritual, and he felt like some hokey fool mooning over things like destiny and fate, but how could he call it anything else when from the moment she’d touched him he’d felt a connection that transcended any physical want or need?

And he was consumed with guilt for having sexual thoughts, lustful, needful thoughts, about a woman child whom he didn’t even know whether she was of an age for him to be having such thoughts about her. She had the innocence of a girl with the body of a desirable woman. Hell, it was obvious that no matter how many years she’d lived in this world, she’d spent the majority of them sheltered, sequestered from the real world. She was either enraptured with or terrified of things that he and others took for granted.

She’d been conditioned.

He frowned. It appeared that at a very early age she’d been indoctrinated. Brainwashed. Taught an alternate reality that was twisted to fit the agenda of the people who’d kept her under lock and key, and they’d proven they would go to extreme measures to retrieve her. She was a valuable asset to them. Irreplaceable.

He wondered when her powers had manifested themselves and as he pondered that question, he wondered if it was what had saved her from a far worse fate. Even the dumbest fucks would realize the enormity of what they possessed in Jenna.

He rolled over to retrieve his cell and punched in Eliza’s number, knowing it was late and that Sterling likely wouldn’t be pleased, but Eliza of all people would understand his suspicions. He needed to bounce some ideas off her.

“This better be damn good,” Eliza growled into the phone.

“Because I was about to be the recipient of the mother of all orgasms, and Wade is just pissed enough to throw my phone in the pool and withhold sex for a week.”

Isaac burst out laughing when he heard Sterling in the background.

“Jesus fuck, woman, can we keep our sex life and your goddamn job separate?”

Interview

1.Describe yourself in five words or less.

Unorganized, melt-down prone, laid back, despise drama & conflict!

2. If you had a theme song, what would it be?

My Give A Damn is Broken

3. Name one thing you won’t leave home without.

A cup of crushed ice

4. What do you like to do when you aren’t writing?

I’m a complete homebody & enjoy hanging out at home with my family every chance I get. It’s rare for me to leave my house!

5. What types of scenes are your most favorite to write?

I love revealing information about various characters personalities and the closeness between them through dialogue. I also always  look forward to writing the dark moment as I love me some angst!

6. What are your favorite types of stories to read?

I love stories that don’t feature a couple who spend the entire book apart or that focus on internal conflict. I much prefer to see the hero and heroine together on the page and to see them working together to overcome external conflict.

7. Are there certain characters you would like to go back to, or is there a theme or idea you’d love to work with?

I absolutely love following up with characters from a previous story whether it’s including them as secondary characters in a newer book or writing a short novella that revisits them so readers can see them after the HEA

8. Is there anything that you would like to say to your readers and fans?

I absolutely credit my readers with my success and my career. They, not me, are why I’ve been able to write close to 80 stories in the 11 years I’ve been writing

Samantha
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