This one was more over the top, and therefore, a little less enjoyable. The bad guys were completely heinous, and shadowy crime syndicates and alternate psychic organizations are so pervasive they're benumbing. ( )

After being disappointed with her last book, The Red Heart of Jade, I was hesitant about reading this one, but it turned out to be a very good read. This is the next book in the Dirk & Steele series about a paranormal detective agency whose members have special powers, i.e. telekinetics, psychic healer, empathics, shapeshifters, etc. TRHoJ had a convoluted plot and not much romance. But in EoH the romance was front and center.

Blue Perrineau is a electrokinetic (he feels electric currents and can stop them at will) who works for the agency and is blackmailed by his father into looking for his half brother. I never really bought this plot device but whatever. He tracks his brother down at a circus act working in Las Vegas. There he meets Iris McGillis a performer who he instantly realizes is a shapeshifter. Iris thinks she is alone in the world after losing her mother. But she has her lions. There is an instant attraction between them that sizzles the pages but they don't actually get together (for sex) until almost the end of the book which was rather disappointing. Isn't there a rule that the H/H have to have sex by the middle of the book? Okay, if there isn't, there should be because I was losing interest and thought about skimming ahead. The sex was quite good when they got around to it. The plot was much tighter than Red Heart of Jade but it had plenty of action and overall I enjoyed it as much as Tiger Eye. (Grade: B+) ( )

"Blue" Perrineau was different. Dirk & Steele had her in their sights and were keeping her safe. However her abilities are making her a target of people who want her for her ability to heal. It's pretty predictable and occasionally quite interesting.

It's not a bad read. ( )

The plot to this one had pretty much everything in it. International organ smugglers? Check. Long-lost half brothers reunited when they both run away to the circus? Check. Multiple mysterious organisations with world-dominating aspirations run by psychics? Check. Still, I quite liked Iris—very loyal, but quite introverted—and Blue, who is patient and nicely angsty and of mixed-race Afghani background! Liu's starting to tone down some of the most obvious of her stylistic tics by now, I think, and all in all this was a nicely diverting piece of fluff ( )

The detective agency facade Dirk & Steele uses to cover its more unusual activities seems to be cracking. Dirk & Steele agent, electrokinetic Blue, in Jakarta on the trail of a flesh-peddling, illegal organ dealer, discovers this the hard way -- at the wrong end of a bomb. Barely recovered, and with his cover blown, he's recalled to the States when his estranged father, international philanthropist Felix Parrineau, dies. But when more than his father's death is a lie, Blue is blackmailed into a desperate mission -- retrieve the brother he didn't know he had, or see Dirk & Steele exposed and his mother deported. The track leads him to Las Vegas and the biggest gamble of his life.

Iris McGillis has a second skin. Golden eyes, and her rapport with the big cats in her circus act have made her a star in Las Vegas, but she's much rather be roaming the wide empty spaces as the leopard that hides within her. When ecoterrorists attack her lions and a sniper takes a shot at her, a stranger knocks her to the ground, saving her life. The man's name is Blue, and he has a secret, too.

Liu's fifth go-round is still solid. She excels at creating characters that aren't simply cookie-cutter versions of earlier players, as well as at taking slightly tired plots and making them sing. This one falls a bit short: it wasn't quite as riveting, but was still a great read. ( )