Spider Game by Christine Feehan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Hot But Hero Leans so Dominate That He is a Tremendous Jerk
“Trap wasn’t a man given to fantasies, and the last thing he would welcome into his life was a woman — especially one he was paired with.”
FINAL DECISION: This book is a mixed bag for me. I liked the scenario. I liked how Cayenne knocked Trap out of his comfort zone and I liked her. I even liked their relationship for much of the book except that Trap’s controlling, dominate nature is almost abusive at times.
THE STORY: Trap Dawkins is a Ghostwalker, a soldier who has been enhanced in both a psychic and a physical manner. A loner with a dark past, Trap is known as the Iceman because of his lack of emotion. For months, however, Trap has been obsessed with Cayenne, another experiment with whom he has been paired. Cayenne has been enhanced with spider traits. A deadly black widow and a failed experiment, Cayenne was slated for termination before being rescued by Trap. Trap hates feeling helplessly attracted to Cayenne and thinks that he will discover a way to reverse the attraction but realizes that there is something more than biological attraction between him and Cayenne.
OPINION: It took me a while to write the review for this book. I have conflicted feelings about it. There was much that I liked about it. Cayenne was a successful character for me. Her genetic modification was cool and her methods for operating in the world in a spider-like fashion were intriguing and kept me interested. When she operates in her nature as a huntress, she is strong, self-assured and confident. And she has a venomous bite.
I even liked Trap most of the time. He is haunted with a violent past that hangs over him every day. His isolation is shattered by his relationship with Cayenne and his fears and anxieties often overwhelm him. His reaction to this is my problem. He often treats Cayenne poorly when he is anxious or fearful. Some of that behavior — coldness is excusable. One scene, however, where he becomes somewhat verbally abusive to Cayenne is difficult to forgive because he doesn’t apologize but rather blames her.
Their relationship has shades of dominant and submissive, but without the formalities which makes those types of relationships acceptable. Sometimes these types of overly dominate and possessive relationships also exist in shifter romances, but there isn’t indications here that Trap’s behavior is caused by biology but rather his fears. To me, his misplaced anger and aggression against the innocent Cayenne didn’t work but rather seemed excessive.
This book is incredibly sexual being almost erotica. Hotter than even other books in this series, there is an incredible amount of sexual encounters in this book. As a consequence, the action on the overarching story is shoved into a few chapters towards the end of this book. At this point, I am not sure where the overarching story is even going. It feels muddled at this point and I’ve given up on it making sense. I read these books only for the romance now.
WORTH MENTIONING: I wish there was more time spent with all the previous characters. There is a rich stable of characters but this book is incredibly isolated from the rest of the series.
CONNECTED BOOKS: SPIDER GAME is the twelfth book in the Ghostwalkers series. I think it is impossible to understand the continuing story by just reading this book. The continuing story takes only a couple of chapters but there is no summary to help new readers.
STAR RATING: I give this book 3 stars.