OUTCAST

Author: Cheryl Brooks ISBN: 9781402218965 6/2009 PARANORMAL/FUTURISTIC Publisher: SOURCEBOOKS

Sold into slavery when his planet was destroyed, Lynx was enslaved in a harem. He is a favorite due to his feline gene, which gives him remarkable sexual powers, but after ten years, Lynx is exhausted. Thrown out without a penny, Lynx is bitter and anti-female. He emigrates to a new planet but can only find a job with a female rancher. Bonnie's boyfriend has left with all their money and she needs help with the ranch. Lynx is cynical, but honest, and though he has made it clear that he wants no part of a romantic relationship, Bonnie can't resist him. She finds out about his impotence and becomes determined not to let such a beautiful and sensual young man go to waste...

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

Cheryl Brooks sets her paranormal romance, OUTCAST (The Cat Star Chronicles #4), on the planet Terra Minor, where Bonnie Neurath is in a bit of a pickle. She’s six months pregnant and her baby's daddy has deserted them. She has a lot of manual labor on her farm, with a nearly year-round growing season and a flock of angry, meat-loving enocks penned up, laying their large eggs which in addition to her wheat and vegetable crops, pay the bills. And that’s all she’s got, because that low-life, Sylor Halen, copped all their nest egg as well as her grandmother’s engagement ring when he fled domesticity for his traditional role of petty thief, murderer, and all around mischief maker. Thank the heavens they never married! He’s the last in a string of bad boy relationships for Bonnie and she’s pretty much through with men. Except whomever the immigration officer can scrounge up for her as a farm hand.

And look what the cat dragged in! Oh! But it is a cat. Lynxsander Dackelov at your service. He’s from the Cat Star, which was destroyed by Nedwuts, presumably because the feline-style men on that planet have not only sexual prowess of epic proportions, but secrete fluids that are hormonally charged and quite an aphrodisiac. He’s only at the farm because Terra Minor has strict immigration laws that require either property ownership or a solid job, or you get sent back out into the cruel universe. He’d rather do anything but work for, or even near, a woman, after spending ten years as a sex slave for 50 female slaves who passed him around almost 24/7 while withholding food whenever they wanted to punish him. Well! A woman-hating guy and a man-hating gal should get along just fine. Right?

Brooks sets up these two lost souls and we know that they really are what the doctor ordered for each other, and it is such a great story watching them heal from all the wounds to their psyches. Did I mention that poor Lynx is so battered by his maltreatment at the hands of all those women, that he’s been rendered impotent? To make matters worse, even though Bonnie tries not to be aroused by Lynx, his sensitive nose can tell when she is, and so he stays as far downwind of her as he can while still repaying her kindnesses by working hard, coming up with innovations on the farm, and never letting her in that deadly enock pen again. As they become closer, Lynx surprises her with the news that even though the healer won’t be able to help with her baby’s delivery, he knows plenty about birthing babies and will assist her in her time of need. The big fly in this ointment is Sylor. He may have disappeared, but he’s still there, and he wants to have his place back in Bonnie’s life. Thankfully, even though he can’t be seen, Lynx can smell that dirty rat and takes precautionary steps to protect Bonnie and the baby.

OUTCAST is a beautiful story of love and redemption. Although it is part of a series, it absolutely stands on its own with enough threads of past and future stories to keep it all connected. There are plenty of naughty bits, despite Lynx’s disability, and lots of fun surprises for the reader. I am positively in a frenzy now to read the next book in the series!

Susan Barton