Shadowlight: A Novel of the Kyndred

by Lynn Viehl

Book Overview

With just one touch, Jessa Bellamy can see anyone's darkest secrets, thanks to whoever tampered with her genes. What she doesn't know is that a biotech company has discovered her talent and intends to... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0451412788
• Release Date: October 2009
• Publisher: Berkley
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 6.7" x 0.9" x 4.2"

Customer Reviews

A Fabulous New Beginning!

"With a single touch, Jessa Bellamy can see anyone's darkest secrets..." When author Lynn Viehl announced that Stay the Night would be the final book in her popular paranormal romance series, the Darkyn, I won't lie - I was disappointed and unhappy. I loved the series and really wanted to see it continue - it seemed to me there was plenty of room for more stories involving the immortal vampires, the Darkyn, and their something-more-than human lovers, which we've come to learn are often Kyndred, people with special abilities, like Jessa, whose powers are related to the creation of the Darkyn. (I won't say more about the how and why of that, and I'll just tell you that if you haven't yet read the Darkyn books, go pick up the first in the series, If Angels Burn, and start. You'll find all the answers I'm not saying in that series, which is a very unique and refreshing take on the paranormal romance 'vampire' sub-genre.) But as it turns out, Lynn ended the Darkyn series, but only to pick up a spin off series focusing more on the Kyndred (or Takyn). But don't be fooled. The Darkyn are still there. In fact, some of my absolute favorites make an appearance in Shadowlight. (More on that later.) [...] But let's talk about Shadowlight. I'll be honest; I loved her Darkyn series, and I went into this new series fully expecting to love it to pieces. I wasn't wrong. It starts off with a character who isn't mentioned on the cover blurb: Min, a young woman with the ability to see happy glimpses of the future. She's mourning the death of her adoptive father, and starting a future at a new job, and also with the love of her life, a young man she knew she was fated to love from the moment she met him (with that gift of hers.) Unfortunately, tragedy strikes. From there, the story picks up with Jessa - a young woman who has the unique gift to touch people and see, not happy things, but the dark things they want to hide. She calls this stepping into shadowlight. You might see some parallels between Min and Jessa, and there are reasons for that. They are part of the Takyn, a secretive organization of people who have found commonalities together - people with special gifts, who were adopted at a young age, and are now hunted by people like GenHance who want to take their gifts and DNA to make super soldiers. Those who have read the Darkyn books will recognize the backgrounds of people like Min, Jessa, and the other Takyn. We already know that these special people are related to the Darkyn, and that they have enemies. But the Takyn know they're hunted, too, and they take huge precautions to protect one another and avoid detection. But Jessa can't ignore the terrible things she sometimes sees, and so she reports them anonymously to the FBI, a routine that has earned her GenHance's attention, as well as that of the mysterious Gaven Matthias. Matthias is a sexy enigma, a gorgeous man with a mysterious past, and he's determined to save Jessa from capture by GenHance

enjoyable urban romantic fantasy

Jessa Bellamy is a highly regarded job recruiting consultant. Her success is due to her special skill of being able to touch someone and journey into the SHADOWLAND where she learns the dark side of a candidate that they hide from an interviewer. She hides her ability, but also knows there are other Takyn like her. GenHance CEO Jonah Genaro has learned of Jessa and tries to kidnap her. He wants to use her as he has others in an experiment to create a race of supermen via gene manipulation; no one has survived his tests. Mattias rescues Jessa; insisting he just wants to keep her safe, but he has secrets that he conceals from her while Jonah wants her back and some unknown adversary prefers both dead. Expanding the world of the Darkyn with a SHADOWLIGHT into the Kyndred, Lynn Viehl provides her fans with an even more complex realm in her latest enjoyable urban romantic fantasy. The story line is fast-paced and filled with plenty of suspense as Jonah plots to harvest Jessa's DNA while Mattias plans to protect her though he also has other secret plans for her. With a strong lead couple and a terrific in a macabre sense villain, SHADOWLIGHT unveils a dramatic thrilling twist. Harriet Klausner

A mind-twisting start to another deliciously dark fantasy series

Lynn Viehl is doing it again in Shadowlight, a mind-twisting start to another deliciously dark and multilayered fantasy series. Minerva wakes in the morgue, her fiancé dead and her body cursed by Shadowlight, a talent which allows her to see the darkest secrets of every person she touches. Needing to guard against this talent she can't explain, softhearted Minerva reincarnates herself as the steady and exceedingly reserved Jessa who opens a high-end employment agency, screening the best for the best while anonymously reporting the darkest she finds to the FBI. Soon the up-and-coming Jessa is face to face with her largest potential client, GenHance, whose only interest is harvesting Jessa's DNA, and thus her Kyndred talent, and selling it to the highest bidder. Gaven Matthias, the first of the Kyndred who once wheedled his sword for Rome, will to do anything to keep his kind from being exposed and Jessa from being taken, dead or alive. He didn't count on falling in love with the strong-willed woman he kidnapped and who refuses to admit what she is. As the shadowlight grows darker and the dead refuse to stay that way, this story picks up speed with Detective Samantha Brown, her vampire lover Suzerain Lucan and Dr. Alexandra Keller from The Darklyn Series sinking even more twists and turns into this g-force roller coaster ride Viehl sends careening into the next book, Dreamveil, out in June 2010. For the romance novel purist, Shadowlight is not likely to satisfy. But, for those wanting a white-knuckle experience rife with blood-hammering desire and deliciously complex cliffhangers, Shadowlight is sure to please and leave you begging for more.

Couldn't Put It Down!

Seamlessly transitioning into the next arch of her Darkyn universe, Lynn Viehl starts off her Novels of the Kyndred series with a sharp, sexy entry that focuses on genetically altered children known as the Kyndred. Unbeknownst to the Darkyn- templar knights cum vampires, introduced in her first seven book series- twenty odd years ago, a shadow group experimented with children who are neither human, nor Kyn (vampire). Orphans nobody wanted, the children are secretly adopted out and few of them are aware of what they truly are because their powers are only fully activated after they die. Shadowlight centers around Jessa Bellemy and a mysterious man we later discover is a prototype of the Kyndred- a creature far older than the Darkyn themselves. Gaven Matthias has made it his business to collect and protect the Kyndred ever since he awoke from a deep freeze he labored under for thousands of years. When Jonah Genaro, ceo of GenHance, a leading biotech company, targets Jessa, Matthias snatches her before his arch nemesis can capture her first. Jessa has no clue who she is anymore, let alone what she is. She only knows that since she survived a tragic accident, she has a special gift that frightens her- one that enables her to read the dark shadows of a human soul. When a gorgeous man rescues her from an apparent attack, having only herself to trust for so long, she's wary of the enigmatic stranger. Because she doesn't know who to trust, she's determined to escape him- and the odd attraction she feels toward him. So she focuses on getting away from the underground fortress she's imprisoned in, while topside her world is turned upside down by the man who would stop at nothing to get his hands on her- and her gift. When she finally realizes that Matthias is who he says he is, and that her very life is threatened by GenHance, they two team up- along with the motley crew of Kyndred Matthias has collected to aid him. But first they must stop a misogynist monster- and a former employee of GenHance- who blames Jessa for his recent troubles. Meanwhile Jonah Genaro quietly works behind the scenes to advance his own designs- one that started two thousand years ago at the end of the Roman Empire and I suspect will not end till the Kyndred come into their own. Viehl takes the best elements of her Darkyn novels, pares them down, and spins her world into a whole new direction. Smart and darkly sensual, Shadowlight begins Viehls's new series with action, suspense and a dash of mystery and moves the Kyndred closer to the paranormal romance genre and a tad farther from the Urban Fantasy that marked the Darkyn series. (A smart move, because her sexy tortured heroes cry out for a happily-ever-after every time!) Her way of hooking a reader with tantalizing peeks into the ancient world and tying them to modern menaces is what sets her novels apart and makes them stand out from the rest of the pack. I simply couldn't put Shadowlight down once I started!

Another Wonderful Series Begins

In Shadowlight, the first novel of the Kyndred series, Lynn Viehl gives an edge-of-the-seat tale with trouble at every turn and people who learn that everything they thought true just isn't. Oh, and along with this, she gives characters that are three-dimensional to the extreme so you can simultaneously see the story from more than one angle, and understand and sympathize with all the heroes, even when some of them think others are the villains. Lynn doesn't deny you a true villain though. The Kyndred have forces arrayed against them that offer both immediate danger and hint at a greater scenario that will become clear as the series develops. Shadowlight focuses on a group of people gifted with special strengths. They were mentioned in the Darkyn series, were somewhat crucial to it, but this is not just a continuation of Lynn's take on the vampire legends. Where those books focused on an ancient war between Darkyn and their enemies at the same time as exploring the strife within the Darkyn population, Shadowlight starts out in a place of isolation. The Kyndred are not some secret society that both supports and fights among itself. The Kyndred are an experiment gone wrong and scattered to the winds only to recreate faulty memories bit by bit. And that's not the only difference. There is no ancient evil here. If this book is characteristic of the new series, the dangers are much more immediate and driven by modern aims rather than only inherited hatred. Here you have kidnappings, corporate espionage, and the FBI rather than grudges held over the centuries. It's a fresh start in a known world for Darkyn fans, with some familiar faces making appearances. For newcomers, though, Lynn weaves in the necessary details so that this series can act as a standalone as long as readers come in with an open mind. Things in Lynn's world, though they cross over with the traditional, are unique enough that suspension of disbelief is crucial, and giving her that leeway pays back threefold. New readers are likely to discover a world, a series, and an author to delight them for years to come. Powerful, absorbing, and compelling. I'm a long-time reader of Lynn Viehl's novels, and each one seems to push the envelope just a little more with an end product that is exceptional. Though Shadowlight is listed as a dark fantasy, it reads with the rush of an action thriller, a touch of romance, and of course, paranormal, with a dash of science fiction. I can't wait to see what she does next with this world and this new cast of characters. P.S. FTC disclosure: I was given the E-Arc by Lynn Viehl to use as a review copy. My hardcopy has already been preordered.