FIRST TOUCH (Ex Cap Files 1) by Elsa Jade -a review
Amazon.com / Amazon.ca / B&N / KOBO /
ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date February 20, 2023
She lost her childhood and her mother on a wild journey through a jungle deep and dark—now she is losing what’s left…
Freelance illustrator Cecily Serrao has painted herself into a corner—and she likes it there. She has her pastel watercolors, her tiny Portland apartment with nice indirect lighting, and just enough work to let her drift through her perfect quiet life.
Until a supersecret agent with eyes as brilliant gold as the deadly jaguars that haunt her dreams tells her she’s missing one thing: herself.
Ronan Conrad joined the First Responders: Extrasensory Capabilities Unit—freaks for short—to atone for his troubled, misspent youth. When unknown forces as covert as any of his unit’s ops threaten ExCap’s mission, the lieutenant guide controller who usually handles other agents with power and precision finds himself hunting the shadows on his own.
Alone until he finds her: subtle, strong, stubborn—and a cruel reminder of his worst failure, why he can never let anyone too close ever again.
They only share an enemy, and even as a dangerous desire ignites between them in all the reckless hues of passion and peril, they know anything more intimate is impossible. But the freaks of ExCap specialize in the impossible as they fight to survive…FIRST TOUCH.
•••••••
REVIEW: FIRST TOUCH is the first instalment in Elsa Jade’s contemporary, adult EX CAP FILES extrasensory, paranormal, action thriller focusing on the men and women who work at Ex Cap, a covert ops group known as First Responders: Extrasensory Capabilities Unit aka FREAKS. This is freelance illustrator Cecily Serrao, and guide controller Lieutenant Ronan Conrad’s story line.
Told from dual third person perspectives (Ronan and Cecily) FIRST TOUCH follows Cecily Serrao in the wake of the unexpected discovery of her missing corporeal body. A visit to the local grocery store finds Cecily facing Lieutenant Ronan Conrad, a member of Ex Cap, a division of FREAKS, and the man who will help find our heroine’s body. Cecily Serrao is a ‘ghost walker’ with the ability to project her spirit; etheric projection remote viewing with some intermittent psychokinesis-in other words, Cecily’s spirit can be projected into other places but Cecily’s body is missing, and her ‘ghost’ is found wandering at the local grocers. Ronan Conrad is a guide controller, and his duty is to help guide those with supernatural abilities but Cecily is unaware of the true nature of her powers, and Ronan is hoping to uncover the truth about what is happening and why. Working with Ronan, and other supernatural entities at Ex Cap, Cecily and Ronan will go on the hunt when Cecily’s ghost walking reveals a possible connection to a rogue division of Ex Cap. What ensues is the building relationship between Ronan and Cecily, and the potential fall-out when betrayal and madness threaten the people in control.
Cecily Serrao always knew she was something different having spent much of her childhood dealing with Shamans and medicine men in the South American jungles but ‘magic’ had always kept Cecily’s powers under control until she disappeared approximately three weeks earlier without memory of what happened or why. Ronan Conrad never expected to come face to face with an untrained person with the ability to project their spirit and manifest somewhere else. Most people with psychic powers had been corralled or tracked, and in this, Cecily could have been a danger to not only herself but everyone else. Having no idea where Cecily’s corporeal body was taken, Ronan and our heroine must divide themselves in an effort to discover the truth about what happened and why.
The relationship between Cecily and Ronan begins when Ronan finds Cecily at the local grocers. Cecily doesn’t suspect anything is wrong until she finds herself back at her apartment having no memory of what happened or why. With Ronan’s help, Cecily begins to search for answers to her ‘ghost walking’ powers, and the possibility that all is not right with the world of which Ronan works. The $ex scenes are intimate and passionate without the use of over the top, sexually graphic language and text.
There is a large ensemble cast of colorful and magical secondary and supporting characters. We are introduced to Ronan’s co-workers: empath Rosalind Merrick; former Ex Cap Elvis; Colonel Sykes; Captain Brandon Pierce, as well as pyrokinetic Tennyson, and psychic/prescient Zahara Foy. The requisite evil has many faces.
FIRST TOUCH is a story of power and control, madness and delusion, betrayal and vengeance, acceptance and friendships. The premise is intriguing and entertaining, similar in sensation and atmosphere to the X-Men series. The characters are powerful and magical; the romance is seductive. A wonderful start to a new series.
Copy supplied by Netgalley
Reviewed by Sandy
