Reviewed by Dan
TITLE: Hidden Gem
AUTHOR: Lissa Kasey
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 245 Pages
BLURB:
Misaki “Aki” Itou is a psi—a person with mutated DNA granting him psychic abilities. He’s also a contracted companion—a whore. It may not be the perfect profession, but having a roof over his head, food to eat, and not being subjected to torture is a dream come true. He is the top companion at the Hidden Gem, and it makes him enough money to buy the prettiest, most sparkly shoes he can find.
Shane McNaughton is an Irishman who survived the Third World War and works as a cop. Head of Missing Persons, he’s good at finding people, but after the plague of the Third mutated his DNA, he has a hard time letting anyone see the monster inside. He’s been paying for Aki’s services for two years, both the psi and the sexual kind, but he wants more from the companion.
Shane needs Aki’s ability to see into another person’s past to track down a serial killer murdering the children of rich and powerful men, but the more they work together, the clearer it becomes that they are linked through a darker past than either of them realizes.
REVIEW:
Hidden Gem was one of those books that I wasn’t sure about at first. It took me a little while to figure out what was going on with the story and the characters. But once it clicked, I didn’t put the book down.
At the beginning of the book we meet Misaki, a refugee from a prison camp in the South who has made his way over the border into the North. He is lost, cold and starving when two men find him on the street. Paris and Bart are from the Gem, a whorehouse in City M. Paris bets Bart that he can make something from the lost boy and turn him into the prize of the Gem. The only problem…Misaki is a Psi, a mutant product of the last world war’s effects on genetics, most of those effects brought on by greedy men in the South during the war.
One thing that I never got a good handle on in the book was World War Three and the sides. It appears from the book that the southern half of the US and northern half were enemies and that nuclear weapons and genetic weapons were used, but the background is pretty vague. I would like to have seen some sort of world building somewhere, but didn’t find it.
After Misaki is rescued, we jump forward a couple years. “Aki” is now the Hidden Gem. The most sought after, but most unattainable whore at the Gem. He, his friend Candy and two other boys dress as girls, and provide their services to the wealthy men who come to the establishment.
One of Aki’s regular clients is a detective named Shane McNaughton. Shane also has a mutation from World War Three. His came from a plague that the south released against the north which mutated the survivors into shape shifting mutants. Shane becomes a large wolf. Unlike werewolf stories, the shifts don’t get easier. Every time there is lots of blood, lots of skin and bones tearing apart and lots and lots of pain. Shane, like every other mutant of his kind, has a safe room in his basement where he locks himself during his shift so he doesn’t hurt anyone.
Shane has been seeing Aki for two years, both for sex and also for help from his Psi abilities. Now Shane is working on a case where kids are disappearing, then being found dead with their eyes torn out. He comes to Aki for help, but what Aki sees is so bad that it causes him to end up in the hospital hemorrhaging blood through his nose.
When the powers that be come down on Shane and he has to make a change, can he make a change that includes Aki? I really enjoyed the start of a relationship between these two men. One a huge, hairy, rude, wolf shifting mutant, cop; and the other a cross dressing, pretty, Psi mutant, whore.
The story got better and better the closer it came to the end. All I can say is that it better not be over! I’m really hoping for a sequel to tell us what happens next! I’m really hoping to know what happens with Shane and Aki, and how Candy’s plans come out! I recommend you give this book a read if you’re into post-apocalyptic sci-fi with mutants, cops and bad guys!
RATING: 
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