Shades of Dark by Linnea Sinclair

Chasidah Bergman, Chaz to her friends, used to be a decorated officer of the sixth fleet. But her encounter with Gabriel Ross Sullivan opened her eyes to a much darker, wider universe, in which she and the fleet were being manipulated by two men close to the Emperor's Throne.

Now she is a fugitive, having been court-martialed and thrown in jail to die, only to be rescued by Sully, who is not only a monk and a mercenary, but a telepath as well, a Kyi-Ragkiril, feared by most other humans under the epithet "Mind-fucker". But Chaz doesn't fear him. In fact, she is in love with him, and has entered into a Ky'saran link with him, becoming something very much like the other part of him, and he the other part of her.

But he isn't the only Ragkiril on board, as a blind Stolorth, the race who all have mind-powers, and who are the ones who gifted much of the terminology of mind-powers to the humans and the galaxy at large is on board, a blind monk named Ren. Ren has very few powers and is more like an empath than an actual telepath. According to the usual rules of his people, he should have been killed shortly after his blindness became apparent, but was saved to become a harmless monk. Though he isn't able to mind-scan anyone, he serves as a blind for Sully to hide his powers behind, letting people think Ren is the Kyi-Ragkiril rather than himself.

As they travel through space in Sully's ship, seeking to bring down the two men most responaible for the crisis afflicting the Empire, Tage and Hayden Burke (Who happens to be Sully's cousin), they find a problem of their own on board. At least one of Sully's crew has sold them out to the forces who would bring them down, and it is imperative that they find the spy before he or she can cause them any further problems, and on top of that, the two conspirators have cooked up a plan to draw Chaz out of hiding by using her own brother, who she had only recently made her peace with, against her by charging him with treason for helping her.

Things are made worse when her ex-husband, Phillip Guthrie, sends her a message saying that her father has decided to save Thad, her brother, by throwing Chaz to the dogs, and urging him to cooperate with the government forces. But as the situation unfolds, Thad and Burke seize their chance to take power, dissolving the council of Admirals and trying to arrest or imprison any military officer who will not back them as traitors to the Empire.

Meanwhile, Chaz and Sully try to bring down the two conspirator's secret weapon, genetically engineered super soldiers who are little better than killing machines, and who are birthed out of the bodies of female aliens called Takans. Since birthing these creatures, called Jukors, kills the Takans, Tage and Burke have been kidnapping the Takan women, which caused a backlash among the Takan men, who have been killing human women when their own have been found mutilated and dead.

To find the ship that is producing the Jukors, Chaz and Sully will have to accept the aid of another Stolorth, a Kyi-Ragkiril named Del. But Chaz knows that Del will be trouble, and his half-seductive, half-teasing manner around her rubs her in all the wrong ways. But in addition to guiding them to the Lab ship, he is also teaching Sully how to use his Kyi-Ragkiril powers. But can Chaz put up with him long enough to have Sully learn what he needs to know, or will Del's continual stepping over the line cause enough conflict to break the ship apart? And when Sully's secret finally comes out, will the crew that Sully has lied to about his powers, continue to support him as they have before? Or will this be the final break that causes them all to leave? And most importantly, can they find the ship making Jukors and capture it intact with enough evidence to convince people that they were right about Tage and Burke?

Again, since I didn't realize that this book was part of a series, I went in and was immediately dropped into the middle of a story that felt at least partly over, and with a long history. However, it wasn't hard to catch up through the memories of Chaz and Sully, and the voice of the narrator.

Chaz is the main viewpoint character for the book, it's written in first person perspective. We live inside Chaz, whose emotions and feelings we really get to see and experience, and she can sometimes tell what Sully is thinking or feeling through the link that they share.

This book is Science Fiction with a strong element of Romance, at least in the sense that Chaz and Sully are in an exclusive relationship and spend quite a bit of time making love, Unlike some sex scenes, though, having sex tends to energize both of them, a side affect of their mental link and Sully's powers. The tension both inside and outside of the relationship is finely done. Just when things seem to be going great in their personal relationship, outside stuff intrudes, and vice-versa, although the stress in both areas is slowly ramped up the deeper one gets into the novel, right up until the very end.

While the novel ends on a downbeat note, with Sully blinded, either permanently, or temporarily and their link damaged, there is hope that these two will show up again later in the series, as the next book is more about Phillip Guthrie, Chaz's ex-husband, and will also include a strong romantic element (i.e. a romance).

I liked this book. It wasn't one of the best I've ever read, but it was solid and the story held together well. If I recommended it, it would be as part of the series, and I'd say to read the other books before this one, as the heavy slogging to understand what was going on at the beginning of the novel was rather hard work for someone coming into the book as the first part of the series they were reading.