KIRKUS REVIEW

A woman’s intoxicating tryst with her boss takes a startling turn when she learns that he has some peculiarities and that the two are bound by a supernatural connection in Savage’s debut erotic thriller.

Evening “Eve” Murray, a Canadian working in an unnamed, covert division of the British Secret Service, may have fallen in love with boss Ronan Blackwood. Temporarily filling in as his personal assistant while his regular one is on maternity leave, Eve helps Ronan escape from a would-be assassination. The two duck out to a London safe house, where their mutual physical attraction is satiated with a 48-hour marathon of sex. Monday finds them back at the office, but after someone assaults Eve, the couple reunite and Ronan tends to Eve’s wounds. He, however, is soon troubled by his rare condition. Ronan tells Eve that he’s a Leonox, one of a small group of beings with heightened senses and a necessity for “large amounts of pure protein.” He fears that a process known as the bonding may already have begun between the two. It has the potential to alter the biochemistry on both sides, with a few snags, namely a link so intense that it causes physical pain and sickness when the two are separated. Ronan, finding it hard to control his primal urges with Eve, must decide whether it’s safer to stay with her or leave. Sex scenes in this book are provocative and plentiful, but they also show the evolution of the couple’s relationship. The more Eve craves Ronan’s animalistic hunger, for example, the more he pulls away, especially as his icy exterior starts to melt. Readers will likely guess what a Leonox (essentially) is, but Savage smartly keeps it primarily ambiguous: there’s no origin of the Leonoctes, and even Ronan knows little about the bonding or whether it truly exists. The supernatural elements, too, remain subtle, like the dreams that Eve and Ronan may be sharing. The two floating together “on the dream water” is just one instance of Savage’s rhapsodic prose, where sex that induces a “liquefying orgasm” is more surreal than somatic.

Tantalizing for genre fans but also an honest romance between characters working for the British Secret Service whose attachment is both cherished and inescapable.

About the author:

Katherine Savage lives with "the best man in the world," her husband, and a very spoiled cat in Toronto. She has traveled extensively and continues to do so, writing wherever she goes. She gets no kick from Champagne and does not care for long walks, on the beach or otherwise. Sway is her first erotic novel.