"Solid sci-fi romance with grand adventure"

C.J. Barry's second book, UNRAVELED, is just as solid Sci- Fi, just as sizzling, sexy romance, with another set of heartwarming characters, as her first book, UNEARTHED. The characters are sharply drawn so they leap off the pages. Her writing was very polished, with techniques that bring a story together and keep the pace moving briskly. The sexy romance sizzled, but it is in her characters' repartee she sparkles brightest. Barry is able to visualise her outer space worlds, so she pulls the reader along on the grand adventure.

Rayce Coburn we met briefly in UNEARTHED, a sexy hunk who was another space Indiana Jones. But he is tired of the struggle, adventure and danger, and wants to build something solid. His dream is a new spaceport, nothing like it in the area, and he has gone to the limit to see the vision a reality. But he needs a lot of credits to bring it to completion on time. And that is where Tru Van Dye comes in. She is a Majj scientist, and she is on a quest to find a lost fortune in alien relics, but to do this she must have Rayce's help. While he welcomes her credits at a point when he really needs them, that it should come from one of the Majj sours his soul. Rayce hates the Majj, blames them for the needless death of his sister, Miranda, and for all the woes brought on poor people of the universe. The Majj sell their inventions and medical breakthroughs to the highest bidders, no matter if innocent people die. Rayce vents his emotions on the immediate target: Tru. Only the desperate need for credits drives him to make a bargain with the female devil.

However, Rayce finds the beautiful Tru a contradiction. She has a near crippling lack of her own worth as a person and displays a very tender compassion that is polar opposites of the Majj. Convinced she is frigid, by her only attempt at physical closeness, she is walking on needles around the sexy Rayce with his blue-green eyes. He rattles her in ways she never knew a man could reach a woman. So she uses a virtual program built around Rayce - a preparation in teaching her how to approach him and win his aid in the quest. Not willing to put herself at risk in the real world, Tru uses the safe secure holo-program to try and find her own sense-of-self sexually. Only, Rayce catches her using the virtual set up, and scared the holo-Rayce might hurt her somehow, he enters the program. Tru never knew the Rayce she found so gentle and caring in the holo-program was the REAL Rayce not her projected image. As they race around the universe, even paying a visit to Earth, trying to find the X marks the spot, they both learn about each other, who they are and who they should be.

Barry delivers, once again, a book that is thoughtful, moving, with winning characters, humour and those little special touches! Eagerly awaiting her third book due in March 2004!

Reviewed by DeborahAnne MacGillivray
Courtesy Sensual Romance
Posted September 11, 2003

Summary

Adventurer Rayce Coburne is a financially desperate man with a taste for vengeance. Scientist Tru Van Dye is a brilliant, single-minded woman with a priceless treasure to find. He's her guide and worst nightmare. She's his client and bitter enemy. Will they survive being...UNRAVELED?

To continue her father's life's quest, Tru Van Dye had to leave the insular colony of Majj scientists where she was raised. She had to find Rayce Coburne. Yet the virtual- reality program she acquired to gird herself against the man's touch, his innuendoes, his alien maleness was for naught--his presence overwhelmed her. With Rayce, all Tru's clever plans, her control, everything she knew was coming...

UNRAVELED

...that's how Rayce Coburne felt. He'd tried to give up treasure acquisition. It wasn't the danger that put him off; he despised dealing with icy customers like the Majj. And Tru Van Dye was worse than the usual-a prissy woman who would blackmail him with all his hopes and dreams. Still, while she was smarter than he, there was a way he could fight back: a kiss. A kiss a day was the perfect strategy. Unless the spinning he felt inside was Tru unwrapping his heart.