"Great erotic story with a paranormal twist!"

David Bone is very happily married and his wife is four months pregnant. Living in the suburbs, Bone is outside mowing the lawn when his wife calls him into the house. Of course, she's not calling him for lunch. As soon as he opens the backdoor, he sees his wife sitting in a chair with a knife being held at her throat. David does not realize there's someone waiting behind the door, and the second assailant knocks him out. When he comes to, he finds himself in the basement, his wrists tied over a pipe and his wife tied wrists and ankles and on the floor. The two men have a weird little jaguar statue and an old book and begin some kind of ritual. Just when Bone thinks he's seen it all, one of the men cuts his wife's throat and takes her blood and marks him with it. Then they kill him as well.

The jaguar god, whose statue and book were stolen, isn't exactly happy with this turn in events and brings Bone back to life to get his revenge.

When Bone wakes up, he's in the morgue. Rummaging around, he finds some clothes, not his own, and the remainder of his things, minus the cash. He feels somewhat different, alive, but not alive. So he hits the streets and begins walking. Eventually, he finds a man with a knife ready to cut a prostitute. When he takes care of the man, the woman thanks him and calls him "Shadow Man". Now Bone is beginning to understand just what he is, but he still doesn't understand his purpose.

Will Bone get his revenge on the two men that killed him and his spouse? What of the jaguar god? What is his agenda?

RITUALS 1: SHADOW MAN is a highly intriguing look at revenge. Jonathan Wright has done a wonderful job of bringing the jaguar god to life in this highly unusual tale. We have an ancient god on one hand, with something up his sleeve, and we have his minion on the other in the person of David Bone. When David wakes up in the morgue, he's knows something is different about himself, but has no idea of what it could possibly be. If you're in the mood for something a bit on the different side with a dominant/submissive flavor, don't miss this one.

Reviewed by Chere Gruver
Courtesy Sensual Romance Reviews
Posted November 24, 2006

Summary

He had it all. A house in the country. A beautiful wife he adored. A baby on the way. Everything a man could ever hope for. He lost everything in the flash of a thin silver blade, a bloody sacrifice in an ill-conceived ritual designed to raise an ancient god.

Now David Bone is a man in search of himself -- he walks, he breathes, but he's lost in the shadows, somewhere between the dead and the living. Then he meets a woman who wakes savage feelings in him, the kind of feelings that can drive a man to risk anything.

And he may have to risk it all, because the Jaguar god has an agenda... Can a murdered man bring his killers to justice, thwart the plans of a malevolent god, and regain his humanity?