MAXWELL'S SILVER HAMMER

Review

MAXWELL’S SILVER HAMMER - Ciana Stone

The Hussies

ISBN: 978-1-41991-705-9

July 2008

Erotic Paranormal Romance

Present Day

Graduate student Nikki Morgan desperately needs a job, and when two strangers explain how important it is for Nikki to take a position in the Weston household, she agrees to an interview. Richard and Helen Weston, the utra-rich couple hoping to hire her to care for their mentally-challenged son, give Nikki a weird vibe, and when she asks to meet Maxwell before agreeing to be his companion, the Weston’s reluctance only makes things odder. Though the couple doesn’t bring their son to her, she does meet someone else: the man who she’s been dreaming about for the past year. As if seeing the man that Nikki knows in her heart is The One isn’t surprising enough, he turns out to be Maxwell Weston, her charge.

An Army Ranger, Maxwell returned from Iraq injured, and days later an intruder was killed in the Weston home. The next morning Maxwell had no memories of his past and was unable to speak. Now, years later, Maxwell is a prisoner in his own home, still mute, and trusting nobody except the elderly grandfather that his parents make sure he doesn’t see. His only escape are the erotic dreams he has of a nameless woman, but even those are a torture, as he knows that none of them could come true. Then she becomes his newest caretaker. Is she another one of his parents’ spies, or is it possible that Nikki is the woman to help Maxwell deal with his past and give him a future?

MAXWELL’S SILVER HAMMER is a gripping, almost gothic, erotic tale. Nikki’s area of study includes religious artifacts, and when a man approaches her about her thesis and the possibility of retrieving antiquities that some believe to be nothing more than myth, she’s intrigued. This man believes that the artifact is hidden on the Weston estate. The second person to convince Nikki to work with the Weston’s is Danu, the leader of the Hussy Warrior Hunters. Danu explains that Nikki is one of the Hussies, and her assignment is to protect Maxwell. Obviously not the ten-year-old Nikki was expecting, Maxwell is a challenge in more ways than one. How is it possible that the man she is sure is her soulmate can be a child in a man’s body? Or is he? Occasional glimpses of emotion on Maxwell’s face have Nikki wondering just how brain-damaged he is.

What had seemed to be an easy search for a hidden antiquity quickly becomes complicated. Between the sheer size of the house, the attentions of Richard Weston, and Maxwell’s behavior, Nikki realizes that the Weston house is full of mysteries, but where should she start? The erotic daydreams she slips into whenever faced with Maxwell only make things more difficult, but as a Hussy Warrior Hunter, Nikki will need to be up to the challenge.

A complex mystery combines with likeable characters in unusual circumstances and makes MAXWELL’S SILVER HAMMER an interesting story that I highly recommend.

Jennifer Bishop