Mind of the Phoenix by Jamie McLachlan

Title: Mind of the Phoenix

Author: Jamie McLachlan
Publisher: Penner Publishing

Genre: Historical Fiction, Fantasy, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller, Abuse

Published: September 28, 2015

My Rating: 5/5

Source: Publisher on NetGalley

Moira is a powerful empath, a psychic graced with the ability to read emotions and memories. Her skill is as much a curse as a gift, for in the harshly stratified city of Braxton empaths are slaves. Clever and beautiful, Moira has learned to rely on no one but herself. Determined to escape life as a concubine, she kills her master, and is imprisoned for the crime.

This could be the end for Moira, but the government has need of her skills. A mysterious serial killer known as the Phoenix has been planting suggestions in his victims' minds that drive them to murder and suicide. To gain her freedom, Moira partners with Keenan Edwards, a handsome young detective, to stop the killer.

Hunting the Phoenix will bring Moira on a more dangerous road than she imagined, forcing her to confront dark minds, twisted moralities, and her growing feelings for the detective.

**I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review**

Moira is an empath, that means that she is gifted with sensing other people's emotions, reading their thoughts, seeing their memories and sometimes even using a little bit of persuasion to play with their minds. But she's not the usual kind of empath, since she possesses more special powers.

As amazing as this sounds, poor Moira lives in a world where all empaths are slaves. People without these abilities own the empaths, branding them with a mark on their face, so that they won't take over the world and control the less fortunate (and yes, that's how I'm referring to regular humans, because being an empath sounds awesome). The least powerful ones belong in the pleasure house, being forced to work as concubines and suffering all kinds of mistreatment.

"I am a Del Mar, property of the pleasure house owner; I am not a person"

People don't know about Moira's special powers, that's why she's a concubine. When she's nineteen, an empath who works for the Elite buys her (these empaths have more privileges than regular ones) and he makes poor Moira's life a living hell, even worse than what she had to go through in the pleasure house, which wasn't even that great to being with. So one day she snaps and kills her master... and gets sentenced to death, waiting in a dark and cold cell for the day when she'll finally be set free. This is where our story begins.

Detective Keenan Edwards is following the trail of The Phoenix, a serial killer that works in very mysterious ways. Keenan may be dealing with an empath, so the detective needs help from someone who might be able to provide more information about these deaths, and so Moira is assigned to this case, in exchange for her freedom and her life.

When we first meet him, Keenan is a complete jerk. He doesn't want Moira on the case and is very rude to her, because he only sees her as a concubine and a murderer... like she had a choice!

Let me just break it down for you, Keenan. Moira is an empath, that means that she's a slave. And slaves are forced to do things. They don't get a say in anything, unless they want to be severely punished. Poor Moira has been forced to be a concubine and she also has to endure people blaming her for it? Shut up, Keenan. Please, just sit down.

And yes, she did kill her master. But the guy was incredibly abusive and he also kept torturing her endlessly. I mean, I don't support murderers, but man, are we really going to blame Moira? I still wonder how she has lasted this long! She's freaking strong!!

But as the story progresses, Keenan gets to know her better and starts being nicer to her, seeing everything she's been through her whole life.

Moira does see this change in the detective, but she finds it really hard to trust him, since she's never had people in her life who cared about her. And she just can't trust men in general, she knows for a fact that almost all men are cheaters, married and betrothed men frequent the pleasure house and this is something she can't stand. Moira also thinks that the world is more evil than good, and plans on escaping as soon as she gets a chance, but her relationship with the detective makes her consider if this would be a wise choice.

The whole thing with the Phoenix is also amazing, we get to meet a lot of interesting characters along the journey, most of them former clients of Moira. And even new murders start taking place. The way things connect to each other and how they have to put the pieces together is so well done, I just wanted to keep reading to find out what the next step would be. The author really did a wonderful job with this book, there are just so many stories to be told and we find out about each of them at the right time.

There's also the way that people's minds are described and that was something I did not expect, I just thought empaths could read thoughts and that that would be it, but they can enter other people's minds and they all resemble different things, like labyrinths, staircases, cities and they can also have windows, doors and locks, to keep others from looking at those memories.

All that's left for me to say is that, after I read this ending, I think that there's absolutely going to be a sequel, right? RIGHT??

Thank you for reading! Bye-Bye! ♥