Hidden Gem by Lissa Kasey

Hidden Gem - Lissa Kasey

Yes, it was pretty awesome all the way up to 80% :)

There is a rentboy Aki (Of course I am thinking of The Finder Series!), who is a psi with amazing, off the scale abilities (Think Among the Living.) 

Aki helps one of his clients, Shane - a detective and a shifter (Think Prey. There is even a Paris, but not in the same capacity), with his murder investigations by connecting with the victims through personal objects.

Aki is very fragile not only in shape and stature, but mentally as well. He went through hell in one of the South concentration camps for people with his abilities. Yet by some miracle he survived and was able to escape.

Paris and Bart found him on the streets of a northern City M, starving and freezing, and took him in to be the highest paid rent boy in the entire city. However the most Aki does is flirt with the other rent boys and give his clients blowjobs. He loves his his job, he is comfortable, and thinks of the brothel as his home, the other boys, the security, and the owner as his family.

He is also in great danger, because someone from the South, someone who resembles Aki close enough to be his brother, is looking for his friend/roommate, also a rent boy, and someone else is murdering kids with psi abilities.

Lissa lets us to be a step ahead of the characters, which didn't bother me at first, but did start getting on my nerves by the end of the book.

The story turns very weird and complicated in the end, with quite a few contradictions. I didn't care much for that part ,but could have used a few more pages just to see the dust settle a little bit more.

UPDATE:
Just re-read my review and realized that there was not enough (or too much, depends on the way you look at it) of Detective Ino. Why was he even in the book? At one point we get a lot of information about him, a sense of danger, but ultimately his role in the story is one of the very minor ones. Was he intended for something grander originally? 

I am torn between 3 and 4 stars.

Mammarella

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