Marjorie M. Liu, Tiger Eye

Tiger Eye

Marjorie M. Liu

Love Spell, Mar 2005, $6.99, 352 pp.

ISBN: 0505526263

In Beijing, Dela Reese searches the various booths of the Cheap Dirt Market until she purchases an ancient-looking riddle box for a ridiculously low price. She takes the box to her apartment, but is unable to read the inscription that looks like gibberish to Dela. However, she manages to "open" the box; in the next nanosecond a handsome seven foot warrior offers to obey her commands.

Dela tells Hari he is free, but he says she cannot release him because part of the curse is that he must stay near his owner. He explains that the curse began two millennium ago when a magi stole his skin and killed his sister. When an assassin tries to kill Dela with a knife she made, he intercedes though she never commanded him to do so. As Hari finds Dela unique and different than any previous owner, they fall in love, but someone wants her dead and if they succeed the trouble with Hari is that they would own him unless Hari can end the curse by finding his skin.

TIGER EYE is an exhilarating, fantasy, romantic suspense that enables the audience to glimpse modern-day Beijing. The genie in a non-bottle container rescued by a courageous heroine is not a new theme. Sherrilyn Kenyon did this in FANTASY LOVER. However, Marjorie M. Liu makes it feel as if she is the first to use this concept because of the interactions between Dela and Hari. She adapts, perhaps because of her curse, to "hear" people's laments while he struggles to accept her honest efforts to liberate him without personal gain; together they make for an exciting tale.

Harriet Klausner