Raina Bowen has given up hope that Wizard will show up and deliver the necessary goods of a trucking license that will help her to win a boatload of money. The money that will buy her freedom for her to live somewhere warmer than the great northern wasteland, and will keep her sister safe in her school until she is old enough to come out and live on her own. As she leaves the diner where she was to meet him, she sees that he is coming into the establishment. The only problem is that he is being pursued by a gang that will beat him senseless, and then she’ll not only have to live with the man’s death on her hands but she’ll lose the license that she wanted. Going against her better judgment she picks him up on her scooter and saves him from the beating that she is sure awaited him. Her problems only begin when she picks him up and now she must decide if she’ll let him stick with her or dump him and go on her own for the contest.

Wizard is an experiment. He has some human emotions, but they have been learned and are not instinct like they are with a human. He has the license that Raina wants but there are a lot of things about him that Raina doesn’t know, things that may put her in grave danger if she goes with him. Wizard knows what he must do, but he finds himself liking Raina more and more each day that he spends with her. She actually understands his jokes, and she makes him smile which is a very unusual thing for him. Wizard must decide if he is going to stick with his original plan or will he tell Raina the truth about their shared history and make her hate him in the process.

Eve Kenin writes with a style that is unique, and her characters become real to you as you read. She has become a favorite author after reading only one book of hers. Her individuals jump out of the page at you, and you don’t read the book, the characters speak to you and you experience what they are going through as the book progresses. I don’t know that I’ve ever read a book that was so descriptive in the scenery and feelings of the characters. It would be impossible to pick a favorite character between the hero and the heroine. Wizard is so laid back in his responses and Raina wants to wring his neck, and I laughed myself silly at them so many times. It’s the work of a truly great author that she had me in tears near the end of the book after I laughed myself silly over some of the things that Raina and Wizaard did and Eve Kenin fits into that category. It’s very hard for me to believe that I’m giving a futuristic book a Recommended Read but this book deserves it, and I’ll be searching for more books from Ms. Kenin.

Reviewed by: Missy