Mitchell Hunter was literally at the top of the world in his penthouse, a man who had everything: money, brawn, beauty. He was smarter, stronger, faster than everyone else, with only one drawback. Only one third of him was still human. He was trapped in his cyber-enhanced body, with a life that felt to him like no life at all, so that he contemplated jumping off his building. But it probably wouldn't kill him. He was cosmically bored. Until the night he wasn't supposed to be at home, and he happened to see the mutant woman breaking into his safe. The mutant woman who couldn't be seen by artificial means. The mutant woman with the blue hair who slid herself directly through the walls of his safe. When it was closed.

Jamie Day knew what it was like to be different. She was a mutant. The mutants who weren't idiots died young, were squirreled away, or were killed. It wasn't a lucky thing to be, but fighting your whole life just for the right to be alive tended to define your personality. Jamie Day didn't have much but what she did have a lot of was personality. Only she couldn't understand why--when Mr Wonderful caught her stealing his giant diamond--he was willing to just give it to her--a mongrel nobody from the districts--in return for her spending the weekend with him. So they got the sex out of the way, quickly because they were of the latter half of the twenty-first century after all and no one needed dancing or dining. Of course, Mitchell was really good at it, which was a nice enhancement to have in a cyber hero. He was fascinated with her, from her molecular phasing to her dark blue pubic hair which she, fortunately, hadn't dyed red, white, and blue for the fourth of July. Mitchell fed his hungry little thief really well: steak, salad, and bowl after bowl of peach ice cream. You know what happens when you feed a stray.

I found this little story--this twenty-first century Pretty Woman--uncommonly sweet. Two needful, lonely characters, trapped in their lives. Why do these two oddballs get together? Because he is sad and lonely, and because, as Jamie says, " . . . it was nice. It was nice to be here in Mitchell's bed, cuddled into his side, listening to his deep breathing. It was comfortable and warm, and her life had had few moments of comfort and warmth."

Jamie is the archetype of the saucy guttersnipe, and Mitchell is the archetype of the poor little rich boy, with just a little alpha male thrown in. So this story delivers some humor, some really engaging characters, some romance, some villains threatening our roguish heroine, and Mitchell does a pretty good imitation of the cavalry. If ever two characters were made for each other, it was these two. If we could give an extra half Quills, this would be a 4 1/2. (And actually, now we can!) Engaging, funny, charming, light and dark at the same time. I eagerly await Ms. Davidson's next book.
Reviewed By: Allie B
© Sept 2004