Title: Chameleon
Author: R. Casteel
Published in 2007 by Samhain Publishing
Genre: Science Fiction Romance
ISBN: 1-59998-389-3
Related Books: Mistress of Table Rock
Other Books by R. Casteel: Texas Thunder
Khamiel Roche was back. She wasn’t pleased by the circumstances, but she is home. She knew this day would come, she just thought she had more time. Her mother, Marie, was a brilliant research scientist, and it was this fact that had the greatest bearing on Khamiel’s reasons for leaving home in the first place. Her views, and those of her mother clashed, and at times were diametrically opposing to say the least. Now it was too late to make up. Her mother was gone, and Khamiel is left to clean up the ends of a life spent in research. The research was so important to her mother, and what Khamiel misunderstood was its’ nature. Her mother could have done medical research, devoted her life to cancer, ALS, or any number of other diseases and found cures. Did she? No, she spent her time on DNA research, and in experiments for the military. This is what angered Khamiel more than anything. She felt her mother’s talent was being wasted in futile pursuits when she could be working for the benefit of mankind. She agreed on national safety issues, but Khamiel felt the people were just as important. Without the people, there would be no nation.
Khamiel is distressed to find her mother so ill, and when she passed away, the last thing Khamiel expects is to be trapped in a house with her mother’s best friend Doctor Davidson, and a stranger named Stanley Freeman. The flu Doc says killed her, the H5N9 is dangerous, and it is responsible for more than just her mother’s death needs to be stopped, and the house needs to be sanitized. There is just one problem with that particular little project. The house holds a strategic secret. Marie’s experiments were successful in part, and the results are hidden in her lab below the dilapidated old farm house. Years ago, the life of a General’s wife secured Marie Roche a remote farm, complete with a hidden missile silo, now ultra modern lab facility. This is the legacy she left Khamiel, this is the secret that FBI Agent Khamiel Roche now has the responsibility to protect. Things could get dicey for her with strangers around, and the “secret” in the basement. If word got out about the success of her mother’s research, she could find the remote lab a target for foreign spies, agents, and even terrorist attacks. Not even her mother’s sentient computer, loving called Max, would be able to keep up with all the coming and going…
Stan Freeman was enthralled. When he was given this assignment, he wasn’t too sure about what it would entail, or how he would be able to carry it out. Secrecy was all important, and although the woman was beautiful, and a fellow FBI Agent, she was not cleared for the knowledge he possessed, nor the level he worked. At least that was his impression, but it was changing fast. It was a hard thing to keep his mind on business, with Khamiel Roche so close, and when Stanley discovers she not only knows about the secret, but played by her side as her mother even as a child, he is more than impressed. Her files tell him she is, in her own right, a brilliant agent, but what he doesn’t know is if she knows about the secret research branch of the sector for which Marie worked. It is more than military, it is combined forces research branch which works on an international scale. He is in security, and he knows something she may not. Security HAS been breached. There are now forces out to get Marie’s research, and they will go to any lengths to procure the results.
Khamiel is in danger, and although Stan can’t tip his hand right away, the cards are stacked in his favor. He knows this particular enemy. He knows her capabilities, her methods, and he knows too, she is ruthless. He knows also there is an attraction growing between him and Khamiel which will not be denied. He is determined to fight it, because Stan doesn’t want the entanglements a relationship would cause. If the truth is told, he can’t afford such entanglements because the last time it happened, it almost got him killed. The danger isn’t from Khamiel, but from their common enemy, Woo Lei. There is more there than meets the eye, and Stan will not be drawn in again. He learned his lesson the hard way, and now it is a kill or be killed situation, and he has no true regrets anymore. What went on before is water under the bridge, and he will do what he must do to ensure the survival of Khamiel, the research, and the invisible Number Ten. Khamiel is his responsibility, no more. She can’t be more to him, he cannot and will not allow it to happen. He was down that road with almost deadly consequences, and won’t go there again.
R. Casteel again carries us away into a world where anything is possible. Chameleon is another well written book whose characters you can’t but help fall in love with immediately. Khamiel is headstrong, capable, and brilliant. In her job with the FBI she has proven her self to be an invaluable asset. She has earned every bit of the trust placed in her, yet when her mother dies, leaving her with the sum and total of her research, Khamiel finds herself quarantined, and in the middle of an espionage battle. Stanley Freeman has worked for a special branch the NSA long enough he doesn’t thing anything can surprise him anymore. His boss and best friend’s wife is a very special lady with some very special talents, and that is only the beginning. In spite of his knowledge about Steve and Aleecia, he is not prepared for what he finds n the remote farm house and lab owed by Marie Roche, and padded on to her daughter Khamiel. He was aware of the precepts of her research, but not of the consequences it could and would have on Nation Security. Stan recognizes the import of Marie’s findings, and still is unprepared for the results of an accident which will alter more than just his life.
Chameleon is a romance of amazing depth, but then one expects that of R Casteel as he weaves a tale of love, intrigue, and personal struggle set in an ultra modern environment. A personal experience with a military background, contemporary characters, and carefully crafted settings add to the reality and the immediacy of the story he tells. Chameleon is full of all the best that Science Fiction has to offer, and still maintains its sexy and romantic content for which romance is known. Chameleon, available from Samhain Publishing in 2007. is a book you will not want to miss. R. Casteel is an author whose many books you will have to place on your Keeper Shelf, I guarantee it.
Yours in good reading,
Rose!
Rod Casteel
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