Anyone who knows me knows I like some racy space adventure. What you might not know is that I also like the more terrestrial based stories—if they are told really, really well. Unchained Memory by Donna Frelick leaps right over that bar.

Asia is coming home one night when something strange happens. She wakes up on the side of the road and three hours have passed but she has no memory of what happened. She arrives home to find her house burning, her children dead, and her husband demanding to know where she’s been. But Asia doesn’t have the answer. Answers are exactly what she’s looking for when she meets Ethan. Asia has been through divorce and tried to restart her life, but she can’t escape the past. Ethan  is her new therapist, sexy and kind and determined to help her find some peace from her nightmares.

As their sessions progress the story of what happened to Asia in the missing hours is revealed. I don’t want to be spoilery so I’ll just point out that the blurb mentions “mind control, alien abduction and interstellar slavery.” So there’s a clue! By the end, they are on the run together with mysterious men with guns after them.

The story has a bit of an x-files feel to me. Everything looks normal on the surface, but you know there is something scifi going on beneath the surface.

Asia and Ethan are great characters. Very real and easy to connect with. The author handles the therapist-patient issues carefully to keep Ethan ethical. That also means the love story is a slow burn at first, but once it hits—bang! This author can really write the love scenes. They’re sexy and grounded in sensuality rather than sensationalized. The sort of thing you want to hand to your partner and say, “here, read this.”

I heartily recommend Unchained Memory. It is definitely going on my electronic keeper shelf.

Genre: SciFi Romantic Suspense
Publication date: February 24th, 2015
Length: 462 Pages
Blush Quotient: Red

Disclaimer: This book was provided by the author in exchange for a fair review. Book available at Amazon and other retailers.