Title: Sightlines (The Community #3)
Author: Santino Hassell (Twitter)
Rating: Super Highly Recommended
Genre/Category: Urban Fantasy, Queer Fiction/Romance, Psychics
Release Date: October 9, 2017

Publisher: Riptide Publishing

Order Here: RIPTIDE PUBLSHING 

Note: I received a free copy of this novella from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All of the views in this review are my own. There are mild spoilers in this review.

Content Notes: Sightlines has scenes of torture, child/spouse abuse, implicit and explicit hints to eugenics and “breeding” psychics, and threats of sexual assault (but also most people aren’t consenting to the program for creating more psychics…)

Chase Payne is a walking contradiction. He’s the most powerful psychic in the Community, but the least respected. He’s the son of the Community’s founder, but with his tattoo sleeves and abrasive attitude, he’s nothing like his charismatic family. No one knows what to make of him, which is how he wound up locked in a cell on the Farm yet again. But this time, the only man he’s ever loved is there too.

Elijah Estrella was used to being the sassy sidekick who fooled around with Chase for fun. But that was before he realized the Community wasn’t the haven he’d believed in and Chase was the only person who’d ever truly tried to protect him. Now they’re surrounded by people who want to turn them against their friends, and the only way out is to pretend the brainwashing works.

With Chase playing the role of a tyrant’s second-in-command, and Elijah acting like Chase’s mindless sex toy, they risk everything by plotting a daring escape. In the end, it’s only their psychic abilities, fueled by their growing love for each other, that will allow them to take the Community down once and for all.

 

Seriously, I have yet to find a Santino Hassell book that I didn’t devour within hours.

There’s something about his prose…

He stitches his characters’ lives so seamlessly into worlds that seem so much like our own that I half imagine that if I went to New York, I could find myself bumping into them just on my way to buy a beer.

Reading Sightlines is a lot like riding a rollercoaster in the middle of the night. In the dark. While you know that there’ll be twists and turns and some drops, there’s no way to tell when they’re coming until you’re on them. It’s one hell of a thrilling book and Hassell is excellent at balancing the darker aspects of the unfolding world with making you care about the characters that live in it.Read More »