Oceanside City, California - Present Day

Sidney Morrow had sensed when she woke up to a dog barking in her quiet, dog-free neighborhood, that there was going to be trouble. Finding the dog that matches that bark at her pet boarding business only confirms the trouble. The shepherd mix standing quietly at the gate looks like the dog she saw on the news that morning -- a dog that went missing along with his mistress. The news report speculated that the missing woman and her dog are the second victims of a serial killer. After touching the dog, Sidney believes the reports may be right. When Sidney touches objects or people, she sometimes gets flashes of insight, a curse that has left her an outcast all her life.

Police Lieutenant Marc Cruz isn’t happy to be retrieving the missing woman’s dog, and after meeting the dog’s eccentric rescuer, his mood doesn’t improve. While it’s obvious that the woman isn’t telling the whole story, and he might finally have a lead on the case, he also finds her attractive in spite of her haphazard appearance. When he later learns that Sidney is psychic, he’s just angry. Marc figures that all psychics are charlatans and con artists, with good reason, and he has every intention of proving that Sidney is the same. However, even though she denies being psychic, she proves that she does know things. But, does her information come from a supernatural source, or a criminal one?

DANGEROUS TO TOUCH takes two characters: a lonely misfit and a man who believes himself incapable of emotion, and throws them together in some very interesting circumstances. Marc is a dedicated and sometimes over-enthusiastic cop, and his suspicions that Sidney may be involved in some way with the man who has abused and killed two women make Marc determined to expose her part in the crimes. Being attracted to her throws a definite kink in his plans. Out of necessity, Sidney has few relationships with other people, and her attraction to Marc is surprising, to say the least.

The romance between Sidney and Marc is neatly interwoven with the murder case that brings them together, creating an engaging story. DANGEROUS TO TOUCH is Jill Sorenson’s debut novel, and this is definitely an author I look forward to reading again.

Jennifer Bishop