The Hitman and the Psychic

De: Jocelyn Drake, Colleen Helme

Narrado por: Mallory Fuccella

Who would have thought a hitman needed a psychic like me for a bodyguard? Too bad he’s so smokin’ hot that I can’t concentrate, and all my visions involve kissing those amazing lips.

A hitman should be safe from death when he’s the one doing the hunting, but for Stone, everything changes when he becomes the target. He’s not a stranger to enemies, but most people know better than to cross him.

His boss, Quentin Vanetti, decides Stone needs help to stay alive long enough to find the assassin, so he enlists Serenity Jones. The only problem? She’s a psychic.

Stone thinks Vanetti’s lost his mind, but when Serenity proves she’s the real deal, Stone has to play along. Now, he’s stuck with her, and it’s not just the danger of getting killed that’s keeping him awake at night…it’s falling for the psychic that he can’t stop thinking about.

As the assassin closes in, will Serenity’s psychic powers be enough to save him? But even worse... who will save him from her?

A steamy, laugh out loud, forced proximity romance that will keep you hooked until the very end!

©2025 Colleen Helme (P)2025 Colleen Helme

Good story. Good narration but…

I love the Shelby Nichols series. I really looked forward to this book. It is a good story. The narrator is good except for one thing. The voices are all the same and that made it confusing and took me out of the story. I kept having to listen to hard and rewind it to figure out what was going on. It annoyed me. Having said that I found it easy to get through the story.

Good story and narrator.

This is my first audiobook , and it does not disappoint. I already read the book , so I knew the story was good. The narrator is good and easy to understand. It's long , so I did not finish it in one sitting. I know I will be listening to it again.

Stand-alone w/ links to Shelby Nichols Adventures

This is one of those books that you could listen to on two levels. It is inspired by the events of the Shelby Nichols adventures as a book one of the characters there writes. So as a listener, I could choose to listen to it and look for all the winks to the parent series, or I could take it on its own merit.

In this story, Serenity has new psychic powers of psychometry, which is the ability to get visions after touching something. She is contracted to figure out who might be after hitman Nathan Stone, usually referred to as Stone. There are many close calls and scenes that would be great on screen. Helme is good at writing action. The sexual attraction is instant and so strong that I found it off-putting. Once we got into the story and the characters truly started to develop, it was more palatable.

Yes, the reader/listener can consume this book without knowledge of the Shelby universe, but there are a few fun references to it. A throw-away character's name, the mention of Serenity getting shot in the head (the event that causes Shelby's mind-reading in her set of stories). That was fun.

The narrator was new, but that makes sense, too. If Jocelyn Drake was a real person, she wouldn't necessarily have access to Helme's regular narrator. Plus, this gives Helme/Drake freedom to make more stories about Serenity/Stone if she wants to. She's already great at getting out a new Shelby Nichols book in less than 12 months and is going strong.

The narrator nails a few Helme-isms that pop up in the Shelby books, such as downplaying a negative with "Right?" [That's not coming back to bite me. Right?] Also, there's a use of "Oh, baby. Oh, baby," the usual sexytimes phrase from the other series. I find the phrase annoying more than cute, but still... it did pop up in the story. It's fun how the new narrator approached the author voice inside the character voice in a similar manner to Helme's usual narrator (Wendy Tremont King).

Now here's the thing that is definitely a "Your Mileage May Vary" for this book: On its own, the book is okay. I had a good time with it. It's solid. But I also know I wouldn't have sought it out as something that would normally be part of my reading.

Also, even though Serenity and Stone are substitutes for Shelby and Ramos (the steam we don't get to have because she's faithful to her husband in the main series), they are NOT Shelby and Ramos. For me, it didn't have that sizzle that the two have developed over a book series that, at the time of this review, has 18 full-length books, plus at least one Ramos-centric novella. A different reader might find it perfect, so understand your own expectations going in to reading this.

In conclusion: An enjoyable one-off.
Note: I received a free copy of the audiobook from the author in exchange for an honest review.

If only she wasn't married.....

4.25 stars 🌟

I'm not sure how to describe this book because it is a.......knock off, or maybe a spoof (?) on another series - The Shelby Nichols Series. It seems to have the approval of the author - Coleen Helme - so it is apparently okay.

I think if you have read and enjoyed the Nichols series - you will really enjoy this. Part of the original series revolves around a housewife/private investigator who is in the wrong place during a robbery and gets grazed by a bullet in the head and develops the ability to read minds. She somehow finds herself working for BOTH the police - with Detective Dimples - and a mob boss and his hitman Ramos.

Shelby is married but there is quite the bit of chemistry between her and Ramos (no, he is not her husband) but in the series, even though they flirt, she never crosses that line.

In THIS book, she still gets grazed by a bullet, but she develops a different ability - psychometry. (the ability to touch something and get images of who or where the item was last). And in this book, she is going through a divorce and has to work a case with - yep - you got it - the hitman, who in this book is named Stone (not Ramos).

So, we get to finally see Shelby, who has a different name that I can not for the life of me remember, and Stone connect. It is just as zany, and funny with a pinch of steam. And for those of us who have read all 18 books in the original series, it was fun to see a different storyline develop between 2 characters who are never going to connect in the other series.

Not feeling it.

I really looked forward to this coming out. I don’t know who Drake is really but I have a difficult time believing Colleen H had much of a hand in writing this OR she whipped this out with little to no editing. The writing is too immature. I use credits or the equivalent costs only on authors I have previously found enjoyable. I spend quite a bit on books but to make sure there is a good chance I will enjoy them I take full advantage of the free books or I purchase new authors when I can get them on sale.
This means I don’t have to depend on reviews which, in some genre, can be unreliable.

Author needs a thesaurus

In my opinion, it was poorly written she ed the phrase “huffed out of breath” DOZENS of time and other times just “huffs” other repetitive descriptive adjectives were “ saucy”. The other issue with the book was that the two main characters were both written in first person. The narrator did not make any type of differentiation between the voices so therefore at times it was difficult to figure out who was actually speaking. My opinion that taking Colleen Helms “Shelby Nichols” creativity books, and changing the name, showed a lack of creativity.