Barbarian’s Touch by Ruby Dixon (originally published digitally in 2016 and republished in trade paperback in 2024) is the seventh book in the Ice Planet Barbarians series. Each book is easily read as a standalone as the author gives a synopsis at the beginning to catch the reader up on what has already happened. Of course, there are some loose threads between books, mostly introducing secondary characters and giving the reader a good hint of which couple will feature in the next story. I’ve been enjoying the series and particularly like how certain issues are dealt with, as I’ll detail below.

As a quick primer, human women were abducted by aliens and crash landed on an ice planet inhabited by the sa-khui, a tribe of massive blue-horned aliens who live in caves. The sa-khui themselves appear to be a species that also crash landed on the planet decades (or more) ago, their spaceship becoming what they call their ancestor’s cave with a computer that carries a library of all known languages. The computer is able use a laser beam to insert language into the brain of the recipient, which is how the humans and sa-khui can understand each other. The sa-khui carry a symbiotic life form, the khui, that helps them survive in the harsh environment, and the female humans must also take on a khui symbiont. A consequence of carrying the khui symbiont is that a pair that would make good mates have their khui inside resonate (hum/thrum) to each other, causing intense desire between the resonating pair that then results in them having lots of sex and becoming a committed couple (with the hope of children to come). While there are plenty of sa-khui couples (enabling the propagation of the species), the human women, since they now carry the khui, can also be mated. In Barbarian’s Mate (book six), Josie (human) and Haeden (sa-khui) discovered the wreckage of a spaceship in which two human women were trapped in stasis tubes. At the start of Barbarian’s Touch, a rescue party has been sent to revive the women.

Rokan is part of the rescue crew and has some psychic abilities. He gets “knowing” feelings about weather, when someone is in danger and just general premonitions, both positive and negative. He knows that it’s important for him to be with the rescue crew, though he doesn’t know why. The sa-khui, with one human, Kira, find the ship and release the women, sisters Lila and Maddie, from the stasis tube. When Rokan sees Lila, he is thunderstruck by her and believes he is meant to be with her. But his friend, Hassan, also single, is desperate for a mate and has his eyes on Lila, too.

Lila wakes up to a cold planet with no knowledge of what has happened to her and her sister. She only knows that she is no longer on Earth, that there are blue devils surrounding them, and that her cochlear implant is gone, rendering her deaf again after being able to hear for the last ten years. Fortunately she and her sister are fluent in sign language, and Maddie is able to explain to her what Kira tells them as they adjust to their new surroundings. The rescue crew begins to head home, stopping to get the women their own khui symbionts so that they, too, will survive the harsh conditions. On the way back to the home cave, Hassan kidnaps Lila and takes her to a far away hunting cave, hoping to force resonance between them. But Lila makes no attempt to encourage him and her khui stays silent. Once the band (minus Lila and Hassan) make it back to their home cave, Rokan takes off in search of Lila. He is able to find her and brings her to the ancestor’s cave where Lila is able to input sign language with a visual monitor so that Rokan (and the rest of the tribe, eventually) can learn her language and communicate. When Lila and Rokan begin to resonate with each other, Rokan is overjoyed, having already developed strong feelings for Lila. Lila is unsure though, and heartbroken to think that the feelings she has for Rokan have been forced by resonance and aren’t real. Can Rokan convince Lila that their feelings are genuine?

With each new story the worldbuilding continues, adding new details about the planet and its inhabitants. There are sky-claws (giant birds) that attack the sa-khui, as well as metlaks which Lila describes as Yeti (abominable snowmen). There’s a reminiscence of Clan of the Cave Bear here, with the metlaks being Neanderthals and the sa-khui being the Cro-Magnons. At one point in the story, Lila is briefly taken by the metlaks and discovers they have their own type of sign language and some rudimentary intelligence (which the sa-khui are hard pressed to believe, thinking of them as purely animals).

What I most enjoyed about the story though, is Lila’s character growth from the frightened young woman at the start into an independent and courageous one who insists Rokan teach her survival skills so that she can be an equal partner. Her deafness is as much a part of her as any other trait and Rokan never sees it as a weakness, and he’s thrilled when he’s able to converse with her fully after she inputs her language into the computer for him to learn. I found it interesting and uplifting that there is never any mention of curing Lila of her deafness, but rather having others learn to communicate in her way. And Lila, when she finally makes it back to the home cave with Rokan is overwhelmed that the other women have learned welcoming signs from Maddie so that she feels a part of the tribe. Lots of readers got into this series because of the attentiveness of the males to female pleasure and the sexy scenes (myself included). But the series has a lot more going for it than just that, and I’m happy to keep tagging along for the ride. Lila and Rokan’s happy ending paves the way for Lila’s sister Maddie to realize that now that she doesn’t have to take care of her younger sister anymore, she can make a life of her own. Her story is next!