Title: Secrets at Midnight
Author: Nalini Singh
Series: Psy-Changeling #12.5, Psy-Changeling Season One #12.5
In: Night Shift (Nalini Singh)
Rating Out of 5: 4 (Really good read!)
My Bookshelves: Dark fantasy, Paranormal romance, Shapeshifters
Pace: Fast
Format: Novella
Publisher: Berkley
Year: 2014
5th sentence, 74th page: How could she do anything but adore him?

Bastien Smith is frustrated. A changeling male should be able to track his mate anywhere—through fire and hail, snow and rain. But he keeps finding and losing her scent in the city streets, ever since he first became aware of it two weeks earlier, when the elusive fragrance awakened the leopard within him…

Then Bastien is suddenly confronted with his prey. Kirby is an all-too-human woman who wants Bastien just as much as he wants her. But he can’t deny what his body and senses are telling him: there is a raging chaos inside of Kirby that he doesn’t understand, secrets that whisper awake at midnight and cause her terrible pain. If they’re to have any chance of forever, then he must solve the mystery that is Kirby…

Like a lot of people who believe in true love, I enjoy a nice, sweet paranormal romance. Especially when it’s a short story about falling in love, finding your family and getting your own kind of happy ending. And if it’s characters that have a difficult past and have always struggled to fit in with the rest of the world. Not only is it a reminder of the fact that we can all find our place in the world, but it gives me hope that in spite of your scars, you will find someone that accepts all of them. Kirby is one such heroine – she is terrified of intimacy and struggles to trust, but has a sweet heart and kind demeanour that makes you want to give her a huge hug and bring her into your own family.

Bastien, although a little too overboard and possessive for my tastes, works away at all of these insecurities and shows what true love and support is all about. Singh brilliantly intertwines the lives of these two characters to tell a sweet little tale about finding one’s place in life and embracing happiness when it is thrown at you.

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Shield of Winter ->

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