Title: Wolf Rain
Author: Nalini Singh
Series: Psy-Changeling Trinity #3
Rating Out of 5: 5 (I will read this again and again and again)
My Bookshelves: Dark fantasy, Paranormal romance, Shapeshifters
Dates read: 3rd – 5th January 2020
Pace: Medium
Format: Novel
Publisher: Hachette New Zealand
Year: 2019
5th sentence, 74th page: His energy filled the space to bursting.

Kidnapped as a young girl, her psychic powers harnessed by a madman, Memory lives in a caged and isolated existence… until she comes face-to-face with a wolf. Labelled an empath by her bad-tempered rescuer, Memory knows that her ‘gift’ is nothing so bright. It is a terrible darkness that means she will always be hunted.

But Memory is free now and she intends to live. A certain growly wolf can just deal with it.

Alexei prefers to keep his packmates at bay, the bleak history of his family a constant reminder that mating, love and hope are not for him. But Memory, this defiant and fearless woman who stands toe-to-toe with him, awakens the most primal part of his nature – and soon, he must make a choice: risk everything or lose Memory to a murderous darkness that wants to annihilate her from existence…

Normally as soon as I receive the next book in the Psy-Changeling Trinity, I read it the moment it arrives on my doorstep. Cover to cover. Not even pausing to eat (I eat, but I’ve gotten very good at doing so whilst reading). This time I waited a little bit longer. I was trying to show that I had self-control or some such nonsense… what a mistake. I did manage to stretch my reading over two days instead of less than 10 hours, so that was helpful for the whole adult thing… but otherwise I feel that I exercised some great self-control when reading such a phenomenal book.

One thing that always surprises me about this series is that at no point has it gotten same-same. Normally when I’m looking at such a large series, especially one that is a romance, you tend to start falling into tropes. Which just means that I have to take a few more breaks between each story. Not so with this. I’m not even sure at this point how many Psy-Changeling books, novellas and short stories I have just absorbed. But I do know that it’s a lot. And that I’m seriously grateful for them. 2019 was super crappy, and this was the first book of 2020. What a beautiful way to start the year.

One of the aspects of the storyline in this series which stops it from getting stale is the overarching battles and mystery being faced. There are just enough hints of another being and another battle being fought that you’re not only reading to find out if the couple get the happily ever after you want, but also because there’s some crazy out there trying to destroy the Alliance. In this case, it was a man who had no idea what he was doing. And, although there was kind of a conclusion to that little point of anarchy, I’m not sure that it was completely solved. And it hinted at SO MUCH MORE. Probably why, even after umpteen +++ books, I’m still hanging out excitedly for the next story.

One of my favourite aspects to this story though was the use of a flip side to empaths. No matter what lore or belief system you look at, empaths are generally something gentle and good. They can twist this a little, but I can only think of one other character in all the books I’ve read that was able to put a darker twist on the ability. Memory’s version of empathy is so completely different. Yet, it makes a great kind of sense. After all, you can’t have the light without the dark…. Which doesn’t mean that dark is evil. As this story will surely convince you.

Image source: Kobo