Title: Hostage to Pleasure
Author: Nalini Singh
Series: Psy-Changeling #5, Psy-Changeling Season One #5
Rating Out of 5: 5 (I will read this again and again and again)
My Bookshelves: Dark fantasy, Paranormal romance, Shapeshifters
Pace: Fast
Format: Novel
Publisher: Gollancz
Year: 2008
5th sentence, 74th page: “Do it,” he whispered.

With her darkly seductive Psy-Changeling world, Nalini Singh has created a sensual, dangerous adventure that’s not to be missed. Now, as the deadly Psy Council tightens its grip, a rebel Psy scientist finds herself at the mercy of a changeling who has sworn vengeance against her kind…

Separated from her son and tasked to create a neural implant that will mean the effective enslavement of her psychically gifted race, Ashaya Aleine is the perfect Psy – calm, cool, emotionless… at least on the surface. Inside, she’s fighting a desperate battle to save her son and escape the vicious cold of the PsyNet. Yet when escape comes, it leads not to safety but to the lethal danger of a sniper’s embrace.

DarkRiver sniper Dorian Chistensen lost his sister to a Psy killer. Though he lacks the changeling ability to shift into animal form, his leopard lives within. And that leopard’s rage at the brutal loss is a clawing darkness that hungers for vengeance. Falling for a Psy has never been on Dorian’s agenda. But charged with protecting Ashaya and her son, he discovers that passion has a way of changing the rules…

Dorian’s stoic, supportive outlook and terrifyingly cold rage pulled me in from the first Psy-Changeling book. His loyalty to his Pack, and the outrageous pain that he felt at his sister’s loss create a stunning character, even when he is simply lurking at the periphery of other characters’ tales of love and loss. Which means that finally reading a story about the latent leopard and his mate was very rewarding, and I found the tale of Ashaya and Dorian impossible to put down.

Ashaya was one of the most intricately intense and confusing Psy characters which Singh has managed to create thus far. She is obviously driven by love for her son, hinted at in Mine to Possess, but she is hidden by layer upon layer of Silence and fear. Resulting in not an unemotional robot, as many of the Psy are shown to be, but in a woman who is steely and terrified, completely unsure of how to survive her new reality away from her people.

The potent mix of Ashaya’s fear and Dorian’s fury lead to a tale of twists and turns. Partnered with a sociopath and the slow revealing of more of the Psy Councils’ insidious plans and this is a story which has the power to draw you in and leave you in awe. After all, don’t we all want to be hostages to pleasure?

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Title: Mine to Possess
Author: Nalini Singh
Series: Psy-Changeling #4, Psy-Changeling Season One #4
Rating Out of 5: 5 (I will read this again and again and again)
My Bookshelves: Dark fantasy, Paranormal romance, Shapeshifters
Pace: Fast
Format: Novel
Publisher: Gollancz
Year: 2007
5th sentence, 74th page: Now she gathered up Talin’s self-hatred, revulsion, and anger – such incredible anger – in her psychic arms and absorbed it inside of herself.

Nalini Singh pulls away another dark layer of sheer desire, revealing passions unknown, in her latest novel about the world of the Psy. A ghost returns from a leopard changeling’s past, making him question everything – even his base animal instincts…

Clay Bennett is a powerful DarkRiver sentinel, but he grew up in the slums with his human mother, never knowing his changeling father. As a young boy without the bonds of Pack he tried to stifle his animal nature. He failed… and committed the most extreme act of violence, killing a man and losing his best friend, Talin, in the bloody aftermath. Everything good in him died the day he was told that she, too, was dead.

Talin McKade barely survived a childhood drenched in bloodshed and terror. Now a new nightmare is stalking her life – the street children she works to protect are disappearing and turning up dead. Determined to keep them safe, she unlocks the darkest secret in her heat, and steels herself to ask the help of the strongest man she knows…

Clay lost Talin once. He will not let her go again, his hunger to possess her is a clawing need born of the leopard within. As they race to save the innocent, Clay and Talin must face the violent truths of their past, or risk losing everything that ever mattered.

This by far is my favourite Psy-Changeling book so far. The idea of loving someone since you were a child and never wanting to let them go is the epitome of soul mates and childhood sweethearts. Not something that I could ever truly conceive, but in the pages of a book, it is very sweet. Not to mention the sense of loyalty that jumps off the pages, and for me, loyalty and faith in one another are huge cornerstones in any good relationship.

Not to say that this love story was an easy journey – it was anything but. Singh likes to have her characters run the gauntlet in their pursuit of their mates, and it was no different for Clay and Tally. Forced to face their complex pasts while racing to save lost children, they are forced to come to terms with both who they are, and what they have done.

This is the first book in the Psy-Changeling series that ends on a bit more of a cliff-hanger, introducing characters that we will get to know much more intimately within the next novel, Hostage to Pleasure. As the series continues, the tantalising simplicity of the love stories becomes more heavily embroiled in a far greater battle between emotions and calculation, one that I, personally can’t wait to keep immersing myself within.

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Title: Caressed by Ice
Author: Nalini Singh
Series: Psy-Changeling #3, Psy-Changeling Season One #3
Rating Out of 5: 5 (I will read this again and again and again)
My Bookshelves: Dark fantasy, Paranormal romance, Shapeshifters
Pace: Fast
Format: Novel
Publisher: Gollancz
Year: 2007
5th sentence, 74th page: Most changelings hate the Psy.

Explore new heights of sensuality in this return to the world of the Psy – where two people who know evil intimately must unlock the good within their icy hearts…

As an Arrow, an elite soldier in the Psy Council ranks, Judd Lauren was forced to do terrible things in the name of his people. Now a defector, his dark abilities have made him the most deadly of assassins – cold, pitiless, unfeeling. Until he meets Brenna…

Breen Shane Kincaid was an innocent before she was abducted – and had her mind violated – by a serial killer. Her sense of evil runs so deep she fears she could become a killer herself. Then the first dead body is found, victim of a familiar madness. Judd is her only hope, yet her sensual changeling side rebels against the inhuman chill of his personality, even as desire explodes between them. Shocking and raw, their passion is a danger that threatens not only their hearts, but their very lives.

I’m really enjoying how every book in this series follows a different couple – they are all interrelated and have been mentioned in passing in the previous books, but it is a totally new love story, with all of its own challenges and difficulties. Singh manages to weave these seemingly unrelated tales together into a glorious whole that not only makes you fall in love with the world of the Psy-Changeling again and again and again, but also continuously furthers their battles and tale in a completely natural way.

There’s something about seriously damaged beings finding health and solace in one another that has always appealed to me – and Brenna and Judd’s story is the perfect example of this. Although Brenna’s plight is introduced within Slave to Sensation, it is so satisfying to revisit her in Caressed by Ice. The very real consequences of abuse and victimisation are investigated, and her strength, but also vulnerability are beautifully unpacked. She isn’t perfect, and there are lasting damages from what was done to her. Singh doesn’t sugar coat the serious consequences of her violation, and it just endears her work to me all the more.

The overarching plot and consistently intensifying friction between the Psy and Changeling also begins to gain traction. There are more sections which investigate the Psy Council’s reactions to the goings on in the world of the Changelings, and a sense of trepidation and suspense is slowly being built. Not only does it make me itch to pick up the next book in the series, Mine to Possess, but it also ties the storylines into one another. Instead of feeling like a series of books that are simply based in the same world, Singh pulls together the stories so that one tale can’t exist without the other.

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Title: Visions of Heat
Author: Nalini Singh
Series: Psy-Changeling #2, Psy-Changeling Season One #2
Rating Out of 5: 5 (I will read this again and again and again)
My Bookshelves: Dark fantasy, Paranormal romance, Shapeshifters
Pace: Fast
Format: Novel
Publisher: Gollancz
Year: 2007
5th sentence, 74th page: She was playing with a very interested cat and when that cat got interested in things, it didn’t like to be denied.

Used to cold silence, Faith NightStar is suddenly being tormented by dark visions of blood and murder. A bad sign for anyone, but worse for Faith, an F-Psy with the highly sought after ability to predict the future. Then the visions show her something even more dangerous – aching need & exquisite pleasure.

Visions of Heat left a tantalising hint of rejection in the air – something that helped to make the story all the more enticing. Although it is, in a way, obvious that Vaughn and Faith will eventually become mated, the idea that Vaughn could actually be rejected makes it impossible to put this book down. It also heightens the awareness of Singh’s amazing talent to create a story that will batter the senses and expand the heart. This fear also helped to make the eventual happy ending all the more sweet and tear-jerking.

Forsight is often ported as the epitome of special powers – being able to see into the future and predict what will happen would be invaluable in almost every endeavour of our lives. However, it is also potent with pain and suffering. Seeing the future and being unable to stop it, even though you are desperate to must be a special kind of hell. To withstand these glimpses into the future, a balance of practicality (and acceptance of the inevitable) and emotional strength must be obtained. Something which Faith finally begins to understand with the slow collapse of Silence.

Singh beautifully expands on the ideas of the PsyNet, the ways in which the Council have become monsters and the fracturing of the NetMind in Visions of Heat. The dual nature of hiding from one’s emotions is beautifully illustrated through Faith’s investigations, and the future repercussions of its fracturing are alluded to. It is within this story that Singh really starts to set up the upcoming storm on the horizon and filtering through the more complex tales which are to follow.

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Title: Slave to Sensation
Author: Nalini Singh
Series: Psy-Changeling #1, Psy-Changeling Season One #1
Rating Out of 5: 5 (I will read this again and again and again)
My Bookshelves: Dark fantasy, Paranormal romance, Shapeshifters
Pace: Fast
Format: Novel
Publisher: Gollancz
Year: 2006
5th sentence, 74th page: The man wasn’t so certain.

In a world that denies emotions, where the ruling Psy punish any sign of desire, Sascha Duncan must conceal the feelings that brand her as flawed. To reveal them would be to sentence herself to the horror of “rehabilitation” – the complete psychic erasure of everything she ever was…

Both human and animal, Lucas Hunter is a changeling hungry for the very sensations the Psy disdain. After centuries of uneasy coexistence, these two races are now on the verge of war over the brutal murders of several changeling women. Lucas is determined to find the Psy killer who butchered his packmate, and Sascha is his ticket into their closely guarded society. But he soon discovers that this ice-cold Psy is very capable of passion – and that the animal in him is fascinated by her. Caught between their conflicting worlds, Lucas and Sascha must remain bound to their identities – or sacrifice everything for a taste of darkest temptation.

This is an amazing start to a fantastic paranormal romance series. The fact that it is written by a woman who is from New Zealand simply further endeared it to me. After all, they are our neighbours! But I digress, Slave to Sensation is everything that a good paranormal romance should be – it is full of steamy passion, but this is balanced by incredibly complex characters, a vivid new world and an intricate storyline which doesn’t simply rely on the story’s raw sensuality.

I love the idea of mating for life – a bond so deep that it is impossible to shake and will leave the remaining partner bereft and untenable should anything happen to their mate. The idea of this depth of connection is a fascinating way in which to explain the connectivity between two beings in love. And the idea of never truly being alone again is a great way to pull at the heart strings of even the most cold hearted reader.

Although this story is primarily about the creation of love and bonding between two completely different individuals, it is also filled with great themes that focus upon the separation of ‘them’ vs. ‘us’. The story highlights how placing somebody as the ‘other’ can help people to justify the most atrocious and cruellest of acts – something that can be seen in human nature throughout the ages. This, partnered by a race of people who have removed all emotion and, thus, compassion from their lives drives home the ways in which we are able to isolate ourselves from others, and the dangers of a lack of accountability in the treatment of others.

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