Welcome to my Den of Delights! Please make yourselves comfortable.

Monday, August 29, 2011

REVIEW: Mine to Possess (#4 Psy/Changeling) by Nalini Singh

3.5 of 5 Stars

I haven't reviewed book 3 yet, Caressed by Ice, but I wanted to get this one out of my system. Hmm...sounds bad, doesn't it?

Well...I have mixed thoughts/feelings about this 4th installment of the Psy/Changeling series. I’m sad that I didn’t love this one as much as I loved the first 3 books.

Clay Bennett, a sentinel of the DarkRiver leopard pack, grew up in the slums of the human world. He never knew his changeling father and his human Egyptian mother, Isla, wanted him to deny his changeling nature. As a young boy without the support of a Pack, Clay loses control of his animal side and commits a brutal act of violence in order to protect his precious best friend, Talin. He is sent away to juvenile detention and when he is released, he believes Talin has died and this leaves a huge hole in his heart.

Talin McKade, seeks out Clay for help, all these years after that bloody and terror-filled day. In desperation, when some of the street children that were her responsibility go missing, Talin turns to the strongest man she knows.

The moment when Clay first sees Talin again had me aching for him and hooked into the story.
‘He knew that sound, that female voice. It was that of a dead woman. He didn’t care. He had accepted his madness a long time ago. So now he looked, looked and searched.

For Tally.’

….
‘“Hello, Clay.”

Air rushed back into his body with the force of a body blow. A roar built in his throat, but he didn’t realease it, violently aware of the acrid scent coming off her in waves.

Son of a bitch! Tally was scared of him. She might as well have taken a knife to his heart.’

I thought the premise for Clay and Talin’s story was very promising and compelling. I love an “angsty” and emotional story. There were moments when my heart truly ached for both of them, for what they went through at such a young age, and how they would move pass that.

But then…there were moments when both Clay and Talin got on my nerves: Talin, with all her fears and flip-flopping; and Clay, with his temper and brooding. I understand that they both went through something just awful, that scarred them both so deeply, and they have issues - of course, they would! – but these behaviours wore thin after a bit, for me, and so affected my connection to them and my enjoyment of this book. Clay teases Tally as a “Brat” and Tally calls Clay a “Bully”. These were meant to be endearments, but unfortunately, for me, there were moments when they lived up to these monikers all too much.

Plus, they seemed to bicker a lot! It wasn't like the banter in the previous books, for me. It felt like bickering, and was not very enjoyable to "watch".

That being said, I know some Goodreads friends who absolutely loved this book, and Clay and Talin. It always fascinates me how we can all have such varying perceptions of characters, and I really wish I could have loved this the way some of my friends did. Understanding what Clay and Tally went through on a logical and mental level, it makes me feel bad that I couldn’t be as understanding on an emotional level, and found them annoying, to some extent. I liked them, but I didn't love them the way I did the couples in the other books. Sorry, Clay, Tally and Nalini Singh!

I loved the developments in the world that Nalini Singh advanced in this book. We learn some interesting history about the Psy and I loved the story about the “Forgotten”.

I always love the one or two pages that Ms Singh uses to lay the foundation of the world development at the start of each book, before we get into the first chapter and introduced to the featured characters and their story.

I loved the introduction of the new characters in this book, and the moments with the ongoing characters.

I was also very excited to get to Dorian's book! I love Dorian!

I ADORE the alpha couple, Lucas and Sascha, and love the little moments that Nalini Singh includes in the later books, such as this one:
‘Nodding, Lucas pressed the Enter key and sat down in the other armchair. Sascha perched on the arm, leaning into her mate, who slipped an arm around her waist, his hand lying loosely on her hip. It was an easy pose, the pose of a couple that had been together long enough to have created their own patterns, their own secret language.’
~*~*~*~*~

My Clay and Tally


Thursday, August 25, 2011

Inspiration of the Moment: Psy/Changeling - Prisms


"To survive, you must become more Silent than the Council, your heart ice, your mind a flawless prism. But never forget - prisms bend light, change the direction of what is known, generate fractures of beauty. Ultimately, prisms create their own truths."

~ From a handwritten letter signed "Iliana", circa June 2069
(in Hostage to Pleasure by Nalini Singh, Psy/Changeling #5)


Thursday, August 18, 2011

REVIEW: Visions of Heat (#2 Psy/Changeling) by Nalini Singh


4.5 Stars? Aaahhh... Make it 5! ^_^

“Tell a child something often enough and she starts to believe it.”
~ Sascha to Faith

*sigh* I LOVED this book even more the second time around!!


While my re-read of Slave to Sensation had me dreaming (again!) about being enslaved by the delicious Lucas Hunter *grins*... it more seriously had me contemplating the concept of a “society without emotion”, that is the Psy. In my re-read of Visions of Heat, the theme that became the focus of my reflections - which was also a prevalent theme in the first book - was that of having the courage to free one’s “self” from the "prison" imposed by others, and of seeing things we were blind to before.

Faith Nighstar, of the PsyClan NightStar, is a powerful “F-Psy” – a cardinal Psy with the ability of foresight. Since the age of 3, she has been isolated from society and trained to give business forecasts, worth billions. She has also been told that the F-Psy are particularly susceptible to madness. That for her own protection, she must be constantly monitored and undergo medical tests, regularly.

Now, at the age of 24, Faith is starting to have some very dark dreams, malevolent visions of blood and murder. She thinks - not “fears”, as the Psy are not supposed to fear - that insanity is looming. In an effort to get more information, without alerting her keepers of her degeneration, Faith decides to seek out Sascha Duncan, a renegade Psy who is now part of the DarkRiver changeling leopard pack.

Vaughn D’Angelo, a jaguar adopted into the leopard pack through a tragic event, whose beast prowls closer to the surface than other changelings, is a sentinel of DarkRiver. He has recently become very curious about an isolated compound, in which appears to live a Psy. The Psy usually choose to love in skyscrapers.

When Faith escapes the compound to seek out Sascha, it is Vaughn who finds her in DarkRiver territory. Vaughn’s cat side is immediately instinctually drawn to Faith and can’t stop teasing and bombarding her senses with his touch. This puzzles Vaughn, the man, as he does not believe in the concept of “mating”, not wanting to ever need anyone or have someone need him.

I was drawn into Vaughn and Faith’s story: Vaughn, as he works though his conflicted feelings towards Faith; as he sees her as not just a cold Psy, but a fascinating woman he wants to tease and protect, and as he realises that while he has "mated" with Faith, she can refuse that mating bond. Faith, as she tries to buckle “Silence”, to find pleasure in Vaughn’s touch, and to allow herself to feel. I felt for the losses they had both suffered – Vaughn’s story, particularly, broke my heart. I admired Faith as she fought not to fall into the madness of her dark visions; as she started to “see” that the things she has been told all her life were lies. How does Faith break through the walls that isolate and imprison her, when they are so much a part of “her”?

I appreciated the intriguing political aspects that Nalini Singh included in this book - and also in the first - through the machinations of the Psy Council.

Through my re-read, I found the initially bewildering, complex concept of the PsyNet easier to process.

There were a few loose threads at the end of this book, which I’m expecting will be answered later the series…at least, I hope so!

P.S. I DO NOT like the cover of this book and the guy looks nothing like how Vaughn is described! In fact., a lot of the covers in this amazing series by Nalini Singh just don't do it justice, in my humble opinion.

“Faith looked up. And up. As she’d guessed from the feel of him at her back, the jaguar was tall in human form. His hair was a thick amber-gold, long enough to brush his shoulders, and his eyes ... they were an odd almost-gold, the eyes of a cat made human. There was nothing soft about him, nothing tame. Yet she, a woman who'd never before understood the concept, found him beautiful. It was an inexplicable reaction, one her brain couldn't accept, going as it did against every rule of Silence.”

Vaughn is prrrimally sexxxy...
  
His jaguar is strong within him...

Vaughn needs to live in the wilds of nature...

Faith has only known a sterile Psy environment ....




Now Faith's night-sky eyes have opened...
And her senses expode under
Vaughn's heated touch - RAWR!!!
Can Vaughn help Faith break free of her prison?



















~*~*~*~*~*~
Psy/Changeling Series reading order:

1. Slave to Sensation
1.5 "The Cannibal Princess" - Free short story:
http://www.nalinisingh.com/freebies.php#princess
2. Visions of Heat
3. Caressed By Ice
4. Mine to Possess
5. Hostage to Pleasure
5.5 "A Gift for Kit" - Free short story:
http://www.nalinisingh.com/freebies.php#gift
6. Branded By Fire
7. Blaze of Memory
8. Bonds of Justice
9. Play of Passion
10. Kiss of Snow

And there are also stand-alone novellas:
1. "Beat of Temptation" in An Enchanted Season
2. "Stroke of Enticement" in The Magical Christmas Cat
3. "Whisper of Sin" in Burning Up

But if you wish to read in strict chronological order, see Nalini Singh's website (link to the page here): http://www.nalinisingh.com/psybehind.php

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

A Society Without Emotion? - Some Thoughts on Nalini Singh's Psy/Changeling series

I mentioned in my review for Slave to Sensation that this book (well, the whole series, really) is “thought-provoking” and just wanted to share some of the thoughts it “provoked”.

I’ve been thinking about how interesting it is that the Psy race has so many people of interracial genetic background, as a majority of them are “test tube babies”. For example, Sascha is of mixed Asiatic (Japanese) and Anglo-Indian descent. It seems that the prejudices for the Psy people, though, run not in the colour of one’s skin, but rather in the fact that one has less cerebral development/ lack of psychic ability / is an emotional being. The Psy consider themselves “superior” to the Changelings, who they consider only a step above animals and humans.

Then I thought about the kind of extreme society the Psy have created by eliminating emotion. It seems, though, that the Psy Council, the ruling body of the Psy, can be ruthless. Is ruthlessness a result of the absence of emotion? “Ruthless” is defined in the dictionary as “having no compassion or pity”. The Psy, having conditioned emotions out of their race through the “Silence Protocol”, have no compassion or pity.

But… the Changelings, who are emotional beings, are also capable of being ruthless. This is mostly evident in their ruthlessness in vengeance. In this sense, it is the presence of the emotion of rage and drive for revenge, which may cause them to be “ruthless” – it is their overwhelming emotion which may render them unable to feel compassion or pity... or maybe it is just a choice not to.

One of the questions posed by this series is: Has the Psy decision, based on logical reasoning, to eliminate emotion in order to eradicate violence and mental illness instead created the very monsters the Psy sought to control? So, to feel or not to feel? Crimes of passion versus the cold killings of sociopaths?

Also, what about the Psy’s “indifference” as opposed to “ruthlessness” – will apathy be the downfall of the Psy?

I just know that I wouldn’t want to live in a world without emotion. But I would like to live in a world without violence. With or without emotion, is violence an inevitable part of the human condition?

These are just some of the thoughts I had - mostly just rhetorical questions! LOL

REVIEW: The Cannibal Princess (Psy/Changeling #1.5) by Nalini Singh


FREE SHORT STORY ON AUTHOR'S WEBSITE

4 of 5 Stars

The Cannibal Princess is a cute free short story in the Psy/Changeling series on Nalini Singh's website.

Here's the link to it:

http://www.nalinisingh.com/freebies.php#princess

It takes place between Book 1, Slave to Sensation, and Book 2, Visions of Heat. In this short story, Ms. Singh gives us a little glimpse into Lucas and Sascha's life together.

I adored the twin cubs, Julian and Roman, in Slave to Sensation and this is a cute story with them in it.

I loved this part of the scene:

"The cubs giggled, then shifted apart. Julian patted the space in between and Sascha sat. They immediately snuggled up to her, small and warm and so precious. Every time she held these two, she wondered about what the future held for her and Lucas. Her eyes lifted and clashed with his as he sat down on the edge of the coffee-table in front of her. The beautiful green of his gaze held the most intense kind of promise.

Her heart jerked. Impossible, her Psy mind told her. But she knew it was possible. Emotion had a strength most of the Psy had forgotten. It could hurt and it could give such joy it was beyond anything she had ever imagined possible."

The adorable leopard cubs, Julian and Roman

Friday, August 12, 2011

REVIEW: Slave to Sensation (#1 Psy/Changeling) by Nalini Singh

5 of 5 Stars   


The first book in Nalini Singh's 
fascinating and acclaimed 
Paranormal Romance
Psy/Changeling series
 satisfies on so many levels!

  
*~*Slave to Sensation *~* 

Touching fingertips, 
To ice-cold lips,  
The skimming touch, 
Sensations, too much;  
The brushing thigh,  
Escaping sigh, 
The softest whispers,  
Sends primal shivers;
Barely leashed control,
Of a fractured soul
The heat of skin,  
Burst flames within;
Instinctive artistry,  
Reactive chemistry
The ragged breath,  
Cerebral death; 
Who thought such bliss,  
In just one kiss?  
Now, his changeling touch, she craves,  
Has she become sensation’s slave?
(by J.M.A. a.k.a. Lady Jayne, 12th August 2011)

~*~*~*~*~*~
Nooo… Slave to Sensation isn’t a book of poetry. I had drafted a review for this, but unfortunately, it was on my laptop, which was among the items stolen in a recent break-in. And somehow, when I sat down to re-write this “review”, this poem came out. Sorry. If you are one of the few people (like me) who has not read this series yet, PLEASE do not judge it based on my humble “ode” to it! LOL

Slave to Sensation is the first book in the stimulating Paranormal Romance (PNR) Psy/Changeling series by Fijian-New Zealander author, Nalini Singh. I kept seeing this series being hailed as a favourite PNR amongst my Goodreads friends. I must say, now I know the appeal! What a deliciously enjoyable first book in a series! This book was published in 2006, so yes, I've been slow to jump on this bandwagon...but that's okay, that just means I have lot of Psy-Changeling books to enjoy! *grins*

While Nalini Singh seduced me, with this first taste, to crave more of the books this series, this poem was my attempt to capture how the sexy, tactile and sensually primal Changeling, Lucas Hunter (a panther who is the Alpha of the DarkRiver leopard pack) managed to overwhelm Sascha Duncan (of the cold Psy race) with sensation – something “unnatural” to the Psy who do not touch. Slave to Sensation is indeed an apt title.

I’ve always had a fascination for stories with characters who have psychic abilities, and have developed, in the last few years, a love of the sexy animalism of shape-shifters. And this book combines both loves! I loved this remarkably interesting, detailed and imaginative world that Nalini Singh created - Bravo, Ms. Singh! The writing and the story were thought-provoking and evocative. 

This story is set in 2079 in San Francisco and its surrounds, where co-exist, though not without its tensions, three main groups of people: The Psy - a psychically advanced and logical race, who conditioned emotions out of their society through a program called “Silence”, which was instigated in 1969 in an effort to reduce the high incidence of insanity and violence in the Psy population, and who consider themselves the “superior” race; the Changelings - the instinctual, emotional, territorial and sensual shape-shifters, made up of various animal packs, who are cunning and underestimated by the Psy; and the humans - there is only mention of them in this book, though I am told that there will be human characters in later books.

(Edit: I mentioned that this book was "thought-provoking" and here are some thoughts it provoked - "A Society Without Emotion?")

I loved that there was suspense and mystery in this story – of a serial killer targeting Changeling women. Lucas and Sascha meet as part of a Psy-Changeling business venture and end up working together to solve the mystery.

I loved, and connected with, the character of Sascha, who is terrified about being found out as a “flawed” Psy and as a matter of survival struggles to hold on to her fragile mask of a calm, cool and collected Psy. Sascha is no “typical” Psy and the ability she possesses is one that I wish I had.

And Lucas? Mmm, mmm, mmmm… He was dangerously sexy hawt, with a tortured past, determined to claim Sascha as his mate, and he was just so there for Sascha. Purrrrs….

The only wee issue I had with the book…which is my problem, really… was with the concept of the “PsyNet”, which, while incredibly fascinating, was a little confusing, especially with the projection of a “shield” within a “shield” within a “shield” and the computronics imagery – I’m not tech or computer savvy - which reminded me of Matrix meets Tron meets Inception. Brain buzzingly cool.

I loved the cast of characters of the Changelings and the two packs introduced in this book – the DarkRiver pack (leopards) and the SnowDancers (wolves). I had recently seen the prevalent love for Hawke, the Alpha of the wolf pack, and from his introduction in this book, I could already understand the fascination with him and am excited to get to his book….which unfortunately isn’t until Book 10! I was also fascinated with Vaughn, from the leopard pack, who wears his beast closer to the surface than others in his pack, and just had to read his book, which was next in the series, Visions of Heat, straight away!

If you are one of the few people who haven’t read this series yet, make sure you pick up Slave to Sensation ASAP!!!
"He tasted better than her dreams, as rich and delectable as the most exquisite chocolate, as exotic as the panther he was.”
Lucas Hunter - Lusciously dangerous to the senses

A panther and Alpha of the DarkRiver Leopards

 Sascha - An unraveling cardinal Psy, with night-sky eyes 

Sascha's animal instincts are awakened by Lucas
~*~*~*~*~*~

Psy/Changeling Series reading order:

1. Slave to Sensation
1.5 "The Cannibal Princess" - Free short story:
http://www.nalinisingh.com/freebies.php#princess
2. Visions of Heat
3. Caressed By Ice
4. Mine to Possess
5. Hostage to Pleasure
5.5 "A Gift for Kit" - Free short story:
http://www.nalinisingh.com/freebies.php#gift
6. Branded By Fire
7. Blaze of Memory
8. Bonds of Justice
9. Play of Passion
10. Kiss of Snow

And there are also stand-alone novellas:
1. "Beat of Temptation" in An Enchanted Season
2. "Stroke of Enticement" in The Magical Christmas Cat
3. "Whisper of Sin" in Burning Up

But if you wish to read in strict chronological order, see Nalini Singh's website (link to the page here): http://www.nalinisingh.com/psybehind.php

Sunday, August 7, 2011

My Song of the Moment - Skyscraper by Demi Lovato


I LOVE this song! Great, inspirational lyrics and I love the emotion in her voice and in this video.

SKYSCRAPER BY DEMI LOVATO

Skies are crying, I am watching
Catching teardrops in my hands
Only silence, as it's ending, like we never had a chance.
Do you have to make me feel like there's nothing left of me?

You can take everything I have
You can break everything I am
Like I'm made of glass
Like I'm made of paper
Go on and try to tear me down
I will be rising from the ground
Like a skyscraper, like a skyscraper

As the smoke clears
I awaken and untangle you from me
Would it make you feel better to watch me while I bleed
All my windows still are broken but I'm standing on my feet

You can take everything I have
You can break everything I am
Like I'm made of glass
Like I'm made of paper
Go on and try to tear me down
I will be rising from the ground
Like a skyscraper, like a skyscraper

Go run run run I'm gonna stay right here
Watch you disappear yeah
Go run run run yeah it's a long way down
But I'm closer to the clouds up here

You can take everything I have
You can break everything I am
Like I'm made of glass
Like I'm made of paper
Ohh
Go on and try to tear me down
I will be rising from the ground
Like a skyscraper, like a skyscraper
Like a skyscraper, like a skyscraper
Like a skyscraper

(Written by Toby Gad, Kerli Kõiv and Lindy Robbins and produced by Gad)