It was the surprise that couldn’t be kept under wraps. Plans were dropped for this … or they would have been if I’d made any.
Galaxy’s monthly book club would have another special guest in New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Nalini Singh, who jumped across the pond from New Zealand.
I managed to arrive before Nalini and learned that Sofia (Galaxy’s paranormal romance guru) had invited a reporter and photographer from the Daily Telegraph to meet Nalini.
While I was waiting for Nalini to arrive, I had a chat with the reporter, Julia, who will soon converse with (rather than interview) Charlaine Harris. (I asked what the difference was, and apparently a conversation is meant to be more comfortable, informal and less inherently interrogative than an interview.)
For research purposes, Julia has read the first 2 Southern Vampire Mystery books (which she enjoyed) but hasn’t read any other paranormals. Yet. (I’d like to think that might change as a result of her stories on Nalini as well as Charlaine.)
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Slave to Sensation by Nalini Singh (Psy-Changeling Series, Book 1)
Slave to Sensation was one of the first paranormal romances I ever read—could I have asked for a better introduction to the genre? This book has a permanent spot in my keeper shelf and remains my favourite in the Psy-Changeling Series.
Slave to Sensation was the first book I ever bought based purely on online buzz after author Nalini Singh ran a viral marketing campaign through Dear Author. I’ve never regretted my decision, and this series, currently up to its sixth book, is still an auto-buy for me.
Slave to Sensation begins with a chilling prologue that introduces Silence—a process of conditioning Psy children into suppressing all emotion in order to stamp out the growing violence and insanity in the Psy population. Gifted with advanced mental capabilities, the Psy consider themselves perfect in their Silence.
Sascha Duncan has always suspected she’s flawed. Lately, she’s been leaking emotion, and only her ability to mimic Silence protects her from being forced into rehabilitation. When Sascha meets Lucas Hunter, alpha of the DarkRiver changeling pack, to negotiate a historic business deal, his emotional changeling nature batters at her mental shields.
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Branded by Fire by Nalini Singh (Psy-Changeling Series, Book 6)
Branded by Fire was one of my most-awaited novels of the year, and it has definitely been worth the wait. The sixth novel in bestselling author Nalini Singh’s Psy-Changeling series is packed with political intrigues, explosions, beloved characters, and a surprisingly strong romance that’s placed firmly at the centre of the story.
Mercy is a DarkRiver sentinel, the frontline defence for her leopard changeling pack. She has an awfully strong itch, and it seems the only one who can scratch it is Riley Kincaid, a lieutenant for the neighbouring wolf pack, SnowRiver. That’s assuming she doesn’t scratch him first. Mercy and Riley are equivalently ranked soldiers in different packs, and neither is used to giving up control.
Alpha vs. alpha
For Mercy, it’s a particularly painful dilemma. As a sentinel, as a dominant female, her chances of mating are slim. She could never be attracted to a weaker male, and yet her leopard nature may never accept a dominant mate. Worse, she’s attracted to the wrong changeling. As in wrong pack. And she’s attracted in a big way. So is he. Also in a big way.
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Swan & Edgar bar (via the Booktagger blog)
First things first: Happy Mother’s Day to all you mums, nannas and mums-to-be! I hope you enjoyed a good breakfast in bed and that the kids’ arts and craft project churned out something useful or appealing or edible or easy to hide. :-D
Apologies for slacking off last week with the Bizzo, but this one is absolutely chockers with good romancey stuff, so I hope it’s worth the wait.
ARRC09 audio recordings
Audio recordings from the Australian Romance Readers Convention in February are now available. Click here for more information and an order form.
International Association for the Study of Popular Romance
The IASPR is offering yearly, 5-yearly and lifetime memberships. Click here for more information. The IASPR, University of Queensland, Queensland University of Technology, and the Romance Writers of Australia are sponsoring an academic conference on Popular Romance Studies.
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Stroke of Enticement by Nalini Singh (Psy/Changeling Series) in The Magical Christmas Cat
Is it sad that I’m posting on Christmas Day? (Um, that was a rhetorical question). Since many of us are celebrating Christmas, I thought it only fitting to talk about a Christmas-themed book.
Stroke of Enticement is the first story in the anthology The Magical Christmas Cat, and it’s the second novella set in Nalini Singh’s Psy/Changeling series. I loved the previous novella, Beat of Temptation, so I had very high expectations for this one. While enjoyable, Stroke of Enticement didn’t quite reach the sames heights for me.
In Stroke of Enticement, we meet two new characters, Annie and Zach. A near-fatal childhood accident has had a lifelong impact on Annie, the most significant of which is her mother’s insistence on treating Annie as fragile. A leopard changeling with soldier rank isn’t exactly on her mother’s list of acceptable boyfriends for Annie. At the same time, Annie has difficulty imagining that she can have the kind of love she dreams of–an enduring love that won’t fizzle out and turn into a trap as her parents’ marriage has become.
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Hostage to Pleasure by Nalini Singh (Psy/Changeling Series, Book 5)
Once I get past, say, the third book in a series, I tend to approach subsequent books with trepidation. Because there’s always the fear that maybe this will be the beginning of the end, the one that signals that the series is about to jump the shark. Thankfully, Hostage to Pleasure, the fifth book in Nalini Singh’s Psy/Changeling series, doesn’t disappoint.
Warning: Contains spoilers from previous books
Ashaya and Dorian: then and now
Ashaya Aleine is a genetic scientist coerced by the Psy Council to lead a top-secret project to create an implant that will turn the Psy population into a hive mind. Her story started in the previous book, Mine to Possess, although you don’t need to have known any of her backstory to start this book. Dorian Christensen is a sniper from the DarkRiver changeling pack, who, unlike the other changelings in his pack, can’t shift–he’s a leopard, but for some reason he can’t turn into his animal form. His sister was murdered by a serial killer whose psychosis was kept secret by the Psy Council.
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Caressed by Ice by Nalini Singh (Psy/Changeling Series, Book 3)
I’ve had this post in draft for ages, and I’ve decided to turn it into a quickie or it may never see the light of day. While Slave to Sensation is still my favourite book in this series, Caressed by Ice is a great read. The Psy hero/changeling heroine combination has a very different dynamic from the pairings in the previous books, and if you like your heroines to be dark, inscrutable and very alpha, you won’t be disappointed.
It took me a while to warm up to the characters in this book, and I had to read it twice to get a better understanding of what made them tick. Judd is a much colder hero, and while I can see how he’d appeal to other readers, I prefer the changeling heros of the previous books. I liked Brenna only after the second reading, because at times I found her irritatingly clingly (though she had good reason to be). I wasn’t certain how Singh was going to resolve the very huge problem of Judd’s need for the Silence protocol, and I found some of the explanations about how dissonance was affecting him confusing. But the book doesn’t take an easy way out, so I’m happy with the way it was resolved, although I would have liked to have understood Judd’s reprogramming of his brain better.
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Beat of Temptation by Nalini Singh (Psy/Changeling Series) in An Enchanted Season
Beat of Temptation is part of an anthology, An Enchanted Season, but I just had to post about it. I cried. I can’t remember the last time I cried while reading a romance novel or when I last read in the car, but I did both. It was that good.
Beat of Temptation is a stand alone novella set in the Psy-Changeling world, and while it isn’t essential to the series, it offers a glimpse into the changeling mating bond. There’s an external plot dealing with the relationship between Psy and changelings, but it’s peripheral to the story. Beat of Temptation is about Tamsyn and Nate (introduced in previous books in the series), who recognised the mating bond when Tamsyn was only fifteen and Nate much older (twenty-five?). Now, nineteen-year old Tamsyn wants to … well, get the party started, but Nate wants her to enjoy unmated singledom for a while because he’s scared she’ll end up like his mother, who married young and ended up committing suicide.
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Visions of Heat by Nalini Singh (Psy/Changeling Series, Book 2)
When I won an ARC of Visions of Heat by Nalini Singh, I went into squee mode because Singh’s first book, Slave to Sensation, blew me away. I don’t say that lightly. I devoured the book. And then I pimped it out to Wandergurl, who loved it so much she went and bought her own copy. And then I asked for my copy back so I could reread it. So winning the ARC of the sequel? Squee!
I was supposed to post this review a few weeks ago, but for various reasons didn’t get around to it. It’s probably just as well that I didn’t review the ARC as I meant to. Because the first time I read it? I wasn’t overly impressed. Don’t get me wrong–it’s a great read. But I’d reread Slave to Sensation first and the sequel just didn’t seem as compelling. I was bummed!
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