|
|
|
|
|
|
Slave to Sensation (Psy-Changelings, Book 1)
written by Nalini Singh
Studio : Berkley
by Berkley
Publisher : Berkley
Released : 2006-09-05
Availability : Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Number of Items : 1
EAN : 9780425212868
Avg. Customer Rating: (based on 80 reviews)
List Price : $6.99
Our Price : $3.27
|
|
| |
|
Product Description |
THE HOT NEW NAME IN PARANORMAL ROMANCE.
Nalini Singh dives into a world torn apart by a powerful race with phenomenal powers of the mind-and none of the heart.
Born a Psy, Sascha Duncan must hide the emotions which mark her as flawed. But a passionate Changeling will tempt her to reveal everything-and risk her very soul. |
| |
|
| |
|
Great new series |
|
I love finding a new author and a new series I can be excited about. Wonderfully written, excellent character development, very hot romantic scenes, and enough drama to keep everything interesting. |
| |
|
Fabulous! |
My first Nalini Singh book about her Psy/Changelings was just a fabulous treat. I loved everything about it. She created an incredibly complex world and she did it with such a simplistic, natural grace that the constant stream of information about the Psy/Changeling world wasn't forced. She allowed it to flow to me naturally, so I barely registered I was getting a ton of exposition.
The characters Lucas, the Alpha of DarkRiver, and Sascha, a Cardinal Psy was really hot. They portray their mating dance right from the beginning, two beings reduced to their most basic desires, circling each other as if searching for an opening.
It helps that I love changelings or any kind of weres. There's something about the animalistic side of a man coming out that gets me all hot and bothered, and when Lucas actually manifests into his animal...*shivers* HOT! Nalini describes the Changelings as a warm, hierarchical pack of men and women and the Psy as a society of 'perfect' beings who have surpressed all emotions supposedly for the greater good, so they can control their abilities better. Which makes them into cold, robotic men and women without the emotion to sense right from wrong, good and evil. Our Sascha however, with the help of the panther Alpha, Lucas Hunter escapes what is known as Silence and tries to start anew with the DarkRiver pack.
There wasn't a single character I didn't like. There wasn't any annoying personality quirks, no stupid plot contrivances by Sascha to prove she was independent and didn't need Lucas, no tree swinging male alpha traits that Lucas had to employ. This proves you can make a good book without relying on any TSTL moments designed to move the plot along. Thank God.
I love the descriptive words Nalini uses for the leopards of DarkRiver. They are catlike, sensual, they purr and rub and give love bites. I loved reading how the characters would curl up in each others laps and entwine in each other's arms. She really never lets you forget that Lucas and the other changelings are not men, but dangerous, predatory cats.
This was a great book and a great first book into Nalini Singh's fabulous Psy/Changeling series. |
| |
|
What does that mean? ;) |
This book is a great starter of an outstanding series.
Singh's characters and plot have a dephts that is hardly found in romance and I REALLY like romance. :)
This book made me smile (about the scenes with the "unfeeling" Psy and the changling cubs), cry (when Sasha thought she was rejected by Lucas) and left me hot and bothered by the sizzling hot love scenes.
10 stars for my new favourite paranormal series.
Can't wait for September when Dorian's story comes out. (Nalini Singh does the best scenes with children.)
|
| |
|
ABSOLUTELY SENSATIONAL!!!!!!! WONDERFUL WONDERFUL WONDERFUL!! |
Naini Singh has created a marvelous new series with flawless combination of paranormal romance and sci-fi. The description of the two races - changelings and PsyNet are marvelously developed, in the amazingly gripping world that Nalini Singh has crafted and that draws you in from the get go! The narration is flawless, suspense in the story keeps you at the edge of your seat and the scenes between H/H are steamy and hot!
The Psy is a race of calculated emotional detachment, Cold Empaths with lethal businesslike accuracy. Psys have been conditioned to have no emotional attachment or experience any feeling - for any Psy found "flawed" has their link terminated from PsyNet remaining alive but pretty much dead.
Sasha Duncan is a Cardinal Psy - her mother a member of the powerful Psy Council. All her life she has lived in fear, as she has grown to believe that she is flawed and is always stemming feelings and shielding them from other Psy minds or she will be reconditioned.
Lucan Hunter is a member of the DarkRiver leopards - cats. He decides to bid for a Real Estate residential project that would be the first transaction in history between the Psy and Changelings. Not only is he doing it for the profit - being shrewd in business - but a serial killer has been targeting changeling young women and he believes that the killer is a Psy. More reason for him to try and infiltrate their midst.
In turn, Sasha is asked to supervise the project and study the changelings - as the Psy have little knowledge of that race.
When Lucas meets Sasha - he is drawn to her. She may be a Cardinal Psy - but there is something different about her. Soon his predatory animalistic alpha nature stakes his territory and Sasha and him are slowly drawn together.
After the killer takes another victim - a young woman from the wolf pack SnowDancers, rival changelings have to join forces in a race against time to save Brenna's life. Sasha is drawn into the fray - and both wolfs and cats have to rely in the powers of this unusual Psy if Brenna is to be found alive.
With SLAVE TO SENSATION - you will be touched by so many aspects of this marvelous book. The awesome closeness and bonding of the individual packs. Their sense of family coupled with their innate ability to demonstrate feeling and show affection, love and above all loyalty to one another.
The development of Sasha's and Lucas' relationship is a beauty to watch - simmering sensuality as Sasha slowly becomes "herself" and allows the feelings she has held back for so long run free with Lucas. Readers will fall in love with Lucas. He is all predatory alpha male, sexy and his caring for Sasha's well being and safety is touching and heartfelt.
I can't praise enough this new writer and this fantastically innovative and superbly crafted new series! I will devour the next book VISIONS OF HEAT - which has been on sale since March of '07.
Unfortunately because of my work schedule I don't get to read at the expediential rate I would like to, so it takes me longer to finish a book and always a day late getting into series!!! |
| |
|
Surprising, Well-written and Refreshing. |
In the world of the Psy, perfection is absolute and anythinge else is punishable by death. The 'feel' or underlying theme, rings of the ethos purported by Huxley in his startling book, Brave New World. Thus, the purpose of Perfect Silence was to ensure that the emotion to hate and be violent would be wholly removed. In doing so, all emotions were conditioned out of these once human Psy, and have become a race of highly advanced beings, both technologically and especially, mentally. It has rendered them impotent of basic feelings, like love or sadness, and have given them the cold and ruthless rigidity and stiffness that they have become to be known for. And disdained by all changeling groups that oppose their way of living.
In this world of the Psy, all its people are mentally linked in the PsyNet, a network of psychic energy and the individual auras that feeds others and themselves. They cannot live without the Net.
The brutality, the rigid stiffness and efficiency that have marked the Psy is as real and frightening as Sascha Duncan knows it to be. She of all would know. Marked by night-sky eyes that designates her as a cardinal and high-ranking Psy, she has been hiding something that could get her killed: she is defective, in the most essential way. As in, the emotions that should not be there, are not only fully functional since birth, but none of the conditioning has helped her become more Psy. If any, it allowed her to build incredibly powerful mental shields to protect her flaw, and the fact that, being the daughter of a ruthless and powerful Council, Nikita, she will never live up to her genetics. An no one knows why but Sascha.
When given the charge of a multi-million dollar deal with a changeling race, DarkRiver, Sascha comes into contact with the lead project, man and alpha, Lucas Hunter. A cat as his form, and as a powerful alpha, he can sense the differences that mark Sascha as someone not quite Psy, even as the appearance of it confuses him. But Lucas' goal isn't to woo, but to sniff out a Psy killer, unmercifully murdering young changling women. Not just DarkRiver, but other groups, like his werewolf ally, the SnowDancers.
What is shocking is the fact of their instant attraction, which both try to rationalize and dismiss, only to bring them closer to both their truths. More contact triggers more mental breakdowns by Sascha that leaves her petrified and paranoid. Only Lucas' stability and his uncanny sense of understanding her, does she find some peace. But how can a Psy woman be trusted? And how can an alpha leopard learn that he may have no choice but to trust Sascha, and pray she won't betray him, or his pack? These are the questions that swirl around them and between them, even as they succumb to their emotions and growing attachments. Even as Sascha finally begins to believe in Life, not pure existence and the lies of her own people, she begins to open up, not just to love but understanding, and the joys and pleasures of feeling and emotions. Just as they've discovered themselves, Lucas might loose the one woman he's ever loved, to the terrors of the PsyNet, and the killer that hunts them all.
For a first time writer, Singh packs a heavy punch. The characters, from the primary to the secondary, are well developed and tangible. You really see them as real people, not contrived or artificial, but with hurts and pains that aren't any more terrible than someone you would know in real life. Life and emotion is the heart of this book, and the meaningful discovery of it by all the characters.
The plot itself is well written, and especially the world of the Psy and changeling interactions. Strange enough but close to home. She's also consistent in her renderings and had a wonderful and well worked out Psy and changeling philosophies as well as the workings of psychic ability and the PsyNet. There was a lot of care and attention to those finer details without too much overtaxing of the mechanics. However, the one quip I have was that there was a lot of repetition in terms of describing how Sascha and Lucas felt, certain re-telling of events but not enough to put me off. There were a few places soly dedicated to Sascha's emotional development and realizations, that at first, I wanted to say was unnecessary, but as you got to the end, I realized that without bits of it, her later actions and beliefs in doing them would have felt empty. However, it does drag in parts, saying in a few sentences and lengthening much longer than necessary.
This is a very dense read and not something you'll read in one pull. It's is not the sugar-coated versions, but has a lot of emotional and psychological weight that most romances are missing. Not that it's bad, mind. Singh is a nice change from the normal. It is sci-fi and paranormal, romance and addresses deeper issues that has plagued mankind since the dawn of time. I think you'll enjoy this book well after you've read it. Book 2, here I come! |
| |
|
|
|
