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Friday 13 May 2011

Review: Slave to Sensation by Nalini Singh




How Singh can write such complex storylines and characters with such ease and fluidity is beyond us!

This series is set in the future where the human races have branched out into 3 distinct peoples, the powerful Psy, Changelings, and normal Humans. The Psy have tried to get rid of all emotions through a programme called Silence that started generations ago, they have enhanced psychic abilities, and they control the known world through business and economics. The Changelings are basically shape-shifters, and there are different breeds, i.e. panthers, wolves and also non predatory species although they are mentioned but not seen in this book.

Out of the two new races, our favourite has to be the Changelings. There is the DarkRiver panther pack and there’s also the SnowDancers who are wolves. Both are predatory and rely on instinct and I just love the whole animal nature that Singh has incorporated into each of the characters. They are so vastly different than the Psy who are devoid of any emotions, whether it be anger, fear, or love. Sascha is a cardinal, a Psy with vast amount of power, but her powers have been underdeveloped. As a result, she’s an outcast even among her own kind. But when she meets Lucas Hunter, she starts feeling and wanting things a good Psy never does and the more time she spends with Lucas, the more her defences break down.

What stuck out in this book was the elaborate word building; the history of the world that Singh has created is fascinating and has a depth and complexity you rarely see in the PNR genre. The writing was also good; it was to the point and showed you what was happening, effortlessly transporting you into the Psy-Changeling world. The history, especially of the creation of the Psy race is interesting, and the changelings contain all the features of shape-shifters that I love without falling into a cliché.

In the beginning, we were a little slow to warm up to Sascha as she’s so callous and unemotional, but there were hints of her heart here and there and I learned to love her character. Lucas was an alpha, sensual male with a protective attitude; in fact he was just plain hot! We were worried that the romance wouldn’t be as hot and steamy as we would have liked because of her callousness, but we were thankfully wrong! It’s great! We should never have doubted Singh’s abilities to write sex scenes, although they were few and towards the end of the book, they were hot and sensual and I loved it when the cat wanted to play!

This book is full of intrigue, sexual tension, lots of flirting, lovable characters, characters you love to hate, Psy/Council politics, so give this series a try! You won't regret it. It's definitely worth reading more than once!

Our favourite quote:
"Animal reproduction? That's one way of putting it. Have you ever tried it?"
"No. Why would I?"
"Because, darling, you might find that the animal in you likes it."

2 comments:

Carol L. said...

Thanks for this review. I'm going to pick this up and start the series. I actually only read 1 so far. Hawke's book. :)
Carol L
Lucky4750 (at) aol (dot) com

Kendra said...

This was an excellent start to the series. It had just enough romance, hotness, and mystery to keep a reader going. Love the review, but I actually didn't think Sascha was all that cold. I saw her as being highly emotional, just unable to show or even acknowledge her emotions at times. One of the things I loved about this book was the gradual way she started to show her emotions physically. And how, when her emotions where strongest, that was when she came across the most cold, because that's when she would have been on guard the most.