Monday, July 29, 2024

Review - - Primal Mirror

Primal Mirror
by Nalini Singh
Psy-Changeling Trinity - Book 8
Publisher: Berkley
Release Date: July 23, 2024
Reviewed by Nancy
 


New York Times bestselling author Nalini Singh takes us into a family dark with shadowy secrets, as the world of the Psy teeters on the edge of a final catastrophic collapse. . . 

Daughter of two ruthless high-Gradient telepaths, Auden Scott is not the child her Psy parents wanted or expected, even before her brain injury. Her thoughts are scattered, her memories fuzzy—or just terrifyingly blank. The only thing she knows for certain is that she must protect her unborn baby . . . a baby she has no recollection of conceiving and who draws an unnerving depth of interest from her dead mother’s closest associates.

Leopard alpha Remi Denier is a man driven by the primal instinct to protect. Protect his pack, protect his allies . . . and protect the mysterious woman who has become a most unlikely neighbor. With eerie eyes that see too much and a scent that alters in ways disturbing and impossible, Auden Scott is the enemy . . . but nothing about this strange Psy is what it seems, and Remi’s feline heart is as fascinated by her as his human half.

Then Auden asks Remi to help her shatter the wall of secrets that is the Scott bloodline. What they unearth will reveal a nightmare beyond imagination. This time, the battle is to the death. . .

Nancy’s Thoughts:

Once a series hits about the tenth book, I sometimes find my interest falling off. The stories don’t seem fresh to me anymore or don’t engage me or otherwise aren’t satisfying. Nalini Singh’s Psy-Changeling books, however, have yet to disappoint although she’s up to her twenty-third book (not counting shorter works) set in this world.

The hero, Remi Denier, is alpha of the RainFire leopard changeling pack in the Smoky Mountains. Remi first appeared in Shards of Honor (Psy-Changeling #14) when he and his pack gave Arrows Aden and Zaira refuge after they’d been kidnapped and tortured by a shadowy group of enemies. The interaction resulted in bone-deep friendship between Remi and Aden and, by extension, the Arrows and RainFire. The Arrows play a significant role in this book, and I always enjoy seeing them.

Remi has forged a group of loners and misfits into a tight-knit pack. I loved the scenes of him interacting with the pack, especially the children. He doesn’t have a lot of internal conflict to move past, aside from initial distrust of what Auden is doing on the border of RainFire’s territory. He worries about the unpredictable change in her scent and the accompanying changes in her personality and memory, but his concern for this pregnant woman who seems so alone in her cabin arouses his alpha instinct to protect and nurture. He soon resolves to help her. This means helping her understand what causes her memory issues and personality shifts.

It's just as well that Remi doesn’t have a lot of romantic baggage to overcome because Auden has issues enough for them both. She doesn’t understand her blackouts and memory gaps, nor can she explain how things her late mother knew but she never did suddenly pop into her mind, allowing her access to her mother’s secret records. Her late mother’s assistant, now Auden’s assistant since she has become the figurehead CEO of the family corporation, behaves much more like a zealous guardian than an assistant. To come into her own, Auden must take control of this relationship and resolve her memory issues and the related mysteries.

One of the mysteries Auden faces is just exactly how she became pregnant. She has no memory of agreeing to be impregnated. Still, she’s resolved to protect this child. The assistant, who behaves as though she were in charge of Auden, and the doctor show an intense interest in the baby that worries Auden. Something isn’t right about the whole situation.

Auden’s reaction to her pregnancy is part of the reason I gave the book less than a five-star rating. I’m all in on her determination to protect her baby from the schemes of her assistant and the doctor. My issue is the speed with which she reached that decision in the backstory. Since she was impregnated without her knowledge or consent, I wanted a little bit of wrestling with that before she resolved to see this baby girl as hers and to shield her from whatever schemes are floating around them.

The other part of my reason for rating the book at less than five stars is that I initially found Auden hard to relate to. We first meet her when Remi sees her in a clearing near his pack’s territory, on the property where his Arrow friends Aden and Zaira were tortured. Although other readers may react differently, I found Auden’s changes in focus and scent a barrier to relating to her.

Auden is a Ps-Psy, meaning she reads emotional imprints on objects. Her cabin is therefore sparsely furnished with things that are safe for her to touch. Keeping her surroundings relatively pristine is critical to her wellbeing. Yet she reads an emotional memory from something on Remi’s person when they first shake hands. Given her concerns about her ability, her failure to draw back when she realized what was happening felt a little off to me. 

The reading draws Remi to her, and it briefly brings her into focus. Yet she persisted in the reading, which was obviously very personal, and never acknowledged that this was an intrusion until they met again months later. Then she apologizes but seems to shrug off the incident. For someone who finds other people’s imprints intrusive and often painful, this struck me as less than sympathetic.

After Remi and Auden’s first encounter, her memories become more stable, and I found myself relating to her as I’d hoped to. The reader soon sees her plan to keep her baby safe from her domineering assistant and the intrusive doctor. She can’t do that unless she also wrests control of her life away from them. Her determination to do so, along with the difficulties she knows she faces, are admirable. The stakes rise as she goes along, and her willingness to make a very tough call was heart-wrenching.

Auden’s efforts to break free draw Remi’s sympathy and his heart. She’s falling in love with him at the same time, drawn by his determination to protect her before he even knew her and his dedication to his pack. One of the things I like about the book a great deal is his resolve not to take their feelings to a romantic level until Auden is emotionally stable enough to give meaningful consent to doing so. I think that consideration is too often swept to the side in romance novels, especially where the heroine’s physical security is at issue.

With Remi, of course, comes RainFire. The mutual loyalty and love of changeling packs always draws me into their stories. We meet different members of RainFire in this book, and I can’t wait to read their stories.

Auden and Remi’s story takes place along with further breakdown of the PsyNet, the psionic network all Changelings need to survive. I won’t say more because I’m afraid of spoiling it, but the way these two plotlines turn out to be woven together is masterful.

In summary, Primal Mirror offers an emotionally wrenching but ultimately satisfying romance while expanding the Psy-Changeling world in intriguing ways. It also offers time with established, beloved characters from other books. The story moves at a good pace. I was delighted to see Remi have his own story and to spend time with RainFire. Despite a little initial difficulty relating to Auden, I soon became a fan of her as well and came to love them as a couple.

Readers new to the Psy-Changeling world can read Primal Mirror as a standalone. Singh is adept at dropping in enough detail from prior stories to move the current one along without a big delay. Those who read the series in order, however, will be better able to appreciate the richness of the world and the found families in it.

Highly recommended. 4.5 stars

~Nancy


1 comment:

  1. I read a couple of the early books in this series and really enjoyed them. At the time I was a children's librarian and doing some of the adult ordering. As a result, I was trying many different authors and genre. Unfortunately, I never got back to her books. I need to check back in. This sounds like another good book by Singh. Thank you for the review and recommendation.

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