Tour Review - - Archangel's Eternity

Archangel's Eternity

by Nalini Singh

Guild Hunter - Book 18

Publisher: Berkley

Release Date: May 5, 2026

Reviewed by Nancy 

 A thousand years.  

It’s been a millennium since Elena’s fateful first meeting with Archangel Raphael. She has survived war and loss, experienced beauty and cruelty. But no matter what, she has always held on to her mortal heart, as she and Raphael have held on to each other. Passionate and vibrant, they’ve built a life that has stood the test of time, growing ever stronger with each turn of the sun.

But change is coming—of a magnitude they could have never imagined—and it will forever alter the trajectory of their existence. 

Even as they grapple with the cataclysmic shift in their personal lives, the Cadre of Ten, which has maintained a hard-won peace for centuries, begins to simmer with dangerous fault lines. The specter of madness looms in one archangel, the promise of war burns between two others, and in darkness far from mortal and immortal eyes stirs an ancient, slumbering power.

Suddenly, the future is terrifyingly uncertain . . . at the very moment that Elena and her archangel need to protect a treasure infinitely more precious than eternity.

 

Nancy’s Thoughts: 

Nalini Singh has announced that Archangel’s Eternity is the final book in her long-running, popular Guild Hunter series. Her letter to readers at the end confirms this, as does the structure of the book. It is very much a farewell to the series world and its characters, and it reads like a book written for fans, not as one designed to attract new readers. 

The focus of this book is the characters and their relationships, especially Elena and Raphael. The theme is the importance of family, both blood-linked and found. Unlike the other books in this series, there is no overarching, threatening plot. There’s not much adventurous action and little about the politics of the Cadre, the group of archangels who rule the world. 

Readers who love the action and adventure that were such a part of this series may miss that and thus may find the pace a little slow. Others may find that focusing on the relationships and character interactions is a fair trade-off. 

Writing a detailed review of Archangel’s Eternity  would require spoiling something that has been carefully kept close by Singh and by Berkley. Rather than do that, I’ll just say that characters we haven’t seen lately—some of them, not in a very long time—reappear and have a moment with Elena and Raphael. I didn’t remember who some of them were, which isn’t surprising with a series this long, but the text includes reminders. It’s likely that some of those I didn’t recall are favorites of other readers, who will enjoy those bits all the more for having a deeper appreciation of the relationships. 

As the blurb promises, Elena and Raphael’s life is about to change, and that change runs through the story. It’s also the reason for many of the reunions in the book. 

Singh has always written emotion beautifully, and this book is no exception. I don’t generally cry at books or movies, but I got a little choked up several times and had to blink back tears at one reunion. 

Archangel’s Eternity is a moving and fitting end to this series. While reading the last of something I’ve enjoyed is bittersweet, I applaud Singh for closing the series on a high note rather than keeping it going past its prime. 

If you’re a fan of the Guild Hunter series, you’ll love this book. If you’re not already a fan, go back and read from the beginning, Angels’ Blood. You won’t be disappointed.

 

~ Nancy

 

 

Review - - Atonement Sky

Atonement Sky

by Nalini Singh

Psy-Changeling Trinity - Book 9

Publisher: Berkley

Release Date: July 15, 2025

Reviewed by Nancy

Justice-Psy Eleri Dias knows the end is near for her, her mind one step away from fatal psychic exposure. In the short time that remains, she is determined to atone for an act of omission that has haunted her for a long, cruel decade. But that decision not only means facing a powerful changeling wing leader, but also putting herself in the path of a serial killer.

Falcon wing leader Adam Garrett is fiercely protective of his family and his clan. After losing his parents as a teenager in a shocking act of malice, Adam has no forgiveness in him for the J-Psy who betrayed him, betrayed them, at the most painful moment of his life. But the evil that stalks his territory will allow him no respite, forcing him once more into contact with the J he has never been able to forget.

Everything that could’ve been between Eleri and Adam was lost years ago, a shimmering promise crushed. As they work to uncover a monster, the moment of reckoning looms ever closer. Soon, there may be no more time left for either atonement…or love…

Nancy’s Thoughts: 

One of the pleasures of the Psy/Changeling universe is that it holds so many beings with so many different skills. The Psy have a variety of abilities, some valued more than others, and many of them two-edged swords. The Changelings come in a wide range of species, each with commensurate abilities. And the PsyNet, the interconnected psychic web the Psy need to survive, is deteriorating. All that makes rich ground to mine for stories. 

In Atonement Sky, we get a close look at the J-class Psy and the price they pay for using their abilities in the justice system. When walking in the memories of serial killers and other criminals becomes too much for them, they undergo a reconditioning process that scrapes off a layer of their personalities. Each time, the procedure scrapes away another, deeper layer. Having undergone this reconditioning several times, Eleri no longer feels emotions. She believes that anything left of the woman she once was is so deeply buried that she’ll never access it. As most J-Psy do, she has planned to self-terminate before she loses the last shreds of her psionic shielding and is overwhelmed by the thoughts of everyone around her roaring into her skull. Before that happens, though, she wants to track down the serial killer known as the Sandman. That hunt brings her to Raintree, Arizona, home town of the WindHaven falcon changelings. 

When Adam realizes she’s the newcomer in town, he confronts her. He demands to know whether she’s in Raintree in hopes that he might forgive her for not correcting her mentor’s lie at the trial of his parents’ accused murderer. That lie let the murderer go free and crushed the nascent mating attraction between Adam and Eleri. 

She explains that she’s tracking the Sandman and believes he’s based in Raintree. No matter how he feels about her, Adam can’t take the chance that a serial killer is hiding in his hometown. He’s torn between wanting her and wanting to punish her, even to destroy her, for letting that injustice stand. Eleri’s flat manner contrasts with the warmth that drew him toward her before her mentor’s lie shattered any hope of anything between him. 

Seeing Adam again, Eleri finds herself drawn to him despite her inability to touch the feelings she remembers having for him. Certain he will never forgive her, believing her time will run out soon, she vows to focus on the hunt that brought her to Raintree. 

When one of Adam’s clanmates is shot and hovers so near death, frozen in mid-shift, powerful empaths cannot reach him. They do sense something in his mind, though, and his brain wave patterns show one unusual reading. Adam knows his friend, Jacques, doesn’t want to be kept alive on machines, but he can’t call an end to the treatment until Jacques is truly gone and not trapped in the depths of his mind. 

Eleri agrees to try to help Jacques, and her willingness to risk herself and the fragile state of her shields helps break through Adam’s old anger. She pays a price for her efforts, and he gradually comes to realize the events at the trial were more complex than he knew. As he and Eleri spend time together, the old attraction between them flares, and understanding follows. 

Changelings are family-oriented, and the family around Adam is loving and fun. Eleri also has a family, four longtime friends whose abilities are also rolling toward a point of no return. One, Bram, is particularly well drawn. So are Adam’s wing second, Dahlia, his sister, Saoirse, and Saoirse’s daughter, Malia. Eleri admires his dedication to clan and family. 

There’s a delightful scene with Eleri and a very young fledgling, and the interactions between Bram and one of the falcons were both touching and fun. The characters are easy to root for and enjoy, and the plot moves at a good pace. 

I enjoyed the beautiful, evocative descriptions of the southwest. The use different types of falcons and the culture of WindHaven were also engaging points in the story. 

The deterioration of the PsyNet isn’t a major point in this book, but it is one in the overall arc of this series. Singh pulls that thread through without letting it disrupt the flow of the main story. 

The serial killer plot is well constructed and logical. I could’ve done without the scene in the killer’s point of view, though. For me, it didn’t add anything to the story. 

My other quibble with the book is a scene where four J-Psy whose shields have collapsed are in a single space with falcon changelings. Singh establishes early in the story that changeling shields mostly compensate for the lack of them in the J-Psy. I was baffled, though, as to how four Psy with no shields could be in close proximity without their unshielded minds crashing. After I thought about the nature of that space, I came up with what I think is the answer, which means the space affects telepathy in a way that wasn’t clearly established earlier. Wondering what was going on with that distracted me from the story. A sentence of explanation would’ve clarified that and let me stop wondering. 

Despite the quibbles, I recommend this story highly. 

4 Stars 

~ Nancy

Review & Giveaway - - Archangel's Ascension

Archangel’s Ascension

by Nalini Singh

Guild Hunter - Book 17

Publisher: Berkley

Release Date: May 6, 2025

Reviewed by Nancy 

 

Aodhan and Illium. Adi and Blue. Sparkle and Bluebell. Friends become lovers, their future a wild unknown.

Finally reunited in New York, they must now learn to navigate the monumental shift in their relationship. But for these two members of Archangel Raphael’s legendary Seven, there is no time to rest. As they investigate a case for the Tower that echoes the darkness from Aodhan’s past, they will be forced to confront not only the scars that mark them both, but the promise of a vast power that flickers in Illium.

The threat of ascension has haunted and troubled Aodhan’s Blue for too long, the forces of change immutable and without mercy…and uncaring of Illium’s fierce wish to remain part of the Seven. Change is a constant in an immortal’s life, and this new horizon will bring with it both terrible heartbreak and a joy extraordinary enough to reverberate through time…

Nancy’s Thoughts:

Archangel’s Ascension is a sequel to Book 14, Archangel’s Light, which took Illium and Aodhan from friends to lovers. Readers can follow the story in Archangel’s Ascension  without having read the prior volume, but I think the emotional arc will have stronger resonance for those who’ve read it.

My one quibble with that earlier book was the absence of a moment when either man hesitated to cross the friend line for fear of losing that irreplaceable friendship. In Archangel’s Ascension, Singh explores both Aodhan’s and Illium’s emotional baggage and its effect on their relationship in a way that addresses everything.

Aodhan is too well aware of his issues, but Illium doesn’t realize the causes of his own unspoken fear. Archangel’s Ascension is a beautiful story of their efforts to work through their baggage so they can relax and trust fully in their love.

The story begins in present time, some 700 years after the end of the last book, Archangel’s Lineage (Book 16). This is labeled Today. A life-altering event occurs near the beginning of the book, which then flashes back to Yesterday, a period about 50 years after the end of Archangel’s Lineage. Much of the story occurs in this earlier period, which looks at Aodhan’s and Illium’s childhood, their relationships with Archangel Rafael, his Seven (the aides he most trusts), and other characters in the series.

Most of the book centers on Aodhan and Illium’s relationship, with the shadow of the Today opening events hovering over this storyline. The pair work together to solve the murder of a young vampire and his female love. This plotline also involves their emotional scars, especially Aodhan’s. It’s well done but not a huge part of the overall story.

The timeline then moves back to Today, to the aftermath of the earlier events and their repercussions. Illium has changed, and everyone around him, including Raphael and Aodhan, must deal with that change in their own ways.

Readers may be able to guess what that change is, but I don’t want to spoil it.

The storyline then moves back and forth between Illium finding his new footing in Today and moments important to his and Aodhan’s relationship in Yesterday. I found the time shifts a little disorienting because I wasn’t sure where we were in the timeline, which parts of Yesterday we were visiting. I suspect this is an issue that will resonate with some readers while others just roll with the shifts.

Each of the familiar supporting characters of the Guild Hunter series gets a nod, even those mortals who, due to the 700-year time jump, are no longer alive in the story world. Singh depicts new characters with enough detail for us to feel that we know them, with emphasis on their importance to the lead characters.

We also see a few major events in the lives of other characters in the series. These interactions aren’t part of the romantic arc and so may feel slow to some readers. Overall, though, the story moves at a good pace. The emotional arc is sometimes intense but always satisfying, and the ending is perfect.

Highly recommended.

~Nancy

 

Readers, tell me what you're currently reading. One randomly chosen person posting a comment before 11:00 PM, May 9 will receive a print copy of Archangel's Ascension.

*U.S. only

*Must be 18

  

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

Review - - Archangel's Lineage

Archangel's Lineage

by Nalini Singh

Guild Hunter #16

Publisher: Berkley

Release Date: April 23, 2024

Reviewed by Nancy Northcott

 

Raphael and Elena are experiencing their first ever year of true peace. No war. No horrors of archangelic power. No nightmares given flesh. Until…the earth beneath the Refuge begins to tremble, endangering not only angelkind’s precious and fragile young, but the very place that has held their most innocent safe for eons.

Amid the chaos, Elena’s father suffers a violent heart attack that threatens to extinguish their last chance to heal the bonds between them and make sense of the ruins of their agonizing shared history.

Even as Elena battles grief, Raphael is torn from her side by the sudden disappearance of an archangel. But worse yet is to come. An Ancestor, an angel unlike any other, stirs from his Sleep to warn the Cadre of a darkness so terrible that it causes empires to fall and civilizations to vanish.

This time, even the Cadre itself may not be able to stop a ticking clock that is counting down at frightening speed…

Nancy’s Thoughts:

The aftermath of a cataclysmic story often feels anticlimactic, even a little dull. Nalini Singh avoids that problem in Archangel’s Lineage by introducing a ticking clock with high stakes. The fate of the Refuge, the hidden nursey for angelkind’s young, is in great danger. The earthquakes are wreaking havoc, and the magical protection that hides the Refuge from the eyes and the satellite of the outside world is failing.

Against this tense background, Elena and her father take their first tentative steps toward long-overdue rapprochement. Singh gives us a detailed look at Elena’s family relationships and her connections to her stepmother and stepsisters.

One of the motifs in this book is Elena’s recognition that time passes faster for her mortal father and beloved sister than it does for her. Singh links this with the fear Elena’s father won’t survive this heart attack. Can they find their way back to each other in time? The arc of their attempts at reconciliation runs through the book to a satisfying conclusion.

There isn’t a strong romance thread in this particular story. There are bits of romantic interaction between Cassandra, angelkind’s sleeping prophet, and the archangel Qin, who loves her. Although Cassandra is Sleeping, the angelic equivalent of being in a deep, unaware trance like slumber, she sees problems in the outer world and attempts to influence them. Whether her efforts and the arrival of Marduk, an Ancient newly awakened from Sleep, will solve the problem or only create new ones is a question that isn’t resolved until near the end of the book.

Marduk isn’t like the other archangels. His wings, eyes, and skin are draconic—which I find very cool!—and the events that lead up to his awakening are not only dramatic but potentially disastrous. When he arrives, greeting Raphael and Elena first, they don’t know what to make of him or whether to trust him. Their doubts are reasonable and are resolved logically.

The Cadre, the group of ruling archangels, work together more smoothly in Archangel’s Lineage than they have sometimes done. Even Ilium’s jerk of a father, Aegaeon, does his part.

Little bits of the story pick up threads from earlier books. Ilium’s growing power reaches a resolution, and we learn more about the mysterious Legion who were so helpful in the war against Lijuan, the evil archangel of China. Meanwhile the Cadre’s efforts to save the Refuge take on an ominous note. There may be a solution—but will the price shatter their hearts?

The story develops at a good pace. Though the romance of Qin and Cassondra is a minor thread, the story overall is very emotional and tense. The character development given to many of the regular characters made up for the romance being a minor thread, at least for me. I loved this book and highly recommend it.

 

Review - - Resonance Surge

Resonance Surge

by Nalini Singh

Psy-Changeling Trinity - Book 7

Publisher: Berkley

Release Date: July 18, 2023

Reviewed by Nancy

Where are the broken? That is the propulsive question that unleashes a world of secrets in New York Times bestselling author Nalini Singh’s Resonance Surge . . .

StoneWater bears Pavel and Yakov Stepyrev have been a unit since birth, but now Pavel’s life is veering in a new direction, his heart held in the hands of Arwen Mercant, a Psy empath—and the only man who has ever brought Pavel to his knees.

This is it. A point of irrevocable change. For Pavel . . . for Arwen . . . for Yakov . . . and for another pair of twins whose bond has a far darker history.

A low-Gradient Psy, Theodora Marshall is considered worthless by everyone but her violently powerful twin, Pax. She is the sole person he trusts in their venomous family to investigate a hidden and terrible part of their family history—an unregistered rehabilitation Center established by their grandfather.

Places of unimaginable pain designed to psychically wipe minds, leaving the victims shells of their former selves, the Centers are an ugly vestige of the Psy race’s Silent past. But this Center was worse. Far, far worse. And now Theo must uncover the awful truth—in the company of a scowling bear named Yakov, who isn’t about to take a Marshall at face value . . . especially a Marshall who has turned his dreams into chilling nightmares.

Because Yakov is the great-grandson of a foreseer . . . and he has seen Theo die in an unstoppable surge of blood. Night after night after night . . .

 

Nancy Says:

I’ve been waiting for the return of the StoneWater bears, and I was delighted to see them featured in Resonance Surge, the seventh book in Nalini Singh’s Psy-Changeling Trinity series. While the DarkRiver leopards and the SnowDancer wolves have their playful sides, the bears take that trait to another level, a level that offers balance this book really needs. 

Theo Marshall carries deep emotional scars. Her grandfather, the head of their family, never let her forget that her power was so much less than her twin’s. Theo believes the old man would’ve had her killed if not for the way any attack on her affected her mental bond with Pax. Unable to destroy her, their grandfather found she had other skills the family could use against its enemies. Even though adult Theo sees that things she did were wrong, the child was desperate to be accepted by her family. If  anyone ever needed the warmth and humor of a changeling bear, Theo does. 

When the story opens, her grandfather has died. Unraveling his estate, Pax has discovered that the family owned many of the “rehabilitation” centers where the Psy wiped the minds of those who could not perfect their Silence, the absence of emotion mandated by the Psy creed. In the garbled records of one of the centers, which had been emptied when Silence fell, he found a reference that seems to be to Theo. Pax asks her to investigate. 

Theo is reluctant to do so, but she wants to know why her name—if that is her name—is in the center’s records. Concerned for her safety, Pax asks for help from the StoneWater bears. Psy Silver Mercant, mate of the bears’ alpha, asks Yakov to protect her in case the deserted facility turns out to be less deserted than they expect. But she also wants him to apply his knowledge, gleaned as a second to the StoneWater alpha, about how large organizations function. He can’t resist the chance to poke around at will in one of the centers. 

Yakov and Theo are immediately attracted to each other. He’s more open to the idea than she is because she believes the way her telepathy functions under strong emotion renders her not only unsuitable for a relationship but dangerous. But there’s just something so appealing about the warmth and strength and teasing of this changeling that she finds herself drawn to him anyway. 

As they explore the abandoned center and hunt for records, the bond between them deepens. They also make a number of disturbing discoveries, including information that sets up the twist and the all-is-lost moment at the end. 

Resonance Surge also continues Singh’s exploration of the deterioration in the PsyNet, which all Psy need to survive, and the effect of Scarab Syndrome, a corruption of the telepathy of powerful telepaths. Unfortunately, Pax Marshall suffers from it. He wants Theo to be more involved in the family’s business affairs so she’ll be prepared to take over when he succumbs to Scarab Syndrome. 

One subplot, explained mostly in letters, shows the history of Silence. Not everyone favored it, and the disagreements led to the sundering of families. 

Theo and Yakov’s discoveries about this abandoned rehabilitation center are disturbing but not nearly as much so as the memories exploring it stirs in Theo. Her grandfather did more than force her to hurt others to serve her family. I won’t spoil the story by saying what, exactly, but I will say that the flashbacks to these events, while they make one’s heart ache for this child, are not sexual and are no darker than scenes in other books of the series. Overall, the story reinforces the previous depiction of the Psy as a group with many members tainted by an unhealthy lust for power. When the Psy interdicted emotions, one that would have tempered this desire went out with all the rest, and that was compassion. 

One of the main obstacles to a relationship for Yakov and Theo is her dangerous difficulty with strong emotion. The scenes between them, however, are sexy and tender and sometimes humorous and engage the reader beautifully. 

Singh weaves the PsyNet plot, Theo’s flashbacks, and the truth about the centers into the romance without ever allowing them to supplant it as the primary storyline. Readers of the series will enjoy seeing Arwen Mercant and Pavel Stepyrev, Yakov’s twin, progress. 

One of the strengths of this series is Singh’s ability to revisit themes like the corruption of Silence without being repetitive. She has done that again in Resonance Surge.

 

Highly Recommended.

5 Stars

 

~Nancy

Review - - Archangel's Resurrection

Archangel's Resurrection 

by Nalini Singh

A Guild Hunter Novel - Book 15

Publisher: Berkley

Release Date: October 25, 2022

Reviewed by Nancy

 

For thousands of years, the passion between Alexander, Archangel of Persia, and Zanaya, Queen of the Nile, burned furious and bright, seemingly without end. But to be an archangel is to be bound to power violent and demanding. Driven by its primal energy, Alexander and Zanaya fought as fiercely as they loved, locked in an endless cycle of devotion and heartbreak. It is only Zanaya’s decision to Sleep that ends their love story.
 
Eons later, the Cascade of Death wakens them both. The passion between them a flame that yet burns, Alexander and Zanaya stand together in one last battle against the ultimate darkness. But even a warrior archangel cannot win every war. Alexander’s scream shatters the world as Zanaya falls, broken and silent . . . only to rise again in a miracle that may be a devastating curse. For is it truly the Queen of the Nile who has been resurrected?
 
Only one thing is clear: This is the last beat of their passionate, angry dance. The final song for Alexander and his Zani . . .

Nancy Says:

Three books ago, with Archangel’s War, Singh brought the arc of the power-maddened archangel Lijuan to its cataclysmic conclusion. The two books after that showed some of the effects of that cataclysm on the characters and the world. Archangel’s Resurrection continues that thread. It focuses on archangels Alexander ( sometimes Xander) and Zanaya (Zani). The story opens in New York during the battle against Lijuan. Lijuan attacks Zani, who falls from the sky nearly dead. Zani goes into Sleep, the restorative state of angels, and the story jumps back to Alexander’s childhood, including his loving parents and older brother, Osiris. 

His family were scholars and expected him to be one too. Alexander, however, chose the way of the warrior instead. With his family’s support, he set about building that life. 

We also learn some of Zani’s backstory and her development into a warrior angel. When she and Alexander meet, intense attraction immediately burns between them, but both walk away. Alexander is several thousand years older than Zani, and he thinks he would do her a disservice if he pursued her while she’s still finding her path. Zani was raised by her mother only because her father abandoned them, yet her mother remains obsessed with him. The last thing Zani wants is an obsessive love. 

They do eventually come together about twenty percent of the way through the story. Their relationship is as intense as they both expected but fraught with conflict. He wants commitment, and she’s determined to maintain her independence. They enter a cycle of passionate reunions eventually ending in quarrels and followed by long periods apart. The story explores the ways they both grow and change during those separations. While Singh often explores a couple’s separate lives, most romances don’t. There’s a further separation while one of the couple Sleeps, over the vehement protest of the other. The sleeper awakens just before the Cascade that presaged the war against Lijuan. 

Alexander and Zanaya’s relationship has become famed among angelkind even though they’ve never been able to make it work. When Zani sleeps after Lijuan’s attack, Alexander is afraid he’s lost his last chance to resolve their conflicts. When she awakens, they’ve both changed and matured and try in a different way to make their relationship work. They face problems, though, that are not of their making. Zani still bears the effects of Lijuan’s attacks, and the evil Lijuan loosed on the world is taking a new and unexpected direction. 

Singh gradually shows us how Zani and Alexander have gained perspective through their experiences and have looked back at their relationship with new eyes.  The moments she chooses to illustrate their growth are poignant and had me cheering them on. 

Some of the most emotional relationships in the book involve family and friends. As a child, Alexander was close to his older brother, Osiris, and admired him a great deal. Osiris gradually withdraws from his brother, and Alexander eventually discovers changes in his brother that force him to make a painful choice. 

Alexander is also very close to his grandson and namesake, Xander, whose father and mother were killed by Lijuan. Zanaya is not Alexander’s mother. He was conceived when she and Alexander were not together. 

Zani isn’t close to her mother, but she’s very close to her mentor and to her two closest friends. Alexander’s closest friend in his youth is archangel Raphael’s mother, Caliane, and we see how her period of madness grieved him. He and Raphael have an interesting dynamic. 

Singh does a great job of showing the horrible effects of Lijuan’s madness in different books featuring different characters without being repetitive. The title of Archangel’s Resurrection is very clever because another archangel injured by Lijuan’s evil has an unsuspected part to play. 

My one problem with this book is that the romance feels a little disjointed. The cycle of intense passion followed by separation is handled well, but every separation interrupts the arc of the romance. The forward progression stops and then starts again. Otherwise, I thought it moved at a good pace, and I was rooting for the characters. It’s an excellent installment in the series. 

Highly recommended.

4.5 Stars

~Nancy

 

Tour Review & Giveaway - - Storm Echo

Storm Echo

by Nalini Singh

Psy-Changeling Trinity #6

Publisher: Berkley

Release Date: August 9, 2022

Reviewed by Nancy

 

Silence has fallen. The Psy are free to feel emotion. Free to love. But Silence was never a prison for Ivan Mercant. The biggest threat to his future lies dormant in his brain—a psychic monster that wants only to feed. And now, the brutal leash he’s kept on that monster is slipping. He prepared for this day, for the end of Ivan Mercant . . . but that was before he met Lei. 

As primal as she is human, this wild changeling brings color into his life, laughter to his soul. Then the dream shatters in a rain of blood, in silent bodies in the snow. Lei is gone. Vanished without a trace . . . until he meets strangely familiar eyes across a busy San Francisco street.
 
Soleil Bijoux Garcia is a healer who has lost everything. She exists in a world of desolate aloneness . . . till the day she finds herself face-to-face with a lethal stranger. The animal who is her other half knows this man, but her memories are tattered fragments. Sorrow and a need for vengeance are all that drive her. Her mission? To kill the alpha of the DarkRiver leopard pack.
 
But fate has other plans. Soon, a deadly soldier who believes himself a monster and a broken healer might be all that stand between life and death for the entire Psy race. . . . 

[Note: Storm Echo is the sixth book in Nalini Singh’s Psy-Changeling Trinity series. Like the other books in the series, it can be read as a standalone.]

Nancy Says: 

Storm Echo continues the battle against the mysterious Psy known as the Architect, who is recruiting powerful telepaths called Scarabs to destroy the PsyNet and seize power. A connection to the Net is essential for survival, so the damage and destruction the Architect and her Scarabs cause kills large numbers of Psy. 

Opposing the Architect is a coalition of Psy, including the powerful Mercant family. In Storm Echo, Ivan Mercant steps to the fore. He joined the family after he was orphaned in childhood. He’s a powerful telepath and has devoted himself to the security of his kindred.  He never allows them to get too close to him emotionally, though, because he’s hiding a secret about the direction his telepathy is taking. 

His mother, who died when he was eight, took a street drug when she was pregnant with him. After he was born, she gave it to him from time to time. This drug made his telepathy powerful, but the traces it left in him are greedy. He sees them as a spider in his mind, one that grows ever more powerful and craves the power he could draw from other people, even to a lethal degree. Before it becomes that strong, he plans to imprison himself in a mental cage of his own devising, shutting himself off from everyone in a kind of coma. Until that time comes, though, he’ll protect the family and help the Psy against the Architect. 

Ivan’s plan hits a snag while he’s training with a small but deadly pack of wolf changelings. He injures his leg, and a changeling woman who calls herself Lei, walks out of the woods and tends to him. Their mutual attraction is immediate, and he finds himself wanting more than just a couple of woodland picnics together. 

A bit I love occurs on one of those picnics. Despite Ivan’s preference for nutrient bars, he agrees to try a mushroom tart Lei made, and this follows: The flavors were explosions of sensation on his tongue, an overload of input. He must’ve betrayed some response because she laughed—the kind of laugh that said this was a shared amusement. He knew that even though he had never laughed. 

This bit shows how warm and giving Lei is and how drawn Ivan is to that warmth. She teaches him to play in the forest and to splash in the pool below a waterfall. 

He wants to get to know her, to see her as often as he can in the time he believes he has left. He also wants their relationship to be honest, so he tells her about himself, including the dark things he has done to defend his family, a little at a time lest he frighten her away or disgust her. 

Instead of being repelled, Lei agrees to meet him again. But she doesn’t show. Ivan fights the urge to look for her. Believing she rejected him after all, he tells himself the right thing to do is leave her be. 

She hasn’t rejected him, though. Before she can meet him, disaster overtakes her pack. It leaves her alone, believing her pack destroyed. Her quest to avenge their deaths takes her to San Francisco, where the DarkRiver leopard pack, whose alpha she believes killed her pack, has a base. Ivan also is in the city on family business. They’re on the same street, though she doesn’t recognize him, when the PsyNet ruptures. Every Psy in the area, including Ivan, collapses. Ivan manages to reconnect to the Net. Using the ability that has such dark potential, he seizes minds around him and flings them back into the Net. 

Unaffected by the rupture, Lei immediately dives into helping the victims around her. She works so hard that she drains herself and passes out. She awakens in a DarkRiver hospital room, where she unexpectedly picks up a familiar scent, one of her supposedly dead pack. Determined to track that scent, she escapes from the hospital. Ivan, who recognized her, has been waiting outside the hospital in case she needed him. He offers her a ride. When they find the source of that scent, what they learn turns all Lei’s assumptions upside down. 

Lei must adjust to a new life and a new pack, but a mating bond is already forming between her and Ivan. He resists it because of the grim future he sees for himself, but they draw ever closer. While the motif of one partner resisting a fated mating runs through the changeling stories, the conflicts that cause the other partner to resist that mating are many and varied. The fated mates trope could easily become repetitive, but Singh keeps it fresh and interesting. 

Meanwhile, the Architect continues to wreak havoc. Ivan joins cardinal telepath Kaleb Krychek (Heart of Obsidian) in trying to protect the PsyNet. The spider Ivan dreads gives him unexpected abilities he must use, risking everything, in a desperate attempt to save the Net. 

The characters are easy to root for. Both Ivan and Lei carry emotional wounds, and his desire to keep her from sharing the dark fate that awaits him is a believable obstacle to their romance. The romance is, by turns, heart-wrenching, sweet, and playful, and it’s a process of growth for both Lei and Ivan. 

Supporting characters include the interesting and varied Mercant family and the warm, communal changelings. Many of the secondary characters first appeared in earlier books, but they’re introduced in a smooth way that gives readers who’re not familiar with those books what they need to know right away. 

The story moves well, and the resolution comes with a surprising, satisfying twist. 

Highly recommended. 

5 Stars 

~Nancy

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Have you read Nalini Singh?

Are you reading the Psy-Changeling series?

If you could be a changeling, what animal would you want to be your non-human half?

One randomly chosen person who posts a comment before 11:00 PM, July 30 will receive a hardback copy of Storm Echo.

*U.S. only

*Must be 18

*Void where prohibited