Title: Ocean Light
Series: Psy-Changeling Trinity Book #2
Stand Alone Title: recommended in order
Author: Nalini Singh
Genre: Romance, Paranormal
Blurb: New York Times bestselling author Nalini Singh dives beneath the surface of her Psy-Changeling world into a story of passionate devotion and selfless love...

Security specialist Bowen Knight has come back from the dead. But there's a ticking time bomb in his head: a chip implanted to block telepathic interference that could fail at any moment--taking his brain along with it. With no time to waste, he should be back on land helping the Human Alliance. Instead, he's at the bottom of the ocean, consumed with an enigmatic changeling...

Kaia Luna may have traded in science for being a chef, but she won't hide the facts of Bo's condition from him or herself. She's suffered too much loss in her life to fall prey to the dangerous charm of a human who is a dead man walking. And she carries a devastating secret Bo could never imagine...

But when Kaia is taken by those who mean her deadly harm, all bets are off. Bo will do anything to get her back--even if it means striking a devil's bargain and giving up his mind to the enemy...
Favorite quote(s): “Mourn me, but please don’t bury yourself with me. Promise.”
Thoughts: ‘If Bowen Adrian Knight was to cease to exist, he’d go out on his own terms.’ Ocean light was so interesting and is outside anything we’ve seen from either the Psy-changeling or Trinity series before. Totally refreshing. It’s also heartbreaking. Bowen has basically meets Kaia when he comes Blacksea to dedicate his body to research…and to die. Of course! What an imperfectly perfect time to meet your true love. Talk about your tragic love story. No one does it better than Nalini Singh though. Not to mention I have been fascinated to learn more about Blacksea and we get that chance with Ocean Light.
I think this book is exactly what the series needed, and I am so excited to see where this series goes next!
Rating: A

Phew! I did not mean to go so long between reviews. I’m a youth librarian and in summer, well, I am busy at work. Like it’s normal work times a thousand. I haven’t had a lot of time for reading and reviewing but I’m hoping that will change as my library’s summer reading program is finally winding down (hallelujah!). I read Ocean Light early this summer and I’m finally getting to review it so, you know, it’s been a long summer.

Ocean Light is the second book in Nalini Singh’s spinoff (of sorts) of the Psy/Changeling series. This is the Psy-Changeling Trinity series. As with most of her books, you definitely want to read the other stories first, especially when it comes to the hero. Bowen has been long involved in the Psy world and you’ll have a deeper understanding of him if you know what he has been working toward as a human surrounded by changelings and Psy.

Bo wakes up in a mysterious place. He has no idea where he is or how he survived the bullet that ricocheted through his body. Of course, he also knows his time on Earth is limited as the implant in his brain is racing to end his life. It was a risk he willingly took at the time and not one he thought he would ever regret. Except, things have changed. When he wakes up in his mystery location, he meets beautiful Kaia Luna. She is a chef, taking care of her fellow changelings. It is a great joy in her life. But she also feels the pull towards Bowen. She is supposed to hate humans. After all, they caused some of the greatest pain in her life. But how do you hate a man who is becoming someone special to her?

Ocean Light is set in the ocean, obviously. And it’s a thrilling world to visit! I was so excited when Nalini started carving out the ocean changelings. To finally get an intimate view into at least one group’s ocean world is beyond amazing. Like her other changeling settings, the ocean world Nalini creates is complex, dangerous, and breathtaking. I could have stayed immersed in Ocean Light for a lot longer than it took me to read this book. And honestly, I had been putting this book off for awhile because I wasn’t super excited about the prospect of Bo as hero. He was very bland and blah in the previous Psy/Changeling books, despite his heroic nature. However, he really comes alive in Ocean Light (which is funny considering he is close to dying).

I really, really enjoyed his connection with Kaia. And I loved Kaia. She is a very special woman. She is a changeling and is definitely a caretaker of her particular underwater world. She is busy watching over her pregnant cousin, helping a shy and awkward lab tech, and being a friend to everyone aboard their submerged home. She is also a bit lonely, even if she cannot say that aloud. Kaia has had a lot of loss in her life and Bo is starting to help her maybe make a fragile, permanent hopeful connection. (Side note: I loved Kaia’s relationship with her grandmother aboard the island, when her grandmother is a turtle. That is the kind of thing I would have enjoyed as a child.)

When I’m reading a Nalini Singh book, I always wish the world of the Psy and Changelings actually did exist alongside that of humans. That feeling continued as I read Ocean Light. There is so much wonder and amazement in our world and Nalini Singh taps into that feeling so well. Exploring Ocean Light was truly like a grand adventure for me and I look forward to more stories set in the ocean.

Ocean Light gets a rave review from me. I’m not a water person by any means but this is a swimming adventure I was happy to “dive” into this summer.

Ocean Light is the newest release in the Psy-Changeling series from Nalini Singh and picks up about 8 weeks after Silver Silence ends. With Ocean Light we finally get a book with major focus on BlackSea changelings, and I couldn't be happier.

Ocean Light is Bowen and Kaia's story and they form a bond pretty much from the first moment they see one another. While Bo is the head of the Human Alliance and lives on land, Kaia is a BlackSea changeling who lives in the deepest part of the ocean. I loved these two such different individuals hated to be apart from one another so quickly. Of course the fact that Kaia is the one to inform Bo he might have a trader in the midst of the Alliance was a bit of a strain for a time. All evidence available to Black Sea is pointing to someone in the Alliance being responsible for the missing members of the BlackSea clan. I loved that while Bo trusted his people, he didn't brush off the evidence and immediately wanted to investigate, even while waiting to see if the procedure to stabilize the chip in head will work.

I was completely charmed by Ocean Light. I can't say that I wanted Bowen to get his book right now, but as soon as I met Kaia, I knew there was no other individual that was more perfect for him. Watching them fall for one another gave me all the happy feels, even as I knew they had so many challenges ahead of them. They were very open with communication and really did seem to be real friends before moving on and becoming lovers.

The mystery of the Consortium and who is running it remains as strong as ever. Yes we are learning a bit about those individuals who would sell out their people to help them, yet I didn't feel like we saw any solid leads to the group. I do feel like we made strides with the Alliance, Psy, and Changelings being true allies for the future. I also loved that we finally learned more about the water changelings. While they are still a bit of a mystery, I have to say spending so much time with BlackSea did answer some questions I've had about the group since we first met them.

I really enjoyed Ocean Light and thought it was a wonderful addition to the series. It was filled with romance, action, and intrigue.


Rating: 4.5 Stars (B+)

Another fantastic book from Nalini Singh in the Psy- Changeling world. I love the fact she is delving more deeply into the Black Sea group, so many different sea animals to chat about, but I don’t want to give away the surprises.
This is Bowen Knight, the head of the Human Alliance story. He was injured in the last book and not expected to live, but he does and falls in love with Black Sea member Kaia Luna. Their love story has lots of road blocks, between the two of them it takes a long time to build trust. But as usual, they work things out in the end for a HEA.
I would highly recommend Ocean Light to any paranormal romance fan.

I love Singh's writing. It's always tight, well edited, and she has the ability to successfully keep a story arc going across multiple books in a series without making the reader feel like any individual books is lacking its own action and ending. This is the first book that was a little lack-luster for me. I will admit it was nice to have a book that just let its characters fall and be in love, sort of a calm before the storm of future books. That being said, much of the action in this book wasn't action, it was worry and stress and trying not to worry about what "could happen." I like this new focus on aquatic creatures and the possibility for even some imaginary creatures given that we don't even know some of the denizens of the super deep. Would one of those pigmentless creatures be blind as a human? Albino? Could they ever go to the surface or would it affect their human form? So much fun to play with the possibilities. Definitely looking forward to the next book.

While I don't think this book lives up to the others in the series it was a pleasant and easy read. Until the last few chapters it felt like the book was simply filler in the series, it didn't feel like it was going to forward the series at all until the conflict/solutions found in the last 2-3 chapters. Those were really the pushing scenes in the book for me.

I'm a big fan of Nalini Singh and with Ocean Light I am once again reminded as to why. Her writing style is gripping even when it's a bit over the top like this new release.

I wait all year for these books. Once again Nalini delves into this amazing psy/changling world. Trying to understand Blacksea and all its secrets is something Bowen will struggle with but to see him fall in love FINALLY was magic!

I really love this series so I looked forward to Bo's story. I wondered what was going to happen to Bo with the degrading chip in his head and then being shot at the end of the last book. I liked the underwater world he was in and how the sea changelings cared for him. Seeing the way he and Kaia came to care for each other, even knowing Bo might only have a couple more weeks to live, was good. With a few little mysteries to solve thrown in with furthering race relations it was a good story with a satisfying happy ending.

If I believed in such a thing, the Psy-Changeling series would be a "guilty pleasure." While I don't believe in guilt-reading -- that's ridiculous -- there are aspects of the series that make me me feel kinda embarrassed. Any romance involving one of the changelings -- and they are always predatory changelings -- is so hopelessly mired in kinky Victorian notions of biological determinism and dominance and submission. I mean, that's usually what you find in animal shifter narratives, so Singh isn't outside the norm, but I know I'm going to have to grit my teeth through that stuff to get to the extremely cool mythology she's been spinning for almost 20 novels now. (I don't have the same problem with the Psy, who are Vulcan-like psychics, because their romances tend to center around recovery from severe abuse and personal sexual awakening, which I find much more interesting than YOU MAH WOMAN GRARR.) Ocean Light is about a human-changeling pairing, so.

Technically, Psy-Changeling wrapped up with Allegiance of Honor, which was a sort of clip show, where we checked back in with literally everyone who had ever been mentioned in the previous 14 books. I get why it was written that way, but romance epilogues make my teeth ache, and this was more than a dozen of them all piled up. It was also a letdown because the previous three novels, Heart of Obsidian, Shield of Winter, and Shards of Hope, are hands down the best novels in the series. Singh brings all of her complicated mythology to full flower in those novels, and in ways that make the romance plot absolutely integral to the narrative. Heart of Obsidian especially. That they're a dozen novels deep in a series makes them even more impressive; Singh had the opposite of burnout.

Silver Silence, the novel directly previous to Ocean Light, was the first of the novels in Psy-Changeling Trinity, which details life after the fall of Silence (a form of widespread social conditioning practiced by the Psy designed to repress all emotion.) Like Ocean Light, it follows a character seen on the periphery for most of the series: Silver Mercant, personal assistant to all-around badass Kaleb Krychek. She falls in with a bear pack outside of Moscow, which was interesting because we've never seen bear changelings in action before. Bear changelings end up being annoying, but then they're not as drearily serious as either the cats or the wolves, so on the balance more fun to read about.

Like Silver Silence, Ocean Light centers on a peripheral group, one that has heretofore been shrouded in mystery: the BlackSea pack, a changeling clan that encompasses the entirety of the earth's oceans. Even the land-bound changelings think of them as out there. While we've encountered some of the BlackSea characters in Psy-Changeling novels, specifically Miane, the alpha, and her security guy, the pack itself has been secretive. BlackSea takes in Bowen Knight, head of the Human Alliance, in order for BlackSea scientists to remove a degrading chip in Knight's head. We've met Bowen many times before. As the head of the Human Alliance, he's tangled with both the Psy and changelings (both of whom tend to treat humans like butt monkeys).

The romance largely consists of Bowen and the BlackSea chef, Kaia, making eyes at one another while agonizing about how Bowen might die from a medical procedure. It's not particularly compelling. The non-romance plot has to do with ongoing kidnappings of BlackSea members, kidnappings that seem to be perpetrated by the Human Alliance. Knight and Miane's security guy work towards figuring out who the traitors in their organizations must be, but mostly through phone calls and data searches, so that plot-line isn't particularly compelling either. There is some movement at the very end, but reading about a grueling transatlantic flight isn't exactly action either.

BlackSea itself, though, was interesting to read about. There’s still a fair amount we don’t know about the pack – pack members tend to be especially secretive about what their animal is – but the underwater city was beautifully rendered. While shifter narratives almost never address bestiality – and I am not suggesting they should – there was an ongoing tentacle-sex gag going on here that surprised a laugh out of me. All considered, Ocean Light was fine, but I felt like more could have been done with both BlackSea and Bowen Knight, alas.

This was a great addition to the Psy-Changeling series! The author continues to do an amazing job of drawing us into this world. I would recommend this book along with the previous books in the series.

<em>Ocean Light</em> is the second book in the Psy-Changelings Trinity series and it follows the leader of the Human Alliance, Bowen Knight, as he finds himself falling in love with Black Sea cook, Kaia Luna.

Bo was gunned down at the end of Silver Silence and I thought for sure he was a goner but I was wrong because he survived, thanks to the science and smarts of Dr. Ashaya and Amara Aleine and Dr. Atalina Kahananui. He's got a lot of rehabbing to do and that's pretty much all of the first half of this book. Sure, while he's rehabbing, he's falling in love with Black Sea's cook, Kaia Luna. Bo has a lot on his plate and doesn't have time for a romance but that doesn't stop him.

Kaia Luna hates humans. She is not a fan of the head of the Human Alliance either. She holds him and the rest of his kind responsible for all of the bad things that have happened in her life. The death of her parents, the disappearance of her best friend, all of the bad things in the world so it only makes sense for her to fall in love with the head human of the world, right? Haha.

Much of this book takes place underwater in the thick of the Black Sea while Bo is recuperating from his injuries. He's trying to piece together what he's missed since he got shot and he's spending a lot of time with the cook, Kaia. He's drawn to her and her to him and their attraction is mutual. They don't understand it but unlike Kaia, Bo doesn't question it. He goes with it. Having your life almost cut extremely short makes you take stock of what's important and what's not. Kaia is important and he's not running from it.

Kaia is hoping and praying that her best friend returns home safely but she has a bad feeling about Hugo's disappearance and she's deathly afraid that he's going to come back in a body bag. She's scared that the humans who are kidnapping Black Sea changelings has Hugo and it's going to be all bad. She's got proof that it was the humans behind all of the bad stuff going down with Black Sea and that proof condemns the Human Alliance...and Bo. The more she gets to know the leader of the Human Alliance, the more she starts to doubt everything that Hugo said about the humans.

There's a lot going in this book and because of that, you'd think that the book would have moved at a faster pace than it did but I thought the beginning of the book dragged a bit. It felt like so much was happening and nothing was happening at the same time, if that makes any sense. I did come to enjoy both Bo and Kaia and their romance but it took a little bit for me to warm up.

My favorite thing about this book was hearing little tidbits from our old Psy-Changelings friends and seeing them come through. From Mercy to Hawke to Kaleb, I loved seeing them again and I loved seeing them come together to fight the bad guys. I'm curious about the other Black Sea changelings even though I got super annoyed with how secretive they are about what they are. I mean, I'm sure they all have their reasons but as a reader, I didn't connect with that. The beginning may have dragged but once the story picked up, it really picked up. I enjoyed the second half of the book far more than the first half and because of that, I'm giving the book a 4 instead of something lower.

I'm looking forward to more from the Black Sea folks but I'm also looking forward to seeing how the main plots from the series plays out.

<strong>Grade: 4 out of 5</strong>

Ocean Light is part of a MS Singh psy-changelings trinity series . With the psy free of silence the world has been open to open to them. Now human, changeling and psy must forge a path. No one group can be seen as week and they must all work together for this new world to work. Security specialist Bowen Knight has come back from the dead with the help of the water changeling a women chief that carries the scent of a mate. There's a ticking time bomb in his head: a chip implanted to block telepathic interference that could fail at any moment--taking his brain along with it. With no time to waste, he should be back on land helping the Human Alliance. While the book help move the story along and was fast pace. I would caution new read who may get lost without knowing the back story. A great book to get lost in during the long hot summer nights.

I know that no one is rocking up to this series at book 17, wondering what reviews say. If you've gotten this far, you're in. I know that, and yet I still feel the need to warn you about how profoundly dull this book is.

Sure, part of it is that I've been dreading a Bowen book since he was first introduced to us (it's like the Chekhov's gun of romance, a single character in possession of good looks must be in want of a book, and I knew the second we met him that he would get one), and for good reason. Bowen is the wooooooooooorst. He's barely likeable comatose.

Singh also rushed through the romance. I can't blame her because I am also not super interested in these characters and would much rather read some geopolitics,but goddamn I expected better than for our characters to fall "in love" in a week. Singh didn't work for the emotional payout at all and so there was none.

All that said, I'll see you all in book 18

The Psy-Changling series is one of my favourite go-to reads.

Nalini's writing is great and the new long story ARC is gathering pace. As always, the romance is poingnant and engaging.

As a big fan of Nalini Singh, I was excited to be introduced to a new group of changelings. Black Sea has been woven in and out of the story for awhile and we've been teased with their mysteries the whole time. In this book we not only get some insight into what water changeling life is like but also get the long awaited answer to the fate of Bowen Knight. Like always Nalini's books are well written, funny, and full to the brim with characters that you want to learn more about. We also get some glimpses of some old favorite characters as well. This Human Alliance has occupied a few different spaces in the Psy/Changeling universe but we haven't spent a ton of time with them. This book does a great job filling in those blank spots and establishing their why they're a power.

The problem was that this book felt like it existed in isolation...literally since the majority took place at one of Black Sea's underwater cities. While there were connections to the overarching plot I found myself missing the world at large. It's such a big vibrant cast of characters and places that we've come to love and anytime there's a switch to a new group it takes some adjusting. While I warmed right up to the Bears in Silver Silence I was a bit slower to come around and really get engrossed in this book. Kaia has a lot of her own going on between her history and secrets. She and Bowen felt a little off as a pairing with her serving the role of dominant caretaker that we've seen before. Their adventure and the ticking time bomb nature of the plot did keep things moving but for some reason the instalove just didn't track as well in this book. Somewhere about the 60% mark I got sucked in the to the story and looking back I enjoyed it. 3.7/5 stars for me! Bring on more of the Black Sea but I hope to see them out and in the world more.

It literally hurts my heart to write this review. I have never not loved a book by Nalini. Well, there was Silver Silence. While I didn’t love it, I liked it a lot. This book, not so much. It wasn’t that I disliked it. I didn’t. It was just boring. And slow. So incredibly slow and boring. There wasn’t a lot of excitement until almost the end of the book. Then it picked up and got interesting. Until then? It just wasn’t for me. I had to force myself to read it because I wasn’t going to give Nalini a DNF.

Bowen Knight has been in the Psy/Changeling books for a long time. He is the “alpha” of the humans. Bowen long ago realized that someone needed to step up to protect the human race. While he never thought he would be the one to do it, he ended up doing the job. After being mind-raped by a Psy when he was thirteen, Bo has an incredible aversion to the Psy race. Such an aversion that he has an experimental chip implanted in his head. He doesn’t care if it kills him as long as it protects his mind from the Psy. Bo understands that the Psy race is evolving, but not enough for him to trust. A few of his most trusted people, along with sister, have the same chip implanted in their heads. When things start going wrong with the chip, Bo doesn’t think of himself, but of his people.

At the end of Silver Silence, Bo takes a bullet to the heart and falls into the water. Lucky for him, the BlackSea changelings save him. He wakes up in one of their strongholds to a scientist that tells him he has a chance to live. A five percent chance, but a chance nonetheless. His attention strays from the doctor and seeks out her cousin, Kaia Luna. He has never felt such an attraction to a woman; a woman that seems to despise him for no reason.

Kaia has her reasons for not liking Bowen Knight. He is involved with the disappearance of several of her packmates. That is unforgivable to Kaia. What is even more unforgivable is when Kaia finds herself attracted to Bo. How can she be attracted to someone so evil that they capture and torture changelings? It doesn’t take Kaia long to realize that Bo is nothing like she thought he was. So they end up falling in love miles and miles under the ocean where the experiment on Bo is taking place.

This is why the book is boring. It takes place in the ocean. There is no excitement there. Kaia stays there specifically because she feels safe. Because nothing ever happens there. She never surfaces to the land above. Bo is all about excitement and Kaia, well, isn’t. I just didn’t feel them together. It just felt forced. Which is sad, really, because they were both really good characters. Just by themselves. Not together.

Like I mentioned above, the book picked up about seventy five to eighty percent in. It was too late for me. By then I was skimming, trying to finish the book. If you’re like me, you can’t skip a book in a series that you’re this invested in. So I’m glad I read it even though I didn’t like it.

Nalini Singh never ceases to amaze me. Every single story just leaves me in wonderment especially Ocean Light. What was different about it was the detailed underwater world that she created.

The romance behind it was just as beautiful. Bowen and Kaia's possessed a deep love that defied time, distance, race and prejudice. Their story will have you contemplate the saying if it really is "Better to have loved than never have lost at all."

Ocean Light is definitely nothing like I have a ever read before. The way she described it was fantastic. It felt tangible, as if I was swimming along the mysterious creatures. A masterpiece. I can not wait to see what else her unparalleled imagination comes up with next.

Ocean Light is the second book in the Psy-Changeling spinoff series, Psy-Changeling Trinity, which focuses on the alliance (and its members) among the Psy, Changelings and Human Alliance. Instead of focusing on the races separately, we now are working toward a more integrated society with the signing of the Trinity Accord. Silence has fallen for the Psy, and they are attempting to make inroads into the human race as they have learned that, much like the empaths, they are necessary for the health of the PsyNet.

Leader of the Human Alliance, Bowen Knight, has a played a large role in previous books. We knew that he was living on borrowed time due to the protective chip in his brain, which is rapidly deteriorating. I believe it was the last book, Silver Silence, which saw Bo taking a bullet to the heart. He certainly never expected to wake submersed into the deep black sea surrounded by unfamiliar water changelings. But much like everything else, Bo takes his continued existence (and countdown to brain damage) in stoic stride. I enjoyed getting to know Bo more than we have in previous books. He is a caring and honorable man, willing to sacrifice himself for his people. And while he gets twitchy about telepaths, he doesn't really treat any of the races different from himself. I also liked that, as a human, he was just as deadly as some of our changelings!

Kaia Luna is somewhat of a tragic heroine, and a water changeling. I will leave it to you to figure out which type. The water changelings have been so mysterious throughout the series, and we never really know what they are. I liked that their second nature was immediately laid out for us at the outset, Nalini kept us guessing for the whole book before we finally got confirmation of Kaia's second form. I really liked Kaia. She was a mothering sort - caring for everyone equally and making sure they all got her time, attention, and cooking skills. I also respected her for giving up the science gig to do something that truly made her happy - and I would love to have an iota of her culinary skills. She thought she hid her soft-hearted nature behind a tough exterior shell, but most people saw through her and that teflon coating wasn't so hard to crack. Her determination in this story, in spite of her extreme fear, was wonderful to behold. I was rooting for her the whole way.

The relationship between Kaia and Bowen is not instalove, but it is instant attraction, chemistry, and a realization that there was something real between them. Even when Kaia suspects Bo of carrying out evil deeds, she can't quite dim her curiosity and desire for the man. I thought the relationship was more on the sweet side than steamy, and it unfolded at a nice pace along with the story.

Our secondary storyline in this book involves the sea changelings that have been kidnapped and mutilated in prior books. The plot is still being carried out, but its being laid on the shoulders of Bowen Knight and the Human Alliance. Bo must prove to the changelings that he hasn't betrayed them, all the while finding a traitor in his midst. I had my suspicions as I was reading, but I didn't predict things playing out as they did. So this was a good secondary storyline that advanced the plot nicely.

I was intrigued by the BlackSea Security Chief, Malachai, before I read this story. But I am even more curious about him now. I hope he and Mignon both have a story coming soon - I can't wait to find out what their sea creatures are.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book that I received from the publisher, Berkley.

Ocean Light is the second book in Nalini Singh's second Pys-Changeling series, Psy-Changeling Trinity. While Silver Silence was successful in becoming an accessible new entry point for readers intimidated by the expansive original Psy-Changeling series, Ocean Light is a much more demanding book. This book deepens the new series central mystery, expanding the players, establishing new relationships and continuing to grow the world, while at same time having to find way to catch new readers up on Bowen Knight's backstory. I am curious to see how successful this was for new readers. As an established reader, I was well acquainted with Bowen Knight, who has been a long-running secondary POV characters in the Psy-Changeling series. I felt we got to see a whole new side of him as he falls in love with Kaia, especially learning new information about what has driven him to be so passionate about seeking a way to protect Humans from unscrupulous and predatory Psy via technological interventions.

As a romance, I loved how play played a huge part of Kaia and Bowen's courtship. While Kaia starts out deeply suspicious and wary of Bowen, just like the rest of BlackSea, she gets to know him better challenging and teasing him. His natural curiosity pushes him to try to figure out Kaia and make sense of her relationships with other BlackSea packmates.

I loved meeting the BlackSea changelings, and comparing and contrasting their way of behaving as pack and how it differs from the SnowDancer and DarkRiver (both more communal and more individualistic) and exploring the ways the Human Alliance has grown into its own kind of pack under Bowen's leadership.

Once aspect of the story that I am going to have to sit with a bit longer and tease out my feelings about was the way Kaia's long-term anxiety issues was used narratively. While I loved that her anxiety issues were not easy to resolve and were not simply something she could will or power away for the sake of love, I wasn't entirely comfortable about how contained and specific it was. I wish her struggles with Anxiety had been introduced less obliquely earlier in the novel rather than packed into an already frenetic second-half as an unexpected obstacle to their HEA.

As a long-time fan of Nalini Singh's Psy-changeling series -- I've been reading her books for as long as I have been reading romance -- I love that we are exploring parts of the Psy-Changeling world that had not been previously explored, and that she continues to correct the erasure of queer identities in her previous books by making little mentions here and there. I really liked the casual way Kaia's mom explicitly acknowledges and accepts that Kaia could fall for a boy or a girl, as she whispers a loving warning to her baby about her family's predisposition for falling hard and fast in love. These little mentions are small steps, but they make feel more welcomed in the world that I've read for so long and it affirms that the changes she made in Silver Silence were not one offs.





I received a ARC for review consideration from the Publisher via NetGalley.