Review: Slave to Sensation

Reviewed by Jen
 

It seems like people have been telling me for ages that I needed to read this series... and it turns out, they were right.  It is fast paced and sexy, with intriguing characters and cool world-building.  Now that I have started these books, I am going to have a hard time keeping myself from reading them all back-to-back.

This first installment provides the set-up for the series.  The world consists of three types of beings: humans, changeling, and Psy.  The changelings are shifters: passionate and fiery with some of the traits of their animals.  The Psy are cerebral. They wield various psychic gifts and link together in a group consciousness called the Psy-Net.  And for generations, they have worked to weed out emotions of any kind.  If any Psy shows evidence of feelings, they are "rehabilitated" --a nice way of saying, lobotomized.

Sascha has always known she was unlike her Psy brethren and she has worked her entire life to hide it.  That suddenly gets harder when a work arrangement thrusts changeling alpha Lucas into her orbit. She is attracted to him like she has never been to any man.  He is pretty hot for her too. But his motives for getting close to her are more complex.  The changelings know that there is a Psy serial killer on the loose, targeting shifters.  Lucas hopes Sascha can give him enough insight into her people to help him figure out why they are covering up the murders --and how to catch the killer.

I really enjoyed watching Lucas tear down the walls Sascha worked so hard to build around herself.   He is both playful and sexy, powerful, protective, and possessive.  But he doesn't cross the line into alpha-hole.  Not only is his romance with her satisfying, so are the bonds of family she forms with his pack. It's very nice to see her finally get the love she has always craved.  And to learn that she is so much more than anyone ever predicted.

We're introduced to a wealth of secondary characters that --no doubt-- will all be the heroes and heroines of future books.  And I am very excited to see where Nalini Singh takes their stories.

The book isn't perfect. I'll admit I got lost a couple of times as Sascha went into detail about her psychic exploits inside PsyNet, but at a certain point I just wrote it off as "sneaky psychic stuff" and called it a day.  But overall, I liked it a lot... and can't wait to continue on in the series.

Rating: B

Click to purchase: Amazon

Slave to Sensation

by Nalini Singh

Release Date: September 5, 2006

Publisher: Berkley Sensation