Veena’s review of Tangle of Need (Psy-Changeling, Book 11) by Nalini Singh
Paranormal Romance hardcover published by Berkley 29 May 12
Tangle of Need picks up Nalini Singh’s Psy Changeling Series right where Kiss of Snow ends. In many ways this is as much a continuation of Sienna and Hawke’s love story as it is the journey of two deeply wounded members of the Snow Dancer pack who find each other through true love.
Riaz is a lone wolf and a Snow Dancer lieutenant. The mating bond is a beautiful connection at the deepest level of mind, body, and soul for a changeling couple and the journey to the bonding is as unique as the couple itself. Riaz finds the woman that fate intended to be his mate, but she is already married and deeply in love with her husband. Deeply wounded, Riaz walks away from her and returns to pack central to lick his wounds and help find his center again.
Beautiful Adria is a dominant wolf and a senior soldier. She has spent years invested in a relationship with a less dominant wolf, but finally defeated she walks away from it and returns to pack central to get away. The attraction between Adria and Riaz is red hot. They both fight their sexual hunger and need and ultimately come together in an explosion of passion. Understanding that there is no mate bond in their future, they agree to live in the moment in a purely physical relationship.
Love transcends all boundaries and the purely physical develops into a relationship of the heart and a beautiful courtship begins. Riaz, while a lone wolf, is deeply romantic and he woos Adria with every thing he has. Their beautiful vows to each other when they finally drop all pretenses and all walls and admit that they are everything to each other – “Heart of my heart, chosen and forever” – raised goosebumps on my skin. We all wish to be so deeply and truly loved. I hope the author grants them a mate bond in one of the future books.
Sienna and Hawke bonded at the height of the battle with Pure Psy, which culminated in Sienna releasing her X fire and decimating the enemy. Sienna now moves forward to win acceptance from the pack as Hawke’s chosen mate. She truly has his back and becomes his second while forging her own place in the pack. Their bonding ceremony is beautiful as Hawke’s lieutenants formally welcome Sienna into the pack and swear their oaths of allegiance to Hawke and his mate.
As Silence fractures and the Psy start to feel, the next round of hostilities are initiated. A civil war that was hinted at now becomes a reality. Old alliances are strengthened and new ones are forged between humans, changelings, and Psy. Alice Eldridge recovers consciousness, though her mind is still fractured. Kaleb Krychek finds the person linked with the star that he guards. The known world is poised for a change, dominoes falling unstoppable and inexorable. What else will be sacrificed?
Nalini Singh does it again. She has an uncanny ability to reach out and sweep her readers into the world she has created. I found myself laughing, crying, celebrating and poised with bated breath as I turned pages until the very end when I was ready for the next book. When the book was first announced, I did not know Riaz or Adria well and was wondering if I wanted to pick up a hard copy of this book. I am so glad that I did. If anything, the author just continues to get better and better, and I am now waiting with bated breath for the next chapter in the Psy-Changeling world.
Summary:
Adria, wolf changeling and resilient soldier, has made a break with the past–one as unpredictable in love as it was in war. Now comes a new territory, and a devastating new complication: Riaz, a SnowDancer lieutenant already sworn to a desperate woman who belongs to another.
For Riaz, the primal attraction he feels for Adria is a staggering betrayal. For Adria, his dangerous lone-wolf appeal is beyond sexual. It consumes her. It terrifies her. It threatens to undermine everything she has built of her new life. But fighting their wild compulsion toward one another proves a losing battle.
Their coming together is an inferno…and a melding of two wounded souls who promise each other no commitment, no ties, no bonds. Only pleasure. Too late, they realize that they have more to lose than they ever imagined. Drawn into a cataclysmic Psy war that may alter the fate of the world itself, they must make a decision that might just break them both.
Read an excerpt.
Other books in this series:
