Ash’s review of Tangle of Need (Psy-Changeling Series, Book 11) by Nalini Singh
Paranormal Romance published by Berkley 29 May 12

I can’t describe how happy I was to get this book to review. Nalini Singh is, without a doubt, my favorite paranormal romance author. Her books stay with me long after I finish them. I am always torn between wanting to hurry up to get to the end and wanting to savor her books. I admit I was a bit scared about how Tangle of Need would do following Kiss of Snow, but I should know better than to worry when it comes to her. Nalini Singh keeps getting better with each book.

Our couple this time is Adria and Riaz. I haven’t been overly excited for their story, because I don’t know them well. I was really just looking for more Hawke and Sienna, and I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to enjoy Adria and Riaz if they shared the stage. I mostly just skimmed over Lara and Walker’s story in Kiss of Snow the first time I read it, and I had hoped I wouldn’t do that again. Turns out that Adria and Riaz are just as compelling a couple as any of our other favorites (okay, not as much as Hawke and Sienna, but who is?). The Psy-Changeling books tear emotion out of me and my heart breaks along with theirs.

The journey these two take is not what I expected. This isn’t a stereotypical romance,  Adria and Riaz are not mates. Adria has been in an unhealthy relationship and her wounds are still raw. Riaz has a mate who is already with another man, and he is damaged because of that.  A magical solution does not show up at the end to make them suddenly mated and I am glad for that. If they had been able to mate, I think it would have cheapened what they went through before and after they got together. And because I care about these characters, it makes me just as scared as it does Adria that it won’t be enough. I want them to live happily ever after, and Riaz proved to both of us that it can happen.

Tangle of Need is much more of an emotional story than an action one, though there is that too. Pure Psy is still out there, but it is the calm before the next storm. The pack is preparing for a Psy civil war and settling down a little after what happened in Kiss of Snow. We get to see how Hawke and Sienna are doing as a mated couple, how Sienna is dealing with her new status, and how the pack is reacting to it all. Seeing them happy together makes me happy, and I really hope we get to see more of Hawke getting drunk. The complexity of this world continues to make me think and it keeps the series fresh and exciting.

Grade: A+

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: