Romantic Fantasy published by Berkley 18 Jul 23
Bears! Loveable bears with their rough-and-tumble love of mischief, what’s not to love about a story featuring such animals, especially when you’re seeing double. This is Theo and Yakov’s story, but the long-simmering romance between Pavel and Arwen finally comes to a boil. There’s enough intrigue, suspense, and darkness to keep you on the edge of your seat as the story unfolds.
The Marshall family is everything evil, and it’s a good thing that Councilor Marshall Hyde was blown away when he was. While Pax is the gifted one and the perfect successor to the family heritage, his twin Theo just doesn’t cut it in the eyes of her family. She would be long dead if her being kept alive was not necessary for her twin’s survival, but she did live through hell and more that she did not even realize.
Now some of the machinations of her grandfather have come to light and Theo is dispatched to Russia to work with the bears in locating these rehabilitation centers and providing restitution to the residents. Theo will, of course, find much more than she expected from this trip to Russia, including truths about herself.
Yakov has a small gift of foresight. At a very young age he was able to see his mate in a vision, but one truth seems to be inescapable: every night he sees her die as he helplessly looks on. When he picks up Theo at the airport, he knows immediately that she is his mate, and he determines to do all that he can to change the future. After all, what’s the point of having foresight if you can’t change events.
As the two embark on a roller coaster ride of murder and mayhem and follow clues regarding the once inhabitants of the center, secrets begin to emerge, but not even the patterns that they are seeing prepare them for the eventual truths.
No book about bears would be incomplete without some mayhem and family hijinks bear style. Ms. Singh’s story telling is superb as always. I am awed by the power of her imagination and love how she builds background in this story by introducing letters between Yakov and Pavel’s great grandfather and his sister at the cusp of silence telling us how families were split apart, based on the choices that they made.
Will families have to make new choices as the Psy-net continues to fracture?
Grade: A
Summary:
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 . . .
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