Grade: A-

Sascha Duncan is a Psy, a race of humanoids possessing psychic powers ranging from telekinesis to telepathy. They believe themselves superior above all the other humanoid creatures on earth and rule the political, business, and technological aspects of the world. In 1979, the Psy took it upon themselves to rid their population of hatred, jealousy, greed, and other such negative emotions and in doing so, also eradicated their ability to feel the nice things like love, caring, passion, and lust. Don’t they know that this shit never works? Haven’t they seen this or this? Anyway, the program was called the Silence and one hundred years later, the Psy is a race of uncaring, unfeeling bastards who would sell each other out if it meant an advancement or a promotion (heeey… wait a minute). Over the years, the Psy have developed some impressive technologies, one of which is the PsyNet, which is similar to the Internet if you could SURF IT WITH YOUR BRAIN INSTEAD OF A COMPUTER. Every single Psy is connected to each other via a mental link like the Borg and even though they are individuals, all of them work as a collective in a continuing effort to improve their race.

Sascha is the daughter of Nikita Duncan, a member of the ruling council of the Psy and a ruthless woman who will stop at nothing in her quest for power (whoa, whoa… wait… doesn’t ambition require an emotion of some kind?). Her biggest stumbling block is Sascha. Sascha was produced in a laboratory with only the best reproductive stock and should have grown up to be a kickass Psy with kickass powers, but her psychic capabilities are a little below mediocre. But that’s the least of Sascha’s worries. Aside from not being the Super Kickass Psy Girl that her mother has always wanted, she has a deep dark secret that she has harbored within her psychic shields for the past twenty six years and doesn’t think she can keep up the façade any longer. If her secret is found out, she will be summarily executed or worse yet, taken to a rehabilitation facility where they will suck her brain like a jelly donut and leave her as an imbecile mopping up drool at the Psy facilities. Luckily, she has gotten to be pretty good at keeping secrets over the years and has even managed to become useful to her mother as her glorified executive assistant. Her staggering need for affection aside, Sascha will settle for approval and she gets her chance when her mother assigns her a VERY BIG PROJECT that she has to handle all on her own. By serving as an intermediary between the Psy and the Changeling, a race of humanoids are capable of shifting into animal form, she can spend some time away from the Psy facilities AND make her mother proud.

The leader of the local leopard clan, Lucas Hunter is an all-around tough guy. When he was barely a teen, a pack of rogue leopards looking to rule, massacred his parents and a few others. At seventeen, Lucas and a few leopards forged an assault team and slaughtered all the rogue leopards one by one. At twenty three, he became the Big Cat around the block when their alpha stepped down in favor of him, thus making him the youngest cat ever to lead a pack of his own. Over the years, he and his pack have formed a strong familial unit who won’t hesitate to kill or die to save each other’s lives. For Lucas, the pack is his family, but still the wounds of losing his parents at such a young age run deep. The wounds are made fresh and brought to surface when the young females of his pack and that of an allied wolf clan begin to disappear one by one, only to reappear seven days later horribly mutilated and dead. When Lucas investigates one of the crime scenes, he catches the scent he had never expected, a “metallic stink” that he has come to associate with the Psy race. He suspects that the killer may be Psy, but he is unable to pursue his lead further as the Psys aren’t particularly cooperative with folks they consider to be mentally and physically inferior. He believes that the identity of the murderer is hidden within the infamous PsyNet, but try as he might, only a Psy could access it. When an opportunity presents itself in the form of a business deal with the Psy, Lucas jumps all over it, especially since the diplomat they send is a hot little tomato that gets his blood pumping. Though Lucas is suspicious of the sexy little Psy at first, he realizes that she’s not quite like the other Psy he’s met (a likely story). Underneath her Star Trek villain outfit, he believes there is a body just looking for a good, solid fizznuckin’ and he is just the cat to give it to her. When a female wolf is abducted by the killer, Lucas is forced to use all of the weapons in his arsenal to get the little Psy to start talking, even if it means exploiting her obvious attraction to him. Even as the two of them get to know each other and fall in love, Lucas and Sascha find themselves in a race against time to find the identity of the killer before he cuts up the female werewolf into Kibbles and Bits.

What I enjoyed about this story is the development of the relationship between Sascha and Lucas. Even though the two of them are natural enemies from opposite sides of the spectrum, they manage to get past their differences and learn to trust each other. At first they are merely reluctant allies, but as the two of them get to know each other and become friends, the two of them begin to depend on each other and forge together as true partners. What I liked about these two is they rarely, if ever, second-guess each other. They actually sit down and talk things out before attacking or accusing each other of horrible things. Even though Lucas is a tough guy, he also has a sensitive side and is surprisingly considerate of Sascha’s feelings. In a book like this where the hero and the heroine come from two warring worlds, lurid accusations and misplaced anger is to be expected, ESPECIALLY FROM THE HOT-HEADED PROBABLY PSYCHOTIC HERO, along with contrived misunderstandings and betrayal fake-outs culminating in ONE giant fight between the hero and the heroine, only to be resolved by some hot, hot sex a few pages later, all because the two douchebags refuse to sit down and talk to each other reasonably like two rational humanoids. FORTUNATELY, Ms. Singh spares us the melodrama by providing us with two romantic leads who don’t act like children or react to a perceived slight like psychotic goth chicks who missed a Lithium dosage. Sure, there are instances where Lucas most definitely manipulates Sascha, a woman obviously starved for love and affection, in an effort to soften her up and sway her to his cause, but you guys, he does have good reasons. In Lucas’s defense, Sascha doesn’t give him anything that she doesn’t want to give him. Some of you may suspect that Sascha only turns away from the Psy and runs away to Lucas because he gives good sex and back rubs and she only falls in love with him because he saves her from a cold, barren, sterile life, but umm… wouldn’t you?

Like I previously mentioned, the evolution of Sascha from a non-feeling drone to a passionate, loving woman is a convincing one. I believed it. Here is a chick who grew up in a world where a kiss and a hug from your own mother is forbidden, where you could possibly get executed or transformed into a blubbering idiot if you showed any kind of emotion at all. On top of that, Sascha has always known she is different and sees herself as a malfunctioning cog in the big flawless machinery that is the Psy. She has never belonged anywhere. I mean, this woman is just starving for a reassuring smile or a comforting touch. My favorite scene in this entire book is the first time she eats chocolate chip cookies. She puts one in her mouth and the flavor explodes on her tongue, but she has to keep her expression placid or she may betray that she is a defective Psy. After finishing her cookie, she looks longingly at the plate, unable to ask for more because it would indicate that she liked the cookies. She just totally melted my heart when she tries to devise a way to get her hands on another cookie without betraying any emotion. My second favorite scene, which kind of reminded me of that part in Lilo & Stitch where Stitch is reading the Ugly Duckling and he gets choked up over the baby duckling crying for “home”, is when Sascha is having lunch with Lucas and the leopard healer and the healer’s baby cubs chew on her boots under the table, but she doesn’t react, although she wants more than anything to play with them. I really wanted to give this girl a hug, you guys. Sascha doesn’t transform into Mother Earth immediately after doing the nasty with Lucas; it is a slow and careful process. As for Lucas, he’s a little more than a Standard Romance Hero Who Has a Giant Healing Penis, but from the get-go, he was already perfect. Though he learns to let go of his preconceived notions of the Psy, there really isn’t much more of a change to him. He was good to go from page one. He was a little static, actually. It is Sascha who really does all the growing in this relationship and Lucas was just there to guide her along. I would have preferred if Lucas had an imperfection—say he can’t read or stuttered quite terribly—and Sascha helped him work through it. As it is, Sascha is the faulty one and Lucas fixes her. Eww.

As for the world-building, I was really very impressed. I don’t like a lot of technobabble in my sci-fi and I was glad that Ms. Singh managed to create this world without doing any of that. One of my pet peeves is having to look at the glossary in the back of the book merely to understand what the hell is going on. Dude, if you have to use a glossary to make yourself understood, maybe you should have written it in a way that your reader would understand you. I’m not speaking of Ms. Singh, of course, because she doesn’t do that. There is hardly any info-dump (which I hate) and the world she builds is easily accessible, as well as plausible. As for the Changeling mythology, there’s nothing new there. If you’ve ever picked up two or three paranormal romances in the last couple of years, you’ll know exactly how a shapeshifter pack structure works. Still, she manages to make it her own and works it seamlessly into the story.

All and all, I really enjoyed this book. The two romantic leads, the world-building, and even the sequel-baiting were really well done. After I finished the book, I actually emailed Ms. Singh and demanded she tell me when the next book is going to be released. She told me that the third book will have a male Psy in the lead. Oooh… I like me a “block of concrete” for a hero. You know it’s a testimonial of the author’s talent when you finish a book and find yourself wanting to read more of that world. I was really impressed with the sequel-baiting, you guys. I wanted to read more about each and every one of the secondary character I encountered. I wanted to gather each and every one of them and put them in their own little boxes. I’m crazy like that. Honestly, I can see this book developing into a really addictive series. Aside from the hero being slightly static (and teeth-grittingly perfect) and the identity of the villain (I’m serious, as soon as you see the villain, you will say, “Hello, villain!”) being laughably easy to figure out, this is a great, enjoyable read. Jeeeeez, I can’t wait for the next book. Bring it on, Ms. Singh!

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 12th, 2006 at 8:00 pm and is filed under Books, Grade: A, Romance: Suspense. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.