Grade: A-

Dear Bam,

I remember standing in the bookstore with Slave to Sensation in my hand, wondering if I really felt like reading another shape-shifter book. Like a true putz, I put it back on the shelf because I thought it was… who knows. Too purple? Too sexy? Too something. Then I read your review and posted this in the comments section for all of you who don’t remember:

DAMN IT, BAM! I had this in my hand in the bookstore yesterday. WHY COULDN’T YOU HAVE POSTED IT EARLIER?? Yes, I’m yelling at you. I spent $25 at lunch on two new books and I KNEW I should have added this to the stack.

Yep. Ran out that day to get Slave to Sensation and devoured it like a bag of peanut M&Ms. I couldn’t tell you what the other two books I bought were, so shame on me. As you can imagine, I couldn’t wait to get my greedy paws on Visions of Heat. I’m happy to say that Ms. Singh didn’t disappoint with her second effort in the Psy/Changeling/Human world. For those of you who didn’t read the first book in the series, do not fear. Ms. Singh deftly describes the world of the Psy who believe themselves superior above all the other humanoid creatures on Earth. In 1979, the Psy created SILENCE (shouldn’t it be called Psylence? Too J. R. Ward?) in an attempt to rid their population of hatred, jealousy, greed, and other such negative emotions. Of course, you can’t get rid of the bad without destroying the good, so the Psy are locked in an emotionless world that seems full of totally frigid robots. For those of you who were delighted by Slave to Sensation, fear not. Ms. Singh does not get into a repetitive cycle when world-building, and reading about the PsyNet, Psy Council and Psy hierarchy brings new perspective to the Changeling/Psy/Human landscape.

Faith NightStar is an F-Psy (for those of you slow on the uptake, a “Foresight Psychic”, meaning she has the ability to see future events). Before Silence, the F-Psy life expectancy wasn’t great since they foresaw everything from mass murders to natural catastrophes and would suffer psychotic breaks from all the pressure, so for many, feeling no emotion isn’t so terrible. With Silence, most F-Psy only make it into their 40’s or 50’s without cracking up. Hmmm… not what I’d call a vast improvement. Anyways, F-Psy have been relegated to the unemotional (HAH!) world of business, and are extremely valuable in the Psy hierarchy as they are able to predict the price of pork bellies and frozen concentrated orange juice. Families (or PsyClans) that produce F-Psy are ridiculously wealthy and guard their F-Psy offspring with fanatical care, protecting them from the hoi polloi of Psy-dom by keeping their F-Psy in isolation.

Faith has been a functioning F-Psy since she made her first prediction at the age of three, and has been living in a secluded compound with infrequent visits from her father ever since. The only regular visitors she receives are the M-Psy to make sure that she isn’t cracking up and/or dying. And of course, Faith is THE BEST. Yep, the numero uno F-Psy in the world, and she’s worth billions! Because of the power of her mind and the accuracy of her foresight, she’s attracted the attention of the Psy Council since they need to fill a vacant seat. Faith, however, has been experiencing odd visions, and is concerned that she may be on her way to losing her marbles because she’s suddenly feeling emotions in concert with these freaky images. Faith knows that if she mentions this to anyone connected with the PsyNet, she’ll be put out of commission and the M-Psy will literally pick apart her brain. Faith, even with her cloistered existence is no wilting flower, and realizes that she needs help that won’t be provided by her PsyClan or the Psy Council. She sneaks out of her haven/prison to find answers by quizzing Sascha Duncan, the only Psy she knows of that survived dropping out of the PsyNet.

Faith’s jaunt to leopard territory is intercepted by Vaughn D’Angelo, member of the DarkRiver Pack and Sentinel to Lucas Hunter, hero from the first book. I’m thrilled to report that Sascha, Lucas and all of the secondary characters we met in the first book are back, and none of them have lost their personalities, a very rare feat in series books. YAY! But back to Vaughn. Unlike uber-hero Lucas, Vaughn has issues that haven’t been fully resolved, making his animal side (and therefore his wild nature) more prominent. Vaughn is a jaguar that was adopted by the leopard pack after he was abandoned by his parents. To survive his abandonment, Vaughn spent a week in his animal form which has caused his jaguar to become dominant, much more so than usual for the Changelings. Vaughn is clearly a loner and likes it that way, but he quickly realizes that there is something to his fascination with Faith and rather than fighting it or pouting about it in typical romancelandia fashion, he embraces the attraction and decides to explore every nook and cranny. This makes for some delightfully uncomfortable scenes since Faith isn’t used to any physical contact and Vaughn has to keep holding himself back from jumping all over her. Faith, on the other hand, has been so conditioned by Silence that she believes physical sensory input will cause her to go into seizures. Lucky for us, Vaughn helps Faith past this bullshit and sexin’ ensues™ and Vaughn and Faith BURN THIS MUTHA UP! I’m happy to report that Faith took many giant steps away from robotic Psy-ness on her own, without the help of Vaughn’s fantastic cock. Also, Ms. Singh again deftly avoids the trap of turning each conversation and interaction into the BIG MIS and the characters work things out like… uh rational people. However, I found it slightly tiresome that Vaughn analyzed every single step that Faith took to maneuver her into bed and out of Silence. Luckily this only occurs in the beginning of the book, and wasn’t enough to dampen my interest or stop me from gobbling it up.

Vaughn and Faith are both strong characters, and remain that way through the entirety of the book. Once again the story is about Faith coming out of her Psy shell, but this go-round we get a lot more of Vaughn addressing his issues and realizing Faith’s limitations while holding back from pushing her over the edge. Faith realizes her weaknesses in the physical/sensory world of the Changelings and makes every effort not to chafe against them (nice to see a smart heroine hang on to her brains and avoid running into a burning building even though a firefighter is standing next to her). Yet the change from unfeeling robot to emotional wreck (just kidding) begins with Faith, rather than with GIANT HEALING DICK. Faith takes the first steps toward freeing herself from the Psy, which, considering her totally cloistered existence, indicates a lot of courage. Refreshing, no?

While there are many parallels between the stories, I was definitely NOT reading Slave to Sensation with a different title and cover art. There is the background story of Faith’s dark visions which connect to a killer on the loose; however, Ms. Singh focuses more on the world she has created, the differences between the Psy and Changelings and the dark side of the Psy Council. The world-building is again incredibly strong and concentrates on the Psy, the Psy Council and the PsyNet. There is quite a bit of sequel baiting, but in an intriguing rather than annoying manner and not simply an introduction (or reintroduction) of secondary characters. Bam, you know that I sell a ton of books to fund my reading addiction. Well… both Slave to Sensation and Visions of Heat have made it to the keeper pile. I can’t wait to read Judd’s story, and Anthony’s, and Clay’s, and Hawke’s…

This one gets an A- for me.

xoxoxo…
Shuzluva

Buy this fabyoooooooolous book here!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 14th, 2007 at 4:25 pm and is filed under Books, Grade: A, Romance: Paranormal, Romance: Sci-fi/Fan, Shuzluva's Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.