Bam,

Someone recently asked me if I was enjoying maternity leave. I’m supposed to enjoy sleepless nights and the inability to nap when the baby naps (that’s what they tell you to do so that you don’t completely lose your mind) since I have twins that need my attention during the day as well? Before you call Child Protection Services on me, note that I adore my little Handsome Pants. And the girls are…warming up to him. Thank goodness! But I didn’t write you just to lament that my time off isn’t being spent blissfully sleeping and catching up on television. Know what I do during the 3 a.m. feeding? Read! Yep, HP rests on my left forearm, which is the hand that holds the book, while the right holds the bottle. I need some more books. I also need time to write reviews of said books. With that in mind, I read Nalini Singh’s Mine to Possess.

For those of you who haven’t read Slave to Sensation (or any of the other books in the Psy/Changeling series), please note that while Nalini does a commendable job of briefly tying in previous plots and characters without completely retelling, this series builds on itself. The Psy/Changeling world is a complex place, with extremely well fleshed-out personalities and significant plot lines that tie in from the prior novels. If you haven’t read the previous books in the series, you are missing out on great writing, great romance, great fantasy and great world-building, which make each pass in the Psy/Changeling world more interesting and exciting. Nalini has an ability to write (at current count) four books that do not repeat each other in terms of plot, tension or characterization. For that alone, I think it’s worth reading each of these books.

The Plot: Talin McKade was a foster child in the slums (I can’t remember where…so don’t ask) who spent her childhood surrounded by abuse and neglect. Talin’s one source of safety and love was Clay. Half Changeling and half Human, Clay pretends to be human to placate his mother (Bad, bad, bad. There are things I do for my mother that I know are edging me into Psycho territory. If I tried to be someone I wasn’t…hello solitary confinement!). The only person he trusts with his true nature is Talin. As we know, trying to deny one’s nature usually has disastrous results, and for Clay it was catastrophic. Fueled by rage, Clay commits a gruesome murder in front of Talin and is sent to juvenile incarceration. After his release, Clay is told that Talin has died, which nearly destroys him.

Talin, of course, is still alive. She has made it out of the slums and works for Shine, an organization that gets children off the streets. In the last few months, Shine kids have been disappearing then turning up dead. But not just dead, organs have been harvested and the bodies mutilated. Talin realizes that these aren’t simple disappearances that ended up as murders, and Human Enforcement won’t offer her much help. She knows that there is one person outside of the human world that can help her: Clay.

As Talin and Clay delve deeper into the Shine mystery, they dig into the past and face old hurts, prejudices and anger. Nalini doesn’t beat around the bush with Talin and Clay. Talin is both afraid of Clay, which infuriates him, and in desperate need to reconnect with him. Clay believes he is slowly going insane; he has had moments when he could smell or sense Talin and simply thought he was losing it. Her reappearance wounds him so deeply it’s a wonder he’ll even talk to her. Talin didn’t survive the slums (and some other horrors that I won’t mention here) without being a resilient survivor. Of course, Clay realizes immediately that Talin will help him heal the pain of his past, and he wants to do the same for her, but she’s as tough a nut to crack as Clay. The give and take between the two of them is tenuous at first (as it should be), with Clay as the aggressor and Talin reacting. But as the connection between the Shine organization and the Psy becomes frighteningly clear, Talin faces Clay on her terms and attempts to heal old hurts.

The Heroine: Professionally, Talin is the woman you’d want working for an organization that looks out for street kids. She’s compassionate but tough as nails when necessary. Personally, Talin is a trainwreck waiting to happen. She’s managed to pull her life together, but she never truly recovered from her time in the slums or from the murder that she witnessed. Talin’s a tangle of unresolved emotional issues because she buried all of the historic bad crap, but she can’t keep it buried; she remembers everything she sees with crystal clarity due to her eidetic memory. The dichotomy of her strengths and weaknesses could have made her annoying. Truth be told, there were times I felt her internal arguments about hurting Clay were annoying, but not unwarranted since she has a hard time believing in her emotional strength and has hurt him badly before. Talin is keeping a secret from Clay (and no, this isn’t a Big Mis, it comes out VERY early in the book), which she fears will ultimately hurt Clay again, and she will not be able to make up for it. Talin’s strength and compassion made me root for her and for her relationship with Clay.

The Hero: Clay is a sentinel in the DarkRiver Pack. It’s a position of trust, and Clay is loved by many and respected by all. With all of this, he has a past one wouldn’t expect. Clay’s human mother was pretty much a nutcase, and she didn’t do Clay any favors by bringing him up without a pack or any interaction with other Changelings. Clay’s friendship with Talin was a key to his survival in the human world, and unbeknownst to both of them, they formed a bond. Don’t worry, it’s not like I’m giving away the farm here…it’s pretty clear that Clay is on the verge of crazy like nothing we’ve seen before Talin shows up. In Visions of Heat, Faith Nightstar realized this about Clay:

Clay was different […] There was something very dark in the leopard, something that walked a fine line between good and evil.

She had a knowing almost on top of that thought—Clay’s time was coming. One day soon he’d have to decide which side of that line he wanted to be on.

Clay’s ability (or lack thereof) to forgive Talin and let her back into his life is central to his potential to remain on the good side of the line. I understand his position – fool me once, shame on you – and he doesn’t want to be fooled twice. Clay’s central growth is learning to forgive a deep-seated hurt coupled with a stunning deception. That he attempts to do it at all is incredible…I don’t know if I could.

The Secondary Characters: While we have appearances from Sascha, Lucas, Faith, Vaughn, Judd and Brenna reappear (Judd and Brenna’s appearance was extremely brief), the secondary focus was on Ming LeBon and Ashaya Aleine and the world of the Psy. Ming is a frightening dude and could destroy Ashaya’s life by taking her son, so Ashaya is trapped into research that will truly turn the Psy into a Hive-mind with the Psy Council having total control. The Ghost (who is apparently Psy but wants to uh…terminate…the Council and stop them from obtaining supreme power) makes an appearance as well. However there are few clues as to who The Ghost may be. My guess is Anthony Kyriakus (Faith’s father), but at the moment we have no sure way of knowing. I was disappointed that we didn’t see more of Kaleb Krycheck, but I have the funny feeling we’re going to get quite a bit more of him in the future.

Shuzluva Says: There was one thing that really bothered me: Clay feels that he can snap a human in half and it’s kept him away from human lovers, and he and Lucas have a conversation about humans being fragile. I know (especially since the book discusses this in the first chapter) that human/changeling unions aren’t unheard of…so I was confused as to why the physical differences kept coming up. Would Talin have to become superhuman to deal with Clay’s strength? Would Clay be unable to fully unleash his passion (and anything else he wanted to) because Talin wouldn’t be able to stand up to it? This never has a clear resolution and it stuck in my head. Other than Talin’s physical fragility compared to Clay’s Changeling strength, the book is as tight as the others in the series. Nalini has Clay and Talin playing quite a bit of cat and mouse with each other (uh…cat and human?), but it’s a smoother transition than it was with even Faith and Vaughn. Finally, the resolution of Talin’s secret is fantastic and happily didn’t go in the direction I initially assumed it would. I don’t want to give it away, but I’m glad that Nalini found a real resolution rather than resorting to deux ex machina. This gets an B+ for me, and I can’t wait for the next in the series. Why can’t writers write faster? Is there some sort of carrot we can hang out there? I know designer shoes would work for me…

Love ya babes!

Please buy this fabulous book here.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 9th, 2008 at 8:30 am and is filed under Books, Grade: B, Romance: Paranormal, Shuzluva's Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.