Saturday, August 23, 2014

Review: Blaze of Memory by Nalini Singh

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Title: Blaze of Memory
Series: Psy-Changeling
Author: Nalini Singh
Read copy: Mass Market Paperback
Published: November 3, 2009
Publisher: Berkley
ISBN: 0425231119
ISBN-13: 9780425231111

Dev Santos discovers her unconscious and battered, with no memory of who she is. All she knows is that she’s dangerous. Charged with protecting his people’s most vulnerable secrets, Dev is duty-bound to eliminate all threats. It’s a task he’s never hesitated to complete…until he finds himself drawn to a woman who might yet prove the enemy’s most insidious weapon.

Stripped of her memories by a shadowy oppressor, and programmed to carry out cold-blooded murder, Katya Haas is fighting desperately for her sanity itself. Her only hope is Dev. But how can she expect to gain the trust of a man who could very well be her next target? For in this game, one must die…

My rating:

While this is not the best book in the series, it's the most heartbreaking to date.

Anyway...

After the slightly iffy sixth installation in this series, we have yet another winner with Dev and Katya's story. I admit at my slight reluctance at reading this one - Dev wasn't on my list of heroes who immediately needed their story told in this series, but I'm more than happy with how things turned out. For him and for Katya.

She might've appeared weak and fragile, but she truly had a wall of steel inside her (maybe that's what drew Dev to her *wink wink*), but luckily she didn't have a bitchy streak like her predecessor, and was also quite happy to be dominated (once in a while) and a little boxed in with Dev's sensuality. And boy, did the guy have that in spades.

Dev has intrigued me since he first appeared in this series, this steely, determined man whose past is shrouded in mystery and I immediately wanted to know more about him, what made him tick, how he would react when push came to shove, and how could his resolve and determination fare in the face of romance.

I got my wish. I saw it all, understood it all, and suffered through it all with both of them. This is what I call a romance, when you can't help what you feel, despite what your brain and gut is trying to tell you. And this is Dev in a nutshell. He knows there's something off with Katya, he knows he shouldn't trust her, he knows he should keep her at arm's length, yet he just can't help himself. She burrows deep under his skin, and he just can't get her out...And after a while, he doesn't want to.

I loved seeing that domineering streak in him, so reminiscent of the Changelings, so at odds with his Psy heritage, and I loved Katya even more for not putting up with it. Much.

I liked the fact this story didn't delve much into all the intrigue that's going on in the Psy-Changeling-Human world, but focused primarily on the romance between the two leading characters. It offered a nice respite from having to follow too many story-lines at once, and try to keep all the facts straight.

And the ending completely broke me, I had me a nice little cry-athon this (very, very early!) morning as I got to the truly heart-breaking part of this story, and I kept hoping something would happen to make it all right again, but knowing it was impossible. Yet, the fictional world proved me wrong once again, and all was well in Romancelandia and the ShadowNet.

To sum up my thoughts about this book in three words...I.Loved.It.

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