Wild Embrace, by Nalini Singh

Wild Embrace, by Nalini Singh

This is the second all Psy/Changeling anthology, and the first with all new stories. (I reviewed Wild Invitation, the first anthology, here.)

Wild Embrace was released last year, after Allegiance of Honor came out; despite my utter disenchantment with that novel, I had already decided I would read the anthology, so I did at some point later in the year. I wasn’t awed by it, but I remembered enjoying it well enough.

After reading Silver Silence, I decided to re-read and review it, to satisfy my ‘completist’ tendencies.

I probably shouldn’t have done it so soon after, though, because I was hyper aware of all the worst of Ms Singh’s writing tics; none of these stories have aged well for me.

Reader warning: This anthology is part of a long series, so the review by necessity spoils some of the stories that came before. As with the rest of the series, there’s some adult language and explicit sex. Finally, I rant–a hell of a lot–about one of the novellas in this book.

Silver Silence, by Nalini Singh

Over the years, I’ve stopped being blindly loyal to authors I once adored.

Most often, because there’s some change in the direction of their writing that doesn’t align with my own growth as a reader. Occasionally, I grow increasingly unforgiving of their writing tics, to the point where I cannot longer enjoy the story.

Either way, I tend to continue buying and reading books in a well loved series, because there’s always hope that the magic will happen again.

Or, perhaps, I just don’t know when to quit.¹

Which brings me to the Psy/Changeling series.

Last year, I thought I was done. Finis. The End. Game over.

However.

I was already invested in getting the next four story anthology, which…didn’t suck too terribly.² Add another year of the horrible, terrible, no-good reading slump, that stubborn hope, some amazon reward dollars…and here we are.

Caveat: explicit sex and some adult language in the book; a lot of ranting and spoilers, for both the series and this book, in the review. And I mean a lot–particularly the ranting. Proceed at your own risk.

Silver Silence, by Nalini Singh

This book is the sixteenth full length novel set in the Psy/Changeling universe, but it’s supposed to start a new arc in the overarching storyline of the series. If I understand correctly, the first fourteen books were “The Age of Silence,” the fifteenth book was…whatever it was, and this one starts “The Age of Trinity.”

The cover jacket blurb:

Dark Desires After Dusk, by Kresley Cole

In between attempting to read other things, I’m still re-reading the Immortals After Dark books, so here’s another review for you.

Readers not familiar with the series may want to keep in mind that the world is relentlessly heteronormative; all the pairings involve the ‘fated mate’ trope; plus, there’s quite a bit of cursing and graphic sex, violence and gore.

In this particular installment, the heroine has OCD; I am not overly familiar with this disorder, so I cannot say whether how this is written here is sensitive, informed, accurate, or triggering. (There are spoilers on this in the review.)

Proceed at your own risk.

Dark Desires After Dusk, by Kresley Cole

This is the sixth story in the IAD series, and some of the events in this book overlap what happens in the next title, Kiss of a Demon King. Not coincidentally, these are the stories of The Woede, the two demon brothers introduced in Wicked Deeds on a Winter’s Night.

The heroine, who I find utterly delightful, is entirely new to the series. And, it turns out, to the Lore as well; one Holly Ashwin, PhD candidate and math professor at Tulane U, and, for her sins, this Accession’s most popular girl.

Here, have a blurb (I hate this blurb–what’s new, right?):

“The Warlord Wants Forever” by Kresley Cole

I’m still bouncing between the Immortals After Dark series, and other, semi-random re-reads.

So here I am, with a review of the novella that set up the IAD universe.

A couple of things to know: there’s a lot of explicit, graphic sex for the page count; both main characters are total dicks towards each other, though the male protagonist’s behaviour toward his mate may be especially triggering for some readers (explained in the review, so…here be mild spoilers?).

Oh, and there’s cursing. Proceed at your own risk.

Also, please note: I’m using the original digital release cover.

This novella was originally released in print, a full decade ago, as part of the Playing Easy to Get anthology, with two other stories; one was Sherrilyn Kenyon’s “Turn up the Heat.” The other was a story by Jaid-I-hate-romance-readers-and-will-sue-blogs-and-their-owners-Black, aka Tina-I-married-a-convicted-murderer-and-harasssed-his-victim’s-daughter-Engler.

If you have read this blog before, you already know how I feel about any of my hard earned money making its way to that asshole’s pockets. If you have not, you may start here, and lose a few hours of your life finding out why. The point being: if you must read the anthology, you may want to buy it used, so the aforementioned asshole gets no royalty money from your purchase. Otherwise, this story is available by itself digitally pretty much everywhere ebooks are sold.

All good? Okay, let’s start.

“The Warlord Wants Forever” by Kresley Cole

The protagonists are Myst, a two thousand plus years old Valkyrie, and Nikolai Wroth, a three hundred years old Forbearer Vampire.

If memory serves, I read this story fairly recently, and only after it was released digitally. At any rate, I had already read at least the first two, perhaps even the first three of the IAD full length novels. Obviously, at this point I knew quite a bit about the series’ world, but I think that this story does a really good job of introducing the series and providing background for the characters’ actions and thoughts, while avoiding infodumping all over the place.

As I don’t have the print edition, I don’t know if there was some sort of story-specific blurb somewhere, but here’s one from Fantastic Fiction:¹