“A Wolf to Watch Over Me” by Sela Carsen

I feel like cheering and doing cartwheels.

I read a story! I read a new-to-me story! In one greedy gulp!

Okay, it’s a short story (amazon tells me it’s only 35 pages long), but here’s the thing: it’s the first thing I have managed to read through since freaking May!

So here’s my (brief) review.

“A Wolf to Watch Over Me” by Sela Carsen

I became aware that Ms Carsen had released a new story after a fairly long hiatus, so of course I headed over to read a sample–and fell right into the story.

Here, have a blurb:

Shards of Hope, by Nalini Singh

(Please see edit – 06/05/15)

A day late, but here you have my thoughts on this latest installment in the Psy/Changeling series.

I was hoping to get my own, hard cover copy by June 2nd, so that I could double check a few things against the ARC I received a few weeks ago, but alas! amazon is not happy with me, so it’s not shipping until next week. (So much for pre-ordering.)

I am likely to read my print copy soon after I finally get it, regardless (I’ve read the ARC four times already); if there are any changes significant enough to warrant it, I’ll edit the review accordingly (with notes).¹

As I’ve said in the past few reviews for the series, I advise readers new to the Psy/Changeling world to start with any one of the first four titles. At this point, there are too many long running threads in the overarching story arc, plus a lot of world-building detail, to be a comfortable entry point for the series.

Finally, the heroine was abused as a child, and some of this and other abuse is discussed in detail at various points in the novel.

Shards of Hope, by Nalini Singh

Back when this book was first announced, I was very excited to see that the two main characters were Arrows. Not only have the Arrows so far been great characters (Judd is probably the best hero in the series), I have been intrigued by Zaira since we met her in Tangle of Need. Not only is she the first female Arrow we meet, her interaction with Judd in that book hinted at true badassery.

Then, as if it wasn’t already a foregone conclusion that I was going to gulp this book down the moment I could get my grabby little mittens on it, this blurb was posted:

Shield of Winter, by Nalini Singh

I’m pushing this horribly, but since Shards of Hope comes out next Tuesday, I really don’t have much time to fool around.

Behold, my review of the thirteenth full length novel in the Psy/Changeling series!

Same caveat as for the past several installments: if you are new to the series, don’t start here. Slave to Sensation is the first book, but you can read Visions of Heat, Caressed by Ice or Mine to Possess out of order without appreciable spoilers. After that, I strongly urge you to read the series in order.

Shield of Winter, by Nalini Singh

As far as I can see, this is the first post-Silence story,¹ dealing with the fallout of the events in Heart of Obsidian. Not only is the Psy Council truly dissolved, but a new ruling body has surged unelected–and uncontested–from the rubble.

This ruling coalition sees before it a Herculean task: to maintain calm among the Psy around the world, while dealing with the insidious and fast growing rot that is killing the Net, before the strain is too much.

Blurb from my hardcover copy:

Heart of Obsidian, by Nalini Singh

So much for posting one Psy/Changeling review every Monday–I still aim to catch up before Shards of Hope comes out on June 2nd, or at least on the day.

(Wish me luck, pretty please?)

For anyone who is a fan of the series but hasn’t yet read all the previous books: you really don’t want to read this book before you’ve read everything that comes before.

Hell, you don’t want to read this review before you’ve read everything that’s come before.

If you are new to the series, you may enjoy the romance aspect better than you would in some of the previous books, because this novel is more focused on the couple.

However, a lot of the world building will be more than a bit cryptic, and some of the interstitial stuff may seem utterly extraneous (it’s not). This is, after all, the twelfth full-length novel set in the Psy/Changeling world (never mind the novellas and short stories).

Finally, there is violence, in the past and yet on the page, in the form of flashbacks, towards the heroine; some of it is just mentioned in passing, some of it is described with some detail. If those are triggers for you, you may want to think twice before reading this one.

Heart of Obsidian, by Nalini Singh

When this book was released two years ago, the anticipation was immense. Fans knew that this novel was finally going to answer a number of questions that had been building for almost the entirety of the series–most notably, the identity of the Ghost.

The secrecy around the book was so tight, even the blurb didn’t answer any questions or, really, provide any real information about the story between the covers (which some fans took as a personal insult, something that makes me smirk to this day):