“Secrets at Midnight” by Nalini Singh

This short story, set in the Psy/Changeling universe, is the first in the Night Shift anthology, and honestly, one of the blandest entries in the series. I do not recommend this as a starting point for the series or, really, Ms Singh’s writing.

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:

Allegiance of Honor, by Nalini Singh

Well, I finally read something, and it’s actually something new, so, yay.

Sadly, it really, really didn’t work for me.

Quick caveat: there’s some explicit language, there are a couple of explicit sex scenes, and it’s the fifteenth full length book in a series with pretty complex world building. Which basically means: all the spoilers for all the books that came before. Plus, a reader new to the series would be completely lost in a sea of in-world references and jokes.

Further, the whole point of this book, as stated in the author’s note at the beginning, is to be “a walk through the interconnected lives of many of the characters who’ve become important to us over the past books and novellas.” (This, by the way, turned out to be a rather big problem for me.)

Seriously, if you are not already a fan of the series, reading this novel first will put you off even trying any of the other books.

So, let’s get on with the review–which is long and somewhat ranty, by the by.

Allegiance of Honor, by Nalini Singh

I have had mixed feelings about this book since it was first announced, mostly because it was described at some point as a bridge between the first and second arcs in the Psy/Changeling series. In the first arc, the world is unveiled, and a number of conflicts between the three main factions are revealed and, mostly, solved. In each novel and short story, different aspects of the world and these conflicts are explored and revealed, while following the stories of a series of couples who are, in their own way, integral to the resolution of the overall story arc.

In this novel there is no central pairing or love story, and while there are a few (very thin) threads that advance the overarching conflict between the three human groups, it’s mostly composed of little vignettes about…well, almost every character that’s even been mentioned up to this point.

The blurb: