Reviewer: Rowena Blaze of Memory by Nalini Singh
Series: Psy/Changeling #7
Also in this series: Mine to Possess, Hostage to Pleasure, The Magical Christmas Cat , Kiss of Snow, Tangle of Need, Slave to Sensation , Wild Invitation, Heart of Obsidian, Shield of Winter, Shield of Winter, Visions of Heat, Mine to Possess, Caressed By Ice, Branded by Fire, Blaze of Memory, Mine to Possess, Hostage to Pleasure, Hostage to Pleasure, Shards of Hope, Shards of Hope, Heart of Obsidian, Caressed By Ice, Branded by Fire, Play of Passion, Allegiance of Honor, Kiss of Snow, Tangle of Need, Shield of Winter, Shards of Hope, Allegiance of Honor, Allegiance of Honor, Wild Embrace, Wild Embrace, Wild Embrace, Silver Silence, Silver Silence, Tangle of Need, Ocean Light, Ocean Light , Caressed By Ice, Wolf Rain
Publisher: Penguin
Publication Date: November 3rd 2009
Pages: 400
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Series Rating:
From the New York Times bestselling author of Shards of Hope, Shield of Winter, and Heart of Obsidian, who creates a “breathtaking blend of passion, adventure, and the paranormal”*...
A woman without a past becomes the pawn of a man who controls her future…
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…
“I wished I lived in the world Singh has created.”—*New York Times bestselling author Gena Showalter
This is the seventh book in the Psy/Changeling series and it’s another book that I found interesting, even though the focus seemed to be on things in the Psy world. I’m more of a Changeling girl (unless we’re talking Judd than I’m all Judd all the time) so it took me a lot longer to get through this book than any of the others. I wasn’t sure if it was because Dev and Katya are fairly new characters that were briefly mentioned in previous books and so I didn’t know them the way that I knew Riley and Mercy before their book or Dorian and the other cats and maybe that’s why it took me so long to connect with their story and their romance but once the book hit its stride, I really got into it.
Devraj Santos is the head of the Shrine Foundation and he’s got a duty to protect the children under the protection of the Shrine Foundation with his dying breath. He has never hesitated to eliminate a threat but when Katerina, ex-assistant of Ashaya Aleine lands in his lap, he can’t trust her but he can’t bring himself to eliminate her either. Not yet, anyway.
Katerina is long gone, in her place is a shell of a woman named Katya Haas. Katerina was abducted and tortured by Ming LeBon and while she doesn’t remember much about her abduction, she knows that she’s a danger to everyone around her. The more time she spends with Dev, the closer they become and the more scared she is that she might be a weapon that Ming can detonate at any time.
The romance between Dev and Katya was one of those slow burn romances that took its time coming together. It was slow going for a good chunk of the beginning, with a lot of Psy business that I couldn’t get into at first but by the end of the book, I was in love with the Psys we come to know over the course of the book and was interested in the Psy business building in the background. I loved how everything wrapped up. The beginning might have started on the slow side but the ending made up for all of that. I cried in the end when Dev was so distraught and the kids were there with Katya. The ending made the book for me. It was a solid addition the series and did nothing to dampen my excitement for what’s to come.
Grade: 3.5 out of 5
Reading Order
Visions of Heat
Caressed by Ice
Mine to Possess
Hostage to Pleasure
Branded by Fire
Blaze of Memory
Bonds of Justice
Play of Passion
Kiss of Snow
Tangle of Need
Heart of Obsidian
Shield of Winter
Shards of Hope
Allegiance of Honor
This is one of my favorites of the series. I just reread the entire series again in anticipation of Allegiance of Honor. It’s much easier to pick up on more of the clues seeded in the beginning of the book. I raced through the series the first time.
I think this is the book that turned things around for me where the Psy race was concerned. I wasn’t all that interested in them until after I finished this book. Those kids at the end made me cry (in a happy way) and I wanted to see more of these guys. It ended up being a good book but the beginning was slow going for me.