Talk us through it
Sascha Duncan is a Psy of standing due to her mother Councillor Nikita who is one of a handful of people ruling the Psy race. Unfortunately Sascha has a problem, she can feel human emotions, a trait deliberately breed out of the Psy and a problem that will eventually lead her to “rehabilitation” - the complete psychic erasure of her personality and independent thought. Nikita is in the midst of a property development deal with Lucas Hunter, the leader of the DarkRiver pack of leopard changelings. She believes Sascha is equipped to deal with Lucas unaware that the changeling's desire to feel all emotion will put a heavy burden on her daughter. But Lucas has an agenda of his own, to find a serial killer in the Psy ranks who has brought the Psy and Changeling races to the verge of all out war. No one will benefit from the ensuing slaughter. When a female of the ShadowDancer Pack, changeling wolves by any other name are werewolves, is taken by the serial killer Sascha and Lucas must join forces to stop a serial killer within his/her normal seven day modus operandi else the ShadowDancers will take down every Psy they can.
Review“Perhaps the killer is Psy, but you have no proof of the Council being involved.” - Sascha Let's get this out of the way before it becomes the white elephant in the china shop of our relationship. Yes Slave to Sensation is a paranormal romance, the latest genre to show strong chick lit sales, and yes I normally review blood and guts horror. As stated previously the dark genre mansion is a sprawling construct with rooms for a 101 different approaches to the underlying subject matter, paranormal romance is one approach and an increasingly important one judging from sales. As such I decided to take one for the team and dived into Nalini Singh's opening book in the Psy-Changeling cycle. To my surprise I not only thoroughly enjoyed the book but am chomping at the bit to get into the sequel. The Ladies will no doubt have Slave to Sensation on their reading list already, but via this review I hope to prove to the menfolk that there's something for them in this novel as well. Oh yes there will be enjoyment, let's slice our way into things. One of the more difficult things in Sci-Fi/Fantasy to pull off is creating alternative worlds to the one we live in that not only work in their own right but which hold up to scrutiny through the course of a reasonable sized novel. We have probably all started a book like this only to drop it some way through as the Author takes liberties and breaks his/her world rules due to story requirements. The old writing yourself into a corner syndrome young Authors continually run up against. Alternative world creation is even more difficult for the dark genre writer, he/she is forcing the reader to hold a number of balls up in the air to begin with imagination wise, and this becomes even more difficult for the Author when not one but two fictional societies are involved. Raymond E. Feist pulled this trick off wonderfully well in his Midkemia series of novels. Nalini Singh presents us with an alternative reality in Slave To Sensation where the Psy, a race given to logical emotionless thought, hold sway over both the Human and Changeling populations. Not only does Singh create a believable Psy society, complete with a neural network, but she also creates the diametrically opposed Changeling society who operate on raw emotion and the idea of an extended pack family. Through the course of her novel, and Slave to Sensation is the first in a series of novels set in the same alternative universe, Singh not only creates and builds on the foundation of her societies but she does so in a totally engrossing and believable fashion. Nalini Singh has pulled off one of the more difficult things to achieve in dark genre literature, and most importantly she has done so with quite some style. Sci-Fi alternative reality fans are simply going to love Slave to Sensation and I would highly recommend the book to anyone falling into this category eho may be reading this review. Nalini Singh is the Stephen King of Paranormal Romance writers, with her novels being required reading for anyone immersed in the genre. Before leaving the narrative structure of the book, and we could spend ages talking about this part alone, I would point out the Psy clearly operate as the higher intellectual level of human kind while the Changelings fill in for the more primitive instinctive side of things. The human race only has a minor role in Slave to Sensation. Past the Freudian analysis from the left hand side, I'm not even going near there. Apologises to the Jungian camp but your services are not required. There's a general belief amongst non paranormal romance readers that the genre is populated by less than acceptable writers who would be hard pressed writing anything else. A sort of “write the PR novel” and the publishers will come feeling that is actually pretty hard to dispute given the general appalling level of ineptitude that the Twilight series of books descend to. And I must confess here that I only got through half of the first chapter of Twilight before physically abandoning what is essentially pretty bad fan fiction. Stephenie Meyers writes to a level that makes the average Mills and Boons release seem like Jane Austen in comparison. Nalini Singh has given me pause to question my bias against PR, the lady can write and in Slave to Sensation she is writing very well indeed. Sure we're talking a paranormal romance novel here, another in the dark genre's pulp range of sub genres, but Singh writes honestly and is not short changing the reader in any way. For mine Nalini Singh is the Stephen King of PR writers. There I've said it, and will defend that statement in any court in the land. I was honestly astonished at how well Slave to Sensation was written and the share craftsmanship brought to bare on each page. Singh does not denigrate any horror trope, stays true to dark genre conventions, yet manages to bring a unique spin to things that should have horror fans taking note. I'm also recommending Slave to Sensation to horror fans, both male and female. Okay so the novel is one sexy beast, I would suggest having a cold shower on hand through some of the descriptive passages, and I wouldn't leave the book lying around for your Grandmother to pick up. Though that would depend on the particular pensioner of course. Please note we're talking the sensational rather than exploitation here. Nalini Singh can sex it up high when she wants to but doesn't allow this aspect of the novel to dominate the rest of the narrative. What male readers in particular however are going to love about Slave to Sensation is the developing intrigue as to who our serial killer may be. Singh doesn't overly delve into the slaughter house aspect of things, the metal meeting the flesh happens off page, but she does manage to keep the thriller aspects of the novel bubbling along nicely. We know the Psy are involved somehow with the deaths of a number of young ladies, but we don't know whether this is a conspiracy, an attempt to cover up for an individual, or something even more sinister. I had my theories about things, none of your business check the book out for yourself, but only achieved a passing mark on my notions of what was going down as things were resolved. Nalini Singh regularly features on the New York Times best selling lists making this review somewhat redundant from a sales point of view. There's a good reason for NY Times recognition, the books are compulsive reading, highly entertaining, and lift the bar of paranormal romance far above what is being achieved by hack writers like Meyers. It's something of an indictment that Meyers is better known Downunder than one of our own Writers who is producing novels of infinitely better quality. If this review achieves anything I hope it is to bring the name of Nalini Singh to a wider audience in this part of the world who appreciate literature for it's own sake, regardless of genre. As they say Slave to Sensation is available from all good bookshops, and also the ones I tend to shop at. Further details on the novel can be found at Australian Distributor Hachette's website click through. Nalini Singh's official website can be found right here. Scaryminds would like to thank Brendan Fredericks for giving us the opportunity to check out the novel.
ScaryMinds Rates this read as ... An outstanding paranormal romance novel offering something for all readers.
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