Review
“I was given the impression that F-Psy rarely frequent the Net.” - Nikita Faith NightStar is designated a F-Psy, she can tell the future, but like others of her designation is apparently fated to go insane. Faith has been trained to focus on business developments and is worth a lot of money to her Clan, who have grown in power and prestige due to Faith's ability. Unfortunately for Faith her visions are mixed with a dangerous aching need for pleasure, that she interprets as the first sign of madness. Probably not helping are also the visions of a psycho killer who likes to strangle his/her victims, Faith is the mind's eye of this cold blooded killer. Faith seeks help amongst the Changeling community, hoping to contact Sascha, another Psy who deserted the sterile world of her race. She runs full tilt into Vaughn, a Sentinel of the ShadowDancer Pack and they are mutually attracted. Hampering any future thoughts of happiness are the Psy Council and Faith's Clan who do not want to lose her abilities, and more importantly a deranged killer who has murdered Faith's sister. In her pursuit of sanity Faith will discover a few secrets about the Psy Net that the Council don't want leaked to the public. You know how people say that Dan Brown's novels have a tendency to have sort of the same plot, well Nalini Singh falls into the same category with Visions of Heat. We have a Psy female developing more than Psy feelings for a changeling male, with very much sexing it up high on the agenda, while a backdrop of a Psycho killer adds some danger to the whole thing. If this sounds to you very much like the plot of the first Psy-Changeling novel, Slave to Sensation, then you are not barking up the wrong tree. However just like Dan Brown, Singh takes things in new directions and adds some spice to the mix that keeps the promise of the novel series as worth following high on the agenda. Singh maintains the “forbidden love” angle of the Paranormal Romance (PR) novel throughout Visions of Heat, but in a move that might surprise regular PR readers tends to down play it pretty quickly and focuses more on developing her alternative fantasy world and what is starting to look and feel like a series' plot arc. So yes while Singh gets pretty steamy on occasion, is PR soft porn? - she is not being tied down to a robotic repetition of the PR norms. For the ladies we get the highly dangerous lead male protagonist Vaughn, no dollar store plastic sparkling vampire here, who though loyal to his pack operates outside it's normal conventions. Vaughn brings a whole Byron feel to things, but is demonstratively highly dangerous as a Psy special ops unit discovers. Faith NightStar will fall under his primeval spell, but will find the strength to curb his worse impulses. Oh dear god I'm sinking into some sort of chick orientated review here, freaking moving along citizens. Singh is gathering a head of steam on the whole Psy situation with Visions of Heat, remembering besides touching on the social set-up in the first novel we didn't really fully explore the culture. The Psy have an enforced “silence” that has lead to their cold aloofness, anyone stepping outside “silence” is going to clash headlong with the Authorities and be sent to re-education. However Singh postulates in this novel that the “silence” is the root cause for the rise of Psychotic killers amongst the Psy, and further hints that elements within the Psy perhaps want to go further with Children not being safe from their machinations. On the bright side the Psy-net has developed it's own personality, a child like being that may hold the future of the race within it's developing awareness. Pretty heady stuff, Singh drifting into Science Fiction here. If you are planning on reading the series as a whole then be warned, the books follow a logical sequence, you are better off reading through them sequentially to get full value from the narrative. Once again Nalini Singh demonstrates in Visions of Heat that she can write a decent line of prose, and perhaps provides one of the few lights at the end of the tunnel for those who like the PR genre but despair at the poor quality of writers within it. Singh is like the Jane Austin of PR Authors, the books are formulated within their genre, but the writing raises them well above what could have been simple parlour room pulp fiction. Hey you don't have to take my word for it, Singh is an award winning novelist amongst the Romantic bunch, something Stephenie Meyer is never going to hope to achieve with her dribble. I should just mention that our resident “Boston Strangler” provides some character motivation without being Singh's primary focus in the novel. For those going in expecting a Dexter style outing, you are going to be sadly disappointed, Singh is all about the forbidden love. Visions of Heat is available from most high street book-stores, if you can't find it at your local then that store is likely to be out of business real soon now. Further details on the novel can be found at Australian Distributor Hachette's website. Nalini Singh's official website can be found right here. Scaryminds would like to once again thank Brendan Fredericks for giving us the opportunity to review the novel.
ScaryMinds Rates this read as ... A second solid entry in what is becoming an excellent PR series
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