Scan barcode
rbradley923's review
dark
emotional
hopeful
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Pedophilia, Sexual content, and Blood
Moderate: Physical abuse, Child death, Abandonment, Panic attacks/disorders, Murder, Child abuse, Kidnapping, Gore, Domestic abuse, and Death
Minor: Gun violence, Terminal illness, Alcohol, Death of parent, Drug use, Rape, and Torture
sup3r_xn0va_maya's review against another edition
challenging
dark
hopeful
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
The story was interesting but I didn't love the two main characters, Tally and Clay.
The abuse mentions in the story were hard for me to get through for personal reasons.
I'm interested to see where the story is going as far as the Psy Counsel goes, so I'm excited to continue the series. This is my lowest rated Nalini Singh book though, I don't think the main characters resonated with me like the other main characters of the other 3 books did.
I'm giving this 3.5 stars out of 5.
The abuse mentions in the story were hard for me to get through for personal reasons.
I'm interested to see where the story is going as far as the Psy Counsel goes, so I'm excited to continue the series. This is my lowest rated Nalini Singh book though, I don't think the main characters resonated with me like the other main characters of the other 3 books did.
I'm giving this 3.5 stars out of 5.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Rape, Sexual assault, Violence, Pedophilia, Sexual violence, Child abuse, Death, and Child death
vivivi's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
I am a sucker for the "childhood friends turned lovers" trope. Let me just start with that. Talin and Clay are super cute together!
This one pulls at the heartstrings, is full of history, misunderstandings, betrayals, and hurt feelings. But it's also interspersed with the characters' strong loving feelings for each other, which balances it out, making the hurt feelings bearable for me. It is not always the case for me with Nalini Singh (one of the Rock Kiss books comes to mind), but in this one, it's sweet, sweet torture. I love that we see the characters from the other books! They're very much still a part of the story.
We also learn more about the Forgotten, which were only briefly mentioned in the previous book. One thing that I enjoy in this series is that everything is connected somehow, and will come up later if mentioned earlier. It's a great way to keep me reading the next book.
Also, as an aside since Storygraph has a section that asks if the characters are diverse... yes, they are, but you'd never know by the cover, which are almost always of white people. The actual characters are definitely not always white.... So it's verrrrry annoying when the covers don't reflect the actual characters' skin. Clay is supposed to be a "dark" man, by Tali's own description. He has very dark skin...the covers for this book though... Nope. Not even close.
This one pulls at the heartstrings, is full of history, misunderstandings, betrayals, and hurt feelings. But it's also interspersed with the characters' strong loving feelings for each other, which balances it out, making the hurt feelings bearable for me. It is not always the case for me with Nalini Singh (one of the Rock Kiss books comes to mind), but in this one, it's sweet, sweet torture. I love that we see the characters from the other books! They're very much still a part of the story.
We also learn more about the Forgotten, which were only briefly mentioned in the previous book. One thing that I enjoy in this series is that everything is connected somehow, and will come up later if mentioned earlier. It's a great way to keep me reading the next book.
Also, as an aside since Storygraph has a section that asks if the characters are diverse... yes, they are, but you'd never know by the cover, which are almost always of white people. The actual characters are definitely not always white.... So it's verrrrry annoying when the covers don't reflect the actual characters' skin. Clay is supposed to be a "dark" man, by Tali's own description. He has very dark skin...the covers for this book though... Nope. Not even close.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abandonment, Blood, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Murder, Sexual content, and Violence
Moderate: Child death, Rape, Sexual assault, Torture, and Sexual violence
Minor: Death of parent
givemaribooks's review against another edition
dark
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.0
I really struggled with this book. I went in hoping there was a good reason for Clay thinking Talin had died because I usually hate this troupe. There’s rarely a good reason for it, but in this case that was not my problem with the book. I think Talin had a legitimate reason to do what she did and wanting to stay away from Clay. It’s not like she knew they were mates, for all she knew he would have been fine without her as adults. She had a lot of trauma and had suffered enough. Wanting to have a clean break from her past, especially as a child, makes total sense to me.
And here comes why I struggled with this book. I hated Clay whenever was around Talin. He was fine on his own, but he was an overbearing judgmental asshole to Talin. She owed him nothing. She was a traumatized 12 year old when they last saw each other. She didn’t owe him fidelity, and judging her for sleeping around was unforgivable to me. At one point, she even feels impure because of her past, including because of the abuse, and that was so problematic to me. It’s one thing for her to have those feelings and to have reacted to the abuse by becoming promiscuous, but he doesn’t get to judge that. As I said, she didn’t own him fidelity and he didn’t own her body. And apart from the slut-shamming (and a bit of victim-blaming), I don’t think the puritanical views about sex that keep appearing in these books make any sense in this setting. One on hand we are told that younger shifters are very sexual and need sex, but then they also expect their mates to magically be virgins?! Make it make sense! This is also supposed to be in the future and they still are worried about virginity?! Even the psy not having sex doesn’t make sense. It’s a normal bodily function. It would’ve made more sense for them to be super causal about sex and treat it the same as exercise the way they do yoga.
I was also annoyed with the story line about Talin’s missing time. It didn’t really add to the story for her to be further violated this way. As in the previous book, the author used sexual trauma as a plot device. It felt unnecessary since she was already dealing with trauma and she could just had missing time without it being about sex.
The author also uses outdated terms, especially when it came to ableist language.
I listened to the audiobook and the narrator is great.
CW: murder, child sexual abuse (recounted), medical issues, trauma from neglect and abuse
And here comes why I struggled with this book. I hated Clay whenever was around Talin. He was fine on his own, but he was an overbearing judgmental asshole to Talin. She owed him nothing. She was a traumatized 12 year old when they last saw each other. She didn’t owe him fidelity, and judging her for sleeping around was unforgivable to me. At one point, she even feels impure because of her past, including because of the abuse, and that was so problematic to me. It’s one thing for her to have those feelings and to have reacted to the abuse by becoming promiscuous, but he doesn’t get to judge that. As I said, she didn’t own him fidelity and he didn’t own her body. And apart from the slut-shamming (and a bit of victim-blaming), I don’t think the puritanical views about sex that keep appearing in these books make any sense in this setting. One on hand we are told that younger shifters are very sexual and need sex, but then they also expect their mates to magically be virgins?! Make it make sense! This is also supposed to be in the future and they still are worried about virginity?! Even the psy not having sex doesn’t make sense. It’s a normal bodily function. It would’ve made more sense for them to be super causal about sex and treat it the same as exercise the way they do yoga.
I was also annoyed with the story line about Talin’s missing time. It didn’t really add to the story for her to be further violated this way. As in the previous book, the author used sexual trauma as a plot device. It felt unnecessary since she was already dealing with trauma and she could just had missing time without it being about sex.
The author also uses outdated terms, especially when it came to ableist language.
I listened to the audiobook and the narrator is great.
CW: murder, child sexual abuse (recounted), medical issues, trauma from neglect and abuse
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child abuse, Murder, and Sexual violence
solacelight's review
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Child death, Grief, Misogyny, Sexism, and Vomit
Moderate: Child abuse, Death of parent, Forced institutionalization, Murder, Torture, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Abandonment, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence
judythedreamer's review
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Panic attacks/disorders, Abandonment, Body horror, Blood, Murder, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Chronic illness, Kidnapping, and Mental illness
Moderate: Self harm, Pedophilia, Child death, and Medical trauma
just_one_more_paige's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
And the fourth book is done. I'm really moving through these at a fast, steady pace. About 24 hours per book. (Though I had to add myself to a waitlist for the 5th one, which is really getting me down because it's messing with my unhealthy-amount-of-reading-time paranormal romance binge lifestyle. Plus, as I'm deep into this series now, my mood for reading anything else is less than normal...which sucks, though thankfully is not as bad as a full-on slump.)
So in this fourth installment, we head back to the DarkRiver Pack and Clay Bennett, the sentinel whose darker side has been heavily hinted at, with a vision from Faith even suggesting that he'll soon be facing a crossroads that he may not come back from. When Talin McKade, a childhood friend that Clay committed a terrible act to defend, comes back into his life unexpectedly, all the memories of trying to "hide" his beast and the act of violence that separated himself and Talin for years (with lots of guilt, and fear, on both sides of that) resurface. But Talin needs Clay, and DarkRiver, to help her save the foster kids she works with from what has become a serial kidnapper/murderer. And Clay has never been able to say no to Talin (plus we all know how the Pack feels about protecting kids). So they'll have to face their past in order to save the youth, and their own futures.
As with all the books so far, this one has a number of content warnings that need to be shared, particularly for child physical/sexual abuse and the long term emotional PTSD from that (and of course the "normal' violence and death that are apparently a hallmark of this series). This was an interesting relationship, between Clay and Talin, because it's the first that has some background (since they knew each other as children) and a lot of shared trauma they needed to sort through in order to move forward together in a, at least marginally, healthier way. Also, Talin is the first human that we have seen mate with a changeling. And I liked the way the differences between a Psy mate and a human mate were detailed, as well as the way certain things (the extreme overprotective male thing) stayed the same. However there were a few items, specific to Talin and the way Clay/the Pack reacted, that rubbed me the wrong way. First, she made a comment (that turned out to not be true) about liking girls and the intense step-back reaction from Dorian/Clay did not sit well. Also, when Talin reveals her sexual history, Clay's vehement anger about it, and the fact that there was even a question of forgiveness being necessary, considering the guilt Talin already had about it all, just....it was not what I wanted. And that sucks because while I know the rest of what I've read isn't exactly healthy, this is the first time something has felt super wrong to the point that I was jumped out of my "guilty pleasure" enjoyment of the series. Meh.
As far as the other parts of the plot, we finally get some insight into the role humans play in this three-species world (clearly, a low rung as far as importance/power, but nevertheless they play a part). The kidnapping/murders of Talin's at-risk youth (though heartbreaking) open a door into the human organization Shine, which, by the end, gives some major info about the dark past secrets of the Psy and the origins of Silence (and what happened to dissenters), whereas to date we've only seen their present-tense evil. Plus, we saw a lot more about the movements within the PsyNet with the dissatisfaction of the populace, the machinations of the Council, and the status of the Protocol I hivemind project (both the proponents and those working to delay it). As far as that piece goes, it's clear the intra-Psy issues are increasing and something explosive is coming. What we learn at the end about Shine and Talin's (mostly) human mind, combined with all that, is really building the tension for what's coming. I also want to note that the previous character role reprisals were really solid in this book and it was really fun, as always, to see them all again. I do love that Singh consistently brings them back.
As always, I'm ready to blast through the next installment whenever I can get my hands on it. Despite the issues I had with this romantic pairing/situation in this book, the forward movement of the greater story arc was pretty big. And I'm invested enough at this point that I need to know what happens. The foreshadowing of Dorian's story next has me anticipating further major plot movement; plus, I do love Dorian and I can't wait to get his romance!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Death, Violence, Child abuse, Toxic friendship, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Physical abuse, Murder, Medical content, Kidnapping, Injury/Injury detail, Homophobia, and Grief
Moderate: Torture
More...