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A review by jackiehorne
Hostage to Pleasure by Nalini Singh
3.0
2.5 I had given up on this series after book #3, not caring for the insta-love and the aggressively- dominant male/feisty but liking the dominant guy female gender dynamics of the series. But Willaful recently gave this one a thumbs-up, so I decided to give it a try.
Alas, the same things still bugged me in this one as in the previous books. Ashaya, a Psy scientist, defects in order to save her son. He's been rescued by the Darkriver Changeling clan, and Ashaya, too conveniently, finds herself captured by the sniper of the same clan, Dorian. Dorian has fallen into insta-lust with Ashaya on sight in a previous book, something he can't stand, because he couldn't prevent his sister's death at the hands of a crazy Psy and feels pretty anti-Psy because of it. Of course, the two end up rolling together in the sheets. And of course are fated to be mated.
The subplot about Ashaya's sister, Amara, being amoral is an interesting one. Is she too damaged to save? Does Ashaya owe her her protection? Made me think about her in terms of disability issues; Amara can be read as a disabled character in some ways.
And so can Dorian, a Changeling who has never been able to change into his cat form. But the book's epilogue makes such a reading problematic...
Singh has been praised for featuring characters who are other than your standard white fantasy protagonists. Ashaya has dark skin, but other than that fact, there is little to nothing that marks her as racially different. Race in Singh's world plays out on the level of Psy/Changeling/Human, the dynamics of which have nothing to say about our world's racial situation, I feel. Is this cause for cheer—because we have characters of color in a story where color isn't the issue—or for worry—because our racial problems get erased/ignored in favor of the racial issues of the Psy/Changeling world?
Alas, the same things still bugged me in this one as in the previous books. Ashaya, a Psy scientist, defects in order to save her son. He's been rescued by the Darkriver Changeling clan, and Ashaya, too conveniently, finds herself captured by the sniper of the same clan, Dorian. Dorian has fallen into insta-lust with Ashaya on sight in a previous book, something he can't stand, because he couldn't prevent his sister's death at the hands of a crazy Psy and feels pretty anti-Psy because of it. Of course, the two end up rolling together in the sheets. And of course are fated to be mated.
The subplot about Ashaya's sister, Amara, being amoral is an interesting one. Is she too damaged to save? Does Ashaya owe her her protection? Made me think about her in terms of disability issues; Amara can be read as a disabled character in some ways.
And so can Dorian, a Changeling who has never been able to change into his cat form. But the book's epilogue makes such a reading problematic...
Singh has been praised for featuring characters who are other than your standard white fantasy protagonists. Ashaya has dark skin, but other than that fact, there is little to nothing that marks her as racially different. Race in Singh's world plays out on the level of Psy/Changeling/Human, the dynamics of which have nothing to say about our world's racial situation, I feel. Is this cause for cheer—because we have characters of color in a story where color isn't the issue—or for worry—because our racial problems get erased/ignored in favor of the racial issues of the Psy/Changeling world?