Gefangener der Sinne (Psy-Changeling, #5) in Vampires, Weres and Fae!

Nov 10, 2009 Melindeeloo rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Great addition to the series! Book five and still going strong, keep them coming!

Dorian is a Changeling even though he's latent and can't shift. Still he is a formidable preditor having honed his skills to make himself one of the most lethal of the Dark River Sentinel guardians. Beneath his skin he is leopard, and it is the leopard clawing to get out that won't allow Dorian to forget the Psy-Scientist, Ashaya Aliene, one of the robotic Psy, one of the hated race that protects abominations like Great addition to the series! Book five and still going strong, keep them coming!

Dorian is a Changeling even though he's latent and can't shift. Still he is a formidable preditor having honed his skills to make himself one of the most lethal of the Dark River Sentinel guardians. Beneath his skin he is leopard, and it is the leopard clawing to get out that won't allow Dorian to forget the Psy-Scientist, Ashaya Aliene, one of the robotic Psy, one of the hated race that protects abominations like the psychotic killer who tortured and murdered his beloved sister -- Ashaya is a hated enemy to the man, but a mate his inner beast yearns to possess. Little does Dorian know that, hidden under the icy Psy veneer, the damaged psyche and imperfections in Ashaya's Silence conditioning make her far more human than is safe. And it is more than cool logic which leads her to first ensure her son's safety - calling in a favor owed by having the Changelings kidnap him - and then to `kill' herself in order to halt the Protocol Project intended to rob the Psy of even more of their humanity by turning them into hive mind drones.

The intensity of the relationship between Dorian and Ashaya is a given, taking advantage of the Psy's emotional awakening to passion and the animal's unrelenting pursuit which make the Psy to Changeling bonding a great vehicle for building a relationship. Still there was enough unique in Dorian and Ashaya and their pairing to keep Hostage to Pleasure from feeling formulaic. The inner conflict between the needs of Dorian the man and the needs of his inner cat, and Dorian's war between desire and guilt, meant that there was plenty of issues for Dorian to work out before being able to accept his need for Ashaya. And making it even more difficult for the pair, Ashaya's sociopathic twin added a whole additional layer of obstacles for them to overcome.

On top of the good stuff between the starring pair, Singh employs her ever expanding cast in more than a cameo capacity and we get to reconnect with many of our old favorites. We also the get some introductory glimpses at a few more fascinating characters that I really just have to see more of - in particular the powerful teleporting resistance member who pops up several times in the story. From a series point of view, the background plot continues to unfold and gains even more depth. Instead of just the historical bits and the Counsel intrigue from the previous books, we now have several more groups at war and using guerilla tactics and there is a feel that this is all truly leading somewhere climatic instead of just being filler between the steamy stuff.

So now the long wait until summer of 2009 for the next book Branded by Fire (leopard Mercy and wolf Riley) begins. Singh just couldn't write these fast enough for me, but fortunately to tide us over she has an excellent short in the anthology The Magical Christmas Cat, and the start of a new darker vampire hunter/angel series Angels' Blood. If you are new to the Psy-Changeling series don't start here - really - you'd be missing out on too much of what has gone before if you don't, and a lot of it was really really good. Start with Slave to Sensation (Psy-Changelings, Book 1) and get yourself hooked on this great paranormal romance world of psychics and shapeshifters.
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May 29, 2011 Vannessa rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: were-shifters-mostly, kindle-books, paranormal-romance

I quite liked this book in this series as well. Almost seems that after the first 3 very predictable PNR books, Nalini Singh has realised that her book actually need a storyline to go alongside all the romance!

In this one, Ashaya Aleine, the Psy scientist who helped a couple of kids in the previous book, calls in her favour from Talin - she wants her son rescued from the Psy. The Dark River leopard clan help out and Dorian is the (un)fortunate changeling who has to deal with her. As you might e ...more

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