Title: Slave to Sensation

Author: Nalini Singh

Published: 2009/03/31

Genre: Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Paranormal Romance, Shapeshifters

Rating:  ★★★★★

Synopsis

In a world that denies emotions, where the ruling Psy punish any sign of desire, Sascha Duncan must conceal the feelings that brand her as flawed. To reveal them would be to 
sentence herself to the horror of “rehabilitation”–the complete psychic erasure of everything she ever was…

Both human and animal, Lucas Hunter is a Changeling hungry for the very sensations the Psy disdain. After centuries of uneasy coexistence, these two races are now on the verge of war over the brutal murders of several Changeling women. Lucas is determined to find the Psy killer who butchered his packmate, and Sascha is his ticket into their closely guarded society. But he soon discovers that this ice-cold Psy is very capable of passion–and that the animal in him is fascinated by her. Caught between their conflicting worlds, Lucas and Sascha must remain bound to their identities–or sacrifice everything for a taste of darkest temptation…

My Thoughts

I have to start off by saying this took a little for me to get into then I couldn’t put it down. After blitzing through the next two books and having to wait for the fourth (two weeks and the previous borrower still wasn’t done!!!) I just went ahead and bough the whole series including the short stories. Yup from from a week to get through two chapters to a book a day!

I love the world! The cold, emotionless, psychic Psy, the wild, passionate shapeshifting Changelings, and the boring old humans who also inhabit the world. Lol! Hey we might be the weakest of the races in this world but we still know how to hold our own. The world and characters are amazing! Incredibly vivid and, once you get into the series, it pulls you in with the over-arching plot present in all of the books. The series plot is my favorite part; I really want to know how it all ends, what happens, and if the different groups can ever find peace together. 

I only have two real cons with this book and series as a whole; one is the cookie-cutter sex scenes, and two is the side stories. So firstly, I don’t mind some sex in my books; I don’t read smut but a love scene now and again is fine. This series introduces a new couple as the main characters in every book, which is cool, but also means that there is two to three cut and paste sex scenes per book. It gets old fast, but skipping over these parts can also make you miss things so boo. Secondly, I adore series that have their own universe! I love to get all of the side stories and just immerse myself so I was really excited that Singh writes so many extras! Except very few have anything to do with the plot of the universe and most have more sex scenes. Overall, these are pretty minor issues to whine about but I’m whining…

As of writing this I have read ten of the twenty main stories and all of the extras. I also read these a few years ago and was getting really bored of the sex… Yes I have issues. But I did make it through Hawke’s story before quitting which is the character I really wanted to read about.  

Honestly, if you like shifters/romance/paranormal and are looking for a new take on these genres I would give Nalini Singh’s Psy-Changeling series a go! Lots of books, tons of characters, an awesome world, and really cool universe plot. Also the first book is just amazing when you finally get hooked! This is probably my favorite couple and I am glad that we get to see so how they and the world around them changes.