Episode 2: Slave to Sensation Kept Me Up Til 3am

welcome to changeling cast the podcast dedicated to reading and dissecting urban fantasy, paranormal and speculative romance series. I'm your host Mara from the YouTube channel books like whoa. And this season we are making our way through Nalini Singh's Psy changeling series.

Today we're talking about the first book in the series Slave to Sensation by Nalini Singh. And, you know, in my mind, I was like, Okay, this is a reread, I had kind of been winding down for the night, I thought to myself, Okay, I'm gonna get started on this reread...

cut to me on a work night 3am, crying, laughing, utterly sucked into this book. It ruined my sleep and made me a zombie The next day, but it was totally worth it. I have to tell you guys, I remember liking this book, but not loving it. The first time I read it, like

it was

fun, it was good. I was intrigued. Obviously, I kept going. But this time, it hit me in a certain kind of way. And I am so excited to talk to you guys about this book, because I just think there's so much to dissect, there is so much going on in this first book. And I with the benefit of hindsight of seeing kind of where the series goes. So much is set up in this first book, I am just so impressed with it. And it makes me even more excited to get into this project with you guys. But before we fully dive into the book, I did just want to go over a couple of logistics in response to all of the wonderful feedback the first episode got! I really appreciate all the support from everyone. As we're getting the podcast up and going. I wasn't totally sure how this was going to be received. But I feel like it's been overwhelmingly positive. So thank you so much to everyone for diving in with me on the first episode and joining back for this episode. So I'm really excited to keep going and to go on this journey with you guys. And I've started reaching out to people. I do already have a very exciting guests booked for later in this year. So we'll talk about that in a couple of months. But I'm very excited. I did have kind of a glitch with the first episode because when I was posting it to YouTube, I happened to post it at a time where YouTube was not letting you schedule things. It just was putting everything live. So it didn't premiere the way it was supposed to... anyway, issues were had. But you guys are awesome. And I feel like we powered through them. And I did want to let everybody know that you can of course watch the episodes on YouTube or listen on YouTube if you want to. But we are also now listed in Apple and Spotify and Stitcher and Google. We were listed all of the major places I think I'm now covering like 97% of ways people get podcasts. But if there's any place that we are not listed right now that you would like to have the podcast listed, definitely let me know, I'm happy to try to get it put in those directories. So you guys can hear me in your podcast app of choice at this point. If you do get a second, I would really really appreciate it if you wouldn't mind going and rating and reviewing the show. It does help kind of get the word out on those platforms other than just through YouTube. So if you get a chance, I would appreciate that. And yeah, as sort of a thank you to those of you who are listening via a podcast app rather than through YouTube. I'm going to do my best to get episodes up in the feed on Mondays, and then it will premiere on Tuesday mornings. So thank you again so much for helping make the first episode. so successful. And I'm excited to just keep growing from here. So now that we have that out of the way, let's start just talking about this utter delight of a book you guys I am so fucking impressed at how elegantly Nalini Singh does the world building in this first book. I had like I said, I remember enjoying it. And I but I feel like even when I've been pitching this series in years since when I first read it, I feel like I often sort of caveat this first book or really these first two books of you know, the first two books are good, but you know, you really just got to hang in there with it because in the third book, that's where it gets amazing. And I've got to tell you guys, I really don't feel that way anymore. Now that I've reread this first book, upon a reread I would give this like four and a half stars, which in my scale means like a best of the year kind of a thing. I thought this book was actually incredibly successful in a way that I frankly just had not remembered it being I don't know if that's me, like you know, kind of looking back on it. And now that I know and love the series, so well, maybe I just have more affection for it this time around. Maybe I've just read more in the genre. And so like, I just appreciate kind of what its project is a bit more. I don't know, if I just... it's 2021 following 2020. And it's just been a tough couple of years here in the world. So maybe my heart just was ready for this book in a way that it wasn't in 2015 when I first read it, but man, oh, man, I had such a great time reading this. So we're gonna do a recap. I'm going to walk you guys through what all happens in the book. You know, we'll get into some of my kind of thoughts as we go. Obviously, that will be coloring my retelling of it. And then we'll also talk about some themes, motifs, etc. Some writing just will do all the things. So first, let's start with walking through what all happens in this amazing book.

So I had forgotten that this book just really kind of goes there right from the jump. So we open with our protagonists, our female protagonist, who is Sasha Duncan, and Sasha Duncan, is a Psy, if you will remember our intro episode, the Psy are these psychic beings. And she is a cardinal, meaning that she is the most powerful version of a Psy that there is. And when we open up with her, like on the third page, basically, she we already know that Yes, she is incredibly, psychically powerful, but her mind is falling apart. She has all of these disturbing physical side effects. She has like muscle spasms and tremors. And like she wakes up from dreams weeping. She thinks that she is going nuts. Basically, she thinks that she's going insane. So we opened just sort of like with a bang with her. And we also know really pretty much from the jump, that she is working for her mother Nikita, who is an incredibly politically powerful size, she is not psychically as powerful as Sasha because she is not a cardinal. But she is incredibly well connected. She is feared within the Psy Net. And she is one of the I think seven Psy counselors. So she is very politically powerful. And Sasha works with her mother in there. I think kind of like investment company, if not totally clear to me exactly. What Duncan enterprises is doing. They've got their hands on a lot of different cookie jars. So they are going to this business meeting at the beginning of the book. And it is going to be with a changeling who is the alpha of the dark river leopard pack. And his name is Lucas Hunter, who is our hero and off the jump it just it just starts so juicily also shout out I have a bunch of notes that I took while I was reading and you know, weeping over my Kindle as I read this at three in the morning, but I also am going to be using Psy changeling dot fandom.com they have a great wiki that has a synopsis and a chapter by chapter recap so appreciate the Lord's good work that those folks have done to make sure that I don't forget anything. So anyway, we we open with her going to this business meeting with Lucas. Lucas Hunter is the alpha of the dark river pack and in my okay just like a note on their physical appearances. In my mind, Lucas looks like the dude that is kind of popping a squat on one of the covers of Slave to Sensation. He's got kind of you know shorthair... he kind of just like a good looking dude bro. That was what I always pictured him as. And then I'd always pictured Sasha for some reason as looking like Jamie, who is one of the Assistant District Attorneys on OG law and order? Like she comes in after the assistant attorney who got killed. But before Angie Harmon- anybody remember this lady? Okay, this is what I thought Sasha looked like. That is not what Sasha looks like. Also, this is this cover model does not look like how Lucas is described. Sasha is described she we learned throughout the book that she has very mixed parentage in terms of her racial identity her kind of like matrilineal DNA is Eastern Asian, like Japanese, mostly it sounds like but then her father... her paternal DNA is described as Anglo Indian. And that is really what Sasha looks like. It sounds like she kind of reads or presents as being of Indian descent and she has like this really long lusciously curled hair. I will say something that made me slightly uncomfortable through Is that her skin is described as exotic, which I don't know, I would love to.... It's always from the viewpoint of Lucas. And that made me kind of uncomfortable that he was describing her as exotic. But that being said, Nalini Singh herself is of South Asian descent. So I don't know if she's projecting what she thinks white characters would think about a woman who is presenting as being of Indian descent, I don't know. But anyway, so Sasha looks nothing like what I had pictured her as, and then Lucas,

honestly, he

kind of is described very similarly to how Roarke is described in the In Death books- like he has a sort of shoulder length, black curled hair that gives him sort of this wild man appearance, His face is also scarred like with a, it looks like like a paw strike at him, which we learn more about as the book goes along. But I was struck just by how I had totally misremembered sort of their physicality. And once I realized that Lucas was described very similarly to Roarke, I have to say this first book actually quite reminds me in terms of its thematic content of the first In Death book, which is make it into and maybe I'll talk more about why that is later. But I will just say, once I realized he physically reminded me of Roarke, his character also started to remind me a lot of Roarke. So anyway, so they go to this, you know, Sasha is kind of kind of coming down off of this rental and rush of having what she thinks is sort of a psychotic break moment. She goes to this business meeting, and she meets Lucas and obviously immediately, sparks are flying. Basically, what's happening is that the Duncan group is going to be building this housing development that is going to be aimed at attracting changelings as its buyers and evidently, the Psy have tried to kind of get in on this market in the past, but it always fails because they, you know, are kind of like emotionless and not in touch with what the changeling, the passionate changeling shifter people want in their homes. So what Lucas is going to do is a help them with the design elements to make it more appealing, help them with selecting where they're going to build it a good location, and then also finding changelings who will move it. That's what the Duncan's think is happening in this with this business arrangement. What they don't know is that Lucas, we see in his POV that he has an ulterior motive of why they're trying to do this now. And it's that there has been a serial killer who the changeling know is a Psy who has been systematically targeting changeling women, there's I think been eight changeling women who have been abducted, tortured and then killed. And they are killed in precisely the same way with the precise same number of cuts in the body. I guess I should give a content warning actually here. Let me pause. This book does contain quite a bit of pretty explicit descriptions of violence, and also of abuse, like torture, basically. So just a quick content warning there. If you can tell from the whole like serial killer plotline that's going to be a part of part of the deal. So anyway, they know it's a Psy because of how precise the cuts on the bodies are. But then also the Psy have a sort of metallic sent to them that only changelings can pick up and they keep sending that on the body. So they know it must be a Psy killer. And they are trying to track down who this might be. And the reason Lucas has gotten involved is because the last woman who was abducted and then killed was a member of the dark river pack. And specifically she was the sister of one of his sort of lieutenants, Dorian. So they both come to this meeting and they both have these ulterior motives or I guess even I shouldn't even say ulterior motives. Both of them have like sort of a side motivation or a side kind of conflict happening. Sasha is trying to hold her shit together because she thinks she's going insane. Lucas is trying to find out what happened to his pack mate. And both of them are going to be very distracted in their kind of side

missions, because they have this instant attraction. So there's a lot of sort of double entendres in this first meeting, they kind of arrive at somewhat of an agreement and Sasha is so just like shaken. Like this first encounter that she has to run back to her room. She has to cancel plans with her mom because she thinks she's having basically an episode and it is immediately like she immediately has some level of sort of like the sexual awakening happening from Lucas. So when she gets back to her room, it says "Unclipping the barrette at the end of her plait, she shoved her hands into the unfurling curls before tugging off her jacket and throwing it aside her breasts ached straining against the cups of bra. She wanted nothing more than to strip herself naked and rub up against something hot, hard and male." Okay, so she immediately has this intense emotional reaction to him, which I had totally forgotten. In my mind, it took like, she sort of has this slow realization, but this is on page like 11 or 12, she's immediately having to run back to her room stripped down because her boobs are aching! And then also notice that she unclips, the barrette in her braid. I know one of the strong sort of motifs in throughout this book is her kind of wild curly hair as a metaphor for her underlying emotional state. So sort of throughout her life, she's been trying to keep her hair in this tight hairdo, because it's seen as sort of unkempt or whatever, if she has it down, because it's naturally so sort of unruly. And as soon as she's having like these emotional reactions, that always you will see again, and again, her hair is coming back into it. Lucas throughout is constantly like rubbing her hair and trying to unbraid it. And I mean, it's a very direct kind of metaphor for her emotional state. So anyway, that gets introduced, like straight off the bat. So that that's kind of their initial meeting, then, a lot of what this book ends up being is Lucas and Sasha tooling around talking about business, but that business is always just sort of the pretext for what's really going on between them. It's both that Lucas is trying to probe her

for more information about his pack make highly he's trying to do that. She's trying to prove herself to her mother, like she's, she's both trying not to go insane. But she's also sort of trying to this is going to be the deal that kind of helps her make her name. So she's, you know, trying to keep it together and do her businesswoman thing. But what's really happening throughout is that they are falling in love. I mean, they're, they're basically they have this really just sort of like primal draw to each other in a way that neither of them was expecting. Lucas is resistant to at first somewhat, but I made a note that by 43%, into the book, Lucas has pretty much recognized that she says, mate, and fully recognize that by about the 60% mark, so the kind of middle, there's like a middle chunk there, where he's sort of coming to that full realization. But the reality is, they are just so drawn to each other off the bat. And he is not really resistant to it. He doesn't necessarily recognize it for what it is at first. But he- he's enjoying it, he enjoys flirting with her, he also can tell almost immediately, that something is different about her, he can tell this both from some of her reactions, based on how he has dealt with sign in the past, she has more of sort of an emotional reaction to things or sort of a intuitive really may may be a better word for it. She has more of an intuitive reaction to different scenarios that she finds herself in that he's never seen before in a Psy. The other thing is that she doesn't have the same metallicky smell that most Psy have. And so he he's convinced that there's something kind of different about her. He's also confused though, because she's a cardinal. He's never been around a cardinal before. And so he can't tell if it's just that's her power. Basically, he's incredibly drawn to her but also very intrigued by the fact that he can tell there's something different about her Sasha for her part is both incredibly drawn to him but also terrified of him because he is making her he's he's breaking down her silence at a more accelerated rate, basically. So she's very sort of discomforted being in his presence because he's constantly sort of needling her or kind of pushing her out of her comfort zone. She thinks that he might be able to tell that she's not perfectly silent. She she's just sort of wary of him. And yet she is utterly drawn to him. So she sort of just can't resist him at the same time that she's sort of afraid of what He's Eliciting from her. So anyway, so they spent a lot of time just doing various degrees of business dealings. Some of the notable things sort of in the lead up to some of the other action that happens is that pretty early on the actually they go to made in Thompson's house who Tamsin or Tammy, she's the dark river healer. So she is part of what's interesting about this book is you come to realize that the changelings do have some kind of psychic ability. I don't I don't know that that's ever totally spelled out super explicitly, but basically the healer in the in a pack has the same kindness have abilities that an M-Psy, a medical Psy, might have, but in a different way, like it works differently. So anyway, there's a healer in every pack and and Tammy is the healer of the dark river pack. They go to her house. And Tammy has these two adorable little leopard twin boys who are like, I don't know, three, four or five, I'm not totally sure how old they are, but they are so cute. And when Sasha and Lucas arrive at her house, they are in their leopard form. And Sasha is so transfixed by them. She's so intrigued, but she's trying to sort of like keep her intrigued to herself, but she is just so taken with them. And what Lucas observes is that she's actually quite plate like she, she responds with a level of empathy or warmth to to them that he would not expect a Psy to do. So basically, she realizes that they are chewing on her shoes, and she psychically sends them a warning of Oh, your mom's gonna get you in trouble if you do that. And they back off, but Lucas had... Lucas and Tammy that she has done this and they both kind of take note of, okay, she's showing a level of sort of care towards these children that sire not supposed to have. She also gets offered food from Tammy in this meeting. And I think food throughout this as another kind of motif or a sort of metaphor, because a Psy are always just eating sort of like, I don't know, power bars

or something. It sounds awful. They're not supposed to eat or enjoy food, or they're not supposed to enjoy food beyond just purely as sustenance. But Tammy makes these chocolate chip cookies and and Sasha has one you know, to be polite or whatever. And then she sits there to sort of reveling in the sensations it sets off in her. She's like sitting there angling, trying to figure out if there's a way for her to have more. So anyway, again, it's just sort of these more physical metaphors for her awakening to her more emotional or sensuous side, she also noticed is when she's with Tammy and Lucas that there's other pack mates who are coming in, and I have forgotten how incredibly like the type of physicality that the pack has with each other. I mean, like they, you know, greet each other by like kissing each other on the lips. They're like, rubbing their head or like, rubbing against each other. I don't know, I guess I just hadn't noticed or remembered this, that it's there's just this incredible level of tactile ness between pack mates. And I guess just seeing it through Sasha's eyes, it was so jarring because it's been a while since I've read a book where a Psy was coming in with no real previous experience with the changelings. Anyway, we'll get there eventually. But from her perspective, and her sort of description of what these exchanges look like, I just forgotten how sort of tactile and up in each other's grills. These changelings are and that's this concept that is called skin privileges, which is something that we see over and over again, in these books where the changelings need skin just like they need physical contact the same way that Psy need that sort of biofeedback and the sinat. changelings need physical touch with each other. And, and that's called skin privileges. And there's different degrees of skin privileges you can have within the pack. But then the ultimate skin privileges obviously is, you know, sexual in nature. It's a way that Nalini Singh uses to communicate where people are in their relationship in terms of what kind of skin privileges different people are or are not allowed. So anyway, so we get the scene with Tammy, and the other members of the pack. And basically, it's just, if further reinforces Lucas's sense that there's something different about Sasha and it makes him very intrigued. And he's also having this incredible, like this growing kind of confliction between his own, you know, draw to her versus what he's supposed to be doing, which is sort of like probing her for information about what's going on in the signage to try to find this killer. So eventually, they kind of get into this rhythm where they do sort of a quid pro quo for information. So Sasha will tell Lucas something about the way the Psy work. Lucas will tell Sasha something about the way changelings work they talk about some of their sort of political structures back and forth to

each other. They talk a little bit about sort of what it means for changelings to take a mate throughout this Sasha is having sort of side eyes at different female pack mates. She basically she's feeling very possessive over Lucas and she's sort of disquieted by her own possessiveness. That includes this woman named Zahra who comes into work with him in this business meaning and Sasha sort of givings RSI and Zara calls her out and says like, are you looking at me because of the color of my skin? Because our has is a person of color and she has sort of a deep skin tone. And Sasha says Well, no, I mean, I'm also a person of color. But I'm just looking at you because you don't seem like you're a leopard. And Lucas is very taken aback but they all are because how would she know that? Like, she has no way that she would know that Zara is not a leopard. She's actually I think, like a wild cat or something. She's a different kind of cat changeling. But it's something that sort of on the down low and how, how would she even know that? and Sasha, basically, he's like how Sasha is far too intuitive. He just he's very aware of the fact that she something is very wrong here. Or not wrong. something's really different about Sasha or something. It's just he he has more questions, basically. So then Sasha ends up going back to her apartment, and we get the introduction of fucking Enrique sentano or sentano Enrique, I can never remember which one it is. But Enrique, that's what I always think of him as. Okay, so he is another one of the Psy counselors, and he is slick F. And he's with her mother when Sasha gets back to sort of Psy headquarters. And basically he's angling for wanting Sasha to drill the changelings for more information to enhance what the sign know about how changelings work. And Sasha is very nervous of him, because she is convinced that he will be able to tell that her conditioning is not perfect, that silence has been broken, basically, just that he she doesn't want to be around him too much, because he's so powerful. And his silence seems so perfect. It just like freaks her out. Sasha is just sort of not sure why Enrique was there. And Nikita just sort of puts her off. And so

she's sort of,

she can't tell if her mother and Enrique have some sort of Alliance. She's not sure what's going on. She also brings up the fact Oh, I should mention that at this point. We know that river, dark river and snow dancer and if you'll remember snow dancer is the big wolf pack in California, it's been everybody knows that they have what's being called a mutual non aggression pact. But the other thing that Sasha found out is that actually, it's going deeper than that. It's not just that they're not like have this mutual non aggression pact, they have agreed to have a 20% stake in each other's projects. So she's found out that snow dancer is going to be coming into this project, sort of through the back door. Basically, she's seeing a lot of evidence of a much deeper level of collaboration there than anyone had known about. And so it just sort of like another little data point that sets off questions in her mind. And then that night, we get to the first sexy dream, guys, I had totally forgot about these sexy dreams. Basically what happens a few times in this book, Sasha and Lucas meet in Sophos dream, she has this telepathic connection to him. She doesn't realize though, until much later in the book, and he seems like he kind of suspects that this is real way before she does. But she thinks she's just having like a sexy

dream about him,

like she and you know, as a Psy, she can kind of direct some of her dreams. So she's dreaming about, you know, exploring him sexually in a way that she never can and realize she thinks, and it's very, it's much like steamier than I remembered being and it's very sensual. That's the word I would like to use for this. It's very playful. It's very focused on sort of like her awakening to this tactile world of sensation. And it's quite funny because she thinks she's dreaming. And he keeps sort of sassing back at her and she's like, what are you doing? Like, you're not supposed to do this in my dream, but it's really him. So you know, and then he'll point out like, well, I, you know, if I was really here, I would have this response. And she sort of thinks, oh, okay, yes, maybe my mind is filling in your emotional response, based on what I know about you. So it's a very clever way to kind of have them have more of a connection, like more of a romantic overtly sexual connection earlier in the book, because she's so buttoned up. I mean, it would be hard, I think, if this wasn't there for us to really feel connected with them as a couple this early on in the book. So I think it's actually quite a clever device on Nalini Singh's part. To have them kind of getting together that way. I I've enjoyed I enjoy all of those scenes. There's a few of them kind of as the course of the book goes along. Side note, also, this book basically takes over the course of like a week, 10 days, something like that. Things escalate very quickly between them. put that out there but anyway, they she has a dream and then the next day, she's acting a little bit weird, but whatever. Lucas is probing her again for information. She's kind of trying to probe back and throughout this basically they're like deepening their kind of interpersonal connection. Then she gets pinged while she's on the job site with Lucas from Enrique. And she gets really freaked out because her shield her mental shields are kind of breaking down. I don't know if I've mentioned this. I don't think I have. Sasha is like she she's By the rest of the size being defective, I totally should have pointed this out, she thinks she is going insane. Also the rest of this, I think she's defective, because while she is a cardinal, you can tell because her eyes are like the night sky eyes, which are the hallmark of a cardinal, nobody can really figure out what her Cardinal strength is in, she seems to be kind of a dud, like she doesn't have any particular skills that anybody can test or observe. So she's seen as sort of a almost like a weakness of Nikita, because, yes, Nikita produced this Cardinal, but nobody knows what her Cardinal strength is in. And she doesn't seem to be very powerful. So she she kind of has a chip on her shoulder feeling like she has something to prove in that sense. But the one thing she is amazing at that she knows about is that she has like, she has mental shielding skills, like no other because her life literally depends on it. Because if anybody finds out that her silence is not perfect, she will be taken to what they call reconditioning, which is basically like the equivalent of becoming like a zombie. They like basically wipe your mind and just use your body for like menial tasks. So she has some of the best mental shields in the sign. And that is like her gift. And she has to have them because they're constantly fracturing. She's constantly having to rebuild them. So during this business, meaning she realizes that her shields are fractioning. And then Enrique is wanting to come and talk to her. And she's kind of flipping out and falling apart. So anyway, she manages to sort of put him off, she gets in touch with Nikita, and is like, hey, Enrique is trying to talk to me about this stuff. I don't feel like why is he coming directly to me, he should be going to you. And it's just sort of this weird interaction. But it further sort of cements that her shields are really failing, and she's worried about what's going to happen. So we get a couple more meetings, a couple more dreams. We do find out more about Lucas's backstory, which is his parents were murdered by a rival pack who was trying to take over the territory. And they also kidnapped him. That's how he got his scars. He's very traumatized by that, obviously. And it's specifically this feeling of being helpless to protect, you know, the people he loves. And he's like, spent his whole adult life trying to become powerful, so that he never has that feeling again. So we've learned a little bit more about that. And then we have another dream sequence, I believe. And in this one, Sasha sort of opens up to him emotionally about how she wishes that he could protect her because basically, she says she's broken, she tells him she's broken and that the Psy do not allow broken creatures to live. And this is really heartbreaking scene and it made me cry. But she basically is revealing

like, Hey, I'm not I'm not like other Psy, not like, I'm not like other girls. I'm not like other Psy. I do have emotions. If anybody finds out I am dead. I don't think he or she goes quite that far. But that's sort of the subtext of what she's talking about. Then the next day, they're going into another business meeting this time. Dorian is there. He's acting like really aggressively towards Sasha Lucas is getting a weird vibe off of it. He asked Sasha to step out. And Dorian ends up saying like, hey, another changeling woman was taken. But this time they were taken from the snow dancer pack, which is their sort of like a lot allied pack. They talk about what they are going to do next. And Dorian is saying like, well, we should torture Sasha and get more information from her. And he's really, it seems like he's really kind of going off the handle. And so Lucas was trying to talk him down, they go to get Tammy, who's nearby to come help Dorian, because he's getting so volatile, Sasha ends up coming back in. And essentially they Lucas kind of takes the risk of telling her that they are looking for the serial killer. And Sasha is shocked. She's like, there's no way that's happening. She and the rest of them sort of are going back and forth. You know, basically, they tell her kind of how they know it's a Psy. Basically, the underlying tone here is like Sasha doesn't want to believe this. But she's asking questions. And again, she's kind of not responding the way that a site typically would. And then the notable thing that happens here is that as Sasha is leaving, she can feel on the psychic plane, how much pain Dorian has, she ends up trying to, like siphon away his pain, and it ends up working. And so Dorian is, you know, gets much calmer. And they're like, oh, Tammy, how did you do this? And Tammy says, Oh, I didn't do it. So they're all just confused about exactly how Dorian was able to be sort of talked out of his sort of bloodlust mindset so quickly, kind of behind the scenes. Lucas gets in touch with a snow dancer alpha, who is named Hawk, and they kind of talk about next, like what they're going to do next. Hawk wants to just start like killing Psy on site. Lucas talks him into not doing that, like give me seven days. Let's see if we can see if Sasha ends up being a viable way to try to figure out what's happening. They just sort of go back and forth about that because they feel like they're sentencing this changeling woman to die. But eventually they agree to wait that seven days, but if she dies, they're like, aligned, we're going on the warpath. So Sasha after she kind of siphoned away all of that pain from Dorian blacks out, she wakes up in her apartment, and she realizes that she's lost a bunch of time. And she finds out that her mom's been trying to contact her, she goes up to talk to her mom and her apartment. And she finds out that her mom has like a quasi alliance with Enrique. But basically, the subtext is like she has to start giving a reggae some information, because if she doesn't, Enrique may try to have them killed. So she's starts trying to figure out like smaller things that she can kind of reveal without giving too much away. She feels this loyalty to the changelings. Even though she knows she should tell Nikita everything that's going on. She knows that she shouldn't be kind of trying to protect Lucas, she just can't help herself. And she ends up sort of trying to do that she does some research and verifies that all the stuff that Lucas was telling her about the serial killer is true. And that is freaking her out. And so she basically is driving around, and Lucas finds her at the construction site. And they agree to go to Lucas's house to talk about it more. So we get Sasha kind of seeing what, you know, Lucas's layer looks like for the first time and we find out not everybody gets to go there, of course, and he's bringing her there because he is I think, slowly realizing at this point that she is probably his maid, he gets her to try pizza. So again, this sort of food as metaphor for her kind of on raveling. They have this, it just sort of this like very tense back and forth, and they end up kissing. And, you know, it's very, you know, fireworks on Sasha's side, but then she realizes, she gets back to her house, and she thinks that he kissed her, basically to manipulate her. So she has this moment of, okay, he is using, he somehow can tell that I am into him. He's not into me. And he's just using me. He's trying to manipulate me to get me to do what he wants. So she thinks herself, okay, I'm going to tell my mom about everything that's going on. But at the last minute, of course, she doesn't. And then, you know, her and Lucas have this tense confrontation the next day of the job site, but she agrees that she is going to start looking for information in the PsyNet and that she will try to help. And it's at this point that Lucas fully realizes that she's his mate. And so, you know, kind of after this big,

tense confrontation, he's

like, okay, yeah, she's my maid. And so he kind of is switching gears to focus on like, how do I, how do I learn her into giving up silence and coming to be with me, they go back to Tammy's. And we find out that a bunch of the dark overpack have been placed into the safe house because they're basically dark river and snowed answer kind of gearing up for war. So we find out that's kind of what the state of the pack is. While Luke is taking care of some pack business. Sasha gets Tammy to explain some of the different kinds of skin privileges that the PAP has because Sasha keeps getting jealous of these other women. And she's trying to contextualize, like, what different kinds of touches mean, so they have a very sweet little exchange about that. Tammy basically helps Sasha understand like, No, no, like, he's, he's giving you skin privileges that like he doesn't just give to anybody. So yeah, he's into you. So Sasha starts looking through the sinat. She doesn't really find much, but you know, she kind of has her first search there. But when she gets back, she has to go to meet Enrique and Nikita again. And she kind of they're kind of Enrique is kind of putting the screws to her. So she sort of gives him a little bit more information that Lucas told her was okay to share. So, you know, kind of trying to keep him off her back. And then he sort of insinuates that he's going to follow up with her one on one and her house. And so she's like, Oh, I can't go back to my apartment. And then she starts to have a total psychic spiral. So she starts to have a full on attack. So what she does is she goes to her car, she sets it to autopilot and Taylor tells it to take her out into dark river territory. So she leaves a message for Nikita saying she's going on like an overnight trip. And she basically just curls up and hopes that when she wakes up she'll be safe in the dark river

territory.

The snow dancer wolves find her because she went too far it went to their land instead of Lucas's land. She, he freaks out when the wolves bring her back. And they basically say they bring they bring her to him, because she smells like him, which is sort of a telltale sign of the mating dance, you know, being more fulfilled, Lucas doesn't confirm to Hawk that he's mated to a Psy. But that's sort of like the insinuation. And he is completely freaked out that she's had this, you know, total meltdown break, and his protective instincts are coming to the fore. So then when she wakes up, her and Lucas have a little bit of a come to Jesus, he finally comes out and says, like, hey, look, I know you're not like other site, and she freaks out. And she's like, you can never say that, again. If somebody finds out that she is not perfectly silent, they will kill her. And she basically says, Look, I am dying, I'm braking. As before I die, I'm going to help you that's kind of like she she thinks that she is like imminently going to have an utter mental break. And she asked him, like, I'm going to help you. And when I have my final mental break, you have to kill me because what they will do to me is going to be so much worse than death. And he's like, I'm not going to do that. And she says you have to, so they get into this hole caught like this begins this conflict of her basically saying, look, if I'm going to go out, I'm going to go out in a blaze of glory, I'm gonna go out with you know, having done something positive for the world. And you have to let me do this. And you have to let me die. And him saying like, Fuck, No, I do not care if anybody else dies, like you are not going to die. And so this essentially is the conflict between them for the rest of the book because she is consistently at this point now, going into the PsyNet and trying to investigate what's happened to this missing changeling. In the course of that she ends up we find out that she has this ability to sort of like float on people's consciousness and the PsyNet like but to the point where they don't almost like Shadow, she becomes a part of their like psychic shadow. She goes in with the counselors into a private meeting, she finds out from that well, as she gets access into her family's like ancestral vaults. She goes with one of the counselors whose name is Henry, I think she follows him into these vaults. And she she collects some information about her family history, then she falls with him into the counselors meeting. And what happens is basically in that meeting, they are talking about the fact that the serial killer is on the loose, but they don't know who it is, and that they have to find out who it is and kill them so that nobody will know that silence has been broken. And from that we get this insinuation that apparently, this High Council has known about serial killers since silence started and what they do is they either kill them, or if they are too powerful to be killed, they provide them with victims, but ones that nobody will care about so they can keep doing it discreetly. Which obviously Sasha is horrified to find out I also have to mention that in this we get the whole round up of all of the counselors and it just really sent me back so it's like these fuckers so you've got some of the notable ones main fucking lavonne is awful with hate him, but he gets introduced. We get Tatyana whatever her last name is Wilkie Smith, I think she's a monster, we get Caleb cry check who is a big character going forward. And like kind of the pup we I think we'll come to find he is sort of the puppet master of a lot of different things going on. We've got Shoshana and Henry Scott, who are a little bit more malleable. And then it's like Nikita, and also Marshall. I forget what his deal is. But anyway, just seeing them all together really was a flashback for me of like, all of these people and all of the awful things they will do over the course of these books. So anyway. So we basically find out like the Psy counsel is awful. And from this conversation, Sasha is really thrown into kind of this dilemma of does she believe that her mother is a part of this? She I didn't really want to believe that before. But now she's sitting there like, Well, apparently, they've been covering up for all these serial killers. So like maybe I don't know, she keeps getting cornered by Enrique. And he keeps trying to like make her kind of give him more than she's wanting to give him and she freaks out every time it happens. So that ends up being an ongoing dynamic, but from from this information she's gathered, Sasha goes back to dark river and has a proposal of basically how she thinks she can spring a trap. But she will have to be the bait and Lucas is just like, Fuck, no, we're not doing this. And so in the course have kind of talking about her plan. Sasha reveals what silence is to the changelings. And they I forgotten this apparently it's not widely known what silence is. But what they what the changelings immediately realized when she describes this is like, Oh, you are emotionally torturing your own

children.

And so that's like a big revelation to the changelings of like, oh, okay, this really recontextualizes everything that we know about this I, because of the honestly like, okay, yeah, you don't like them. But if you find out, basically, I mean, it's sort of like how when you find out the horrible childhoods that all these serial killers often have. It doesn't excuse what they do, but it definitely recontextualizes how they came to be the way that they are when you find out kind of some of the circumstances under which they came to be in this world. So anyway, it's kind of that moment for them of like, Oh, so you, it's an entire race of people who have been emotionally abused. Cool, cool, cool. No wonder you guys are the way you are. And then we are also just getting this ongoing kind of push pull from Lucas and Sasha of her explaining, like, when this happens, I will die. And Luke has been like, but you can't die. That's what a lot of the conflict is. Sasha gets the lowdown from Tammy kind of like what Lucas's backstory is. So she understands more of where he's coming from. Basically, she explains that she's going to have to drop out of the PsyNet and that she's going to have to connect to someone's mind if she was going to live. And Tammy is like, Well, you know, that he's going to insist on being the one that you connect to. and Sasha is like, Well, no, I'm not going to connect to him. Because if I connect to him, there's not enough biofeedback from just one mind, that's the whole reason why we need the sign up is you need a lot of mines. Because otherwise, she'll just become basically like a drain on him. And just like suck, they like she basically will become like a psychic vampire, she will just suck all of his life out of him. And so she's like, I'm not going to do this. I'm not, I'm, I'm not gonna connect to you and know that I am sending sentencing you to death. So eventually, Lucas comes in, and they finally get it on IRL, not just in dream world. So like, from there, I'm trying to think what else happens before the big kind of set piece of this. So she gets to know more of his kind of inner circle of sentience sentinels is what they're called. They're like his inner circle of lieutenants. There's Vaughn, who's a sort of jagwire. So he's a slightly different changeling, but he's a part of a leopard pack. Mercy is the only lady Sentinel. And then there's Dorian, who we've already met, there's clay, and then Nate, who is Hansen's husband, I think that's all of them. But anyway, so we learn a little bit more about them. And they basically accept her as a part of the pack. Because they all now see that she is Lucas is made, even though she hasn't realized this yet, or accepted this yet. They're also introducing the idea of the mating dance, which I don't feel like we have time to get into today. But suffice it to say, this is sort of like the exchange that goes on between between possible mates. And it's like when, when the mating bond is solidified, which in this book, and up until the very end, we don't really kind of know what this meeting bond is, but there's a lot of allusions to it. So we know it's some sort of concrete connection between these two people. So anyway, basically, a lot of this is going back and forth is, you know, them having kind of a sexy moment, doing some planning for the upcoming thing. Sasha reiterating, like I am going to die. And Luke is saying like, no, you're not gonna die. That is what

a lot of this sort of middle, middle late part of the story is. The other thing that happens is that Sasha finally gets a chance to look at the family history data that she stole from the vault. And what we find out, we finally understand what Sasha's powers are, and this is going to be like, a huge thing for the rest of the series. So we'll unpack this more as it goes along. But basically, what we find out is that there used to be a designation of E sy, and the E stands for empath. And basically, they are like controllers of emotion or executors of empathy, hence empath. And when silence was instituted, the Psy council attempted to completely eradicate this designation of psychic ability. But we find out that, you know, Sasha's great great grandma or whoever was an SI, this is what they assume Sasha's Cardinal psychic ability is is an empathy. So that's why she was able to take dorians pain away from him like that's, that's what E-Psys specialize in is basically like controlling or calming emotions. So this is a big one. ha moment for her of like, Oh, I have not been going crazy. I just like, and built to feel things. And I have not been allowed to do that my entire life. That's a big kind of Revelation. And they sort of get into speculating a little bit about that. Sasha has still not fully revealed the whole biofeedback thing, and that if she drops out of the signup that she will truly die. Like she's kind of alluded to that, but the leopards don't seem to be like picking up on it. Then the snow dancers show up. There's like some kind of there's a lot of like dig swinging between Lucas and hog, hog insult Sasha and Lucas like pounds on him. And like that as my mate back off, they kind of started telling Hawk the plan. And Hawk kind of makes us weird, I had Sasha, and he makes it clear that he has full he fully understands that if she drops out of the sign that she will die. She kind of tries to give him a like, Don't say anything. And he's like, No, I'm not. I'm not going to not tell Lucas that his maid is going to die if we go through this plan. So he reveals this to Lucas, and they get in a big fight. And she's basically saying, like, Look, I'm going to die anyway, let me die helping this girl. So that's like this big back and forth, they've come up, the snow dancers come up with a distraction. So that piece of the plan is in place. Hawk also comes back and says, like, Hey, we have some people that we want to talk to you to talk to about this plan at our compound, so they go to the snow dancer caves, because they have their pack in this series of caves, which are super cool. We'll talk about them in later books. And when they go into this big room, they realize that the people they're going to talk to are five Psy dun dun dun, who allegedly died the previous year when they went on to snow dancer territory, but they did not die. And

and we get their full story. And we now are being introduced to some of my favorite characters in the series. And I think I'll probably save because I feel like I'm talking so much right now. And this recap, I'm not going to get into the Lauren's full story here, because it will come back up certainly in the third book, so maybe we can talk more about it there. But TLDR the Lauren's There are five of them. There are two brothers, one of them has a daughter, and then their niece and nephew. And basically because the niece and nephews mom who was the brother, sister, obviously, she committed suicide. And so the entire family was scheduled to be, quote, unquote, recondition so like turned into zombies. Rather than doing that the two adults decided that they would try to get the kids out. And they weren't sure if they'd be able to, but they had this theory that they might be able to. And they thought the only place that they would be safe would be with changelings. And they thought and they'd heard that the changelings are like super protective of the young. So like maybe they'll kill us, but they won't kill the kids. TLDR they found a way to drop out of the signup without dying because they've created their own little family version of assignment. And so that just introduces like all these possibilities of like, okay, they explain why Sasha can't join. There's basically the kids aren't old enough to allow a break in the net, without possibly having them accidentally retry to re upload or re connect to the signup so they can't do it. But it does open up this possibility of like, okay, we have examples of Psy who have dropped out of the PsyNet. So like, maybe there's more to the story. But basically, they explained that they're going to help create this distraction for when Sasha executes her plan. Finally, it becomes time for Sasha to create the plan. She creates this sort of like I was thinking is like a dotted line between her mind and Lucas like they have sort of this like temporary link, and then they execute the plan. Well come to find out when this happens, you know, all hell breaks loose. The plan goes off. She thinks that it didn't work at first, but basically, we find out that Enrique was a serial killer the whole time.

Are you surprised?

I know. I wasn't like he's so creepy in this book. It was so obvious he had to be the killer because he was like, one of the only other people we really were fully introduced to. I guess there was an insinuation maybe it was her mom. I guess it could have been her mom, but I never thought that even in my first read, I was like, clearly this isn't reggae. So he's a serial killer. He tries to get her. I should also mention that in the course of all of this, her shields go down. And Nikita does protect her like she warns her and like gives her a chance to like cover it up. And Riga goes after Sasha which he thinks he's getting Creating this like trap around her, she does a double cross, she's able to get away and then she drops her link to the PsyNet. When she does that she is awake enough to confirm that Enrique is the killer. She tells she tells the changelings that she purposely does not complete the mating bond with Lucas. Because she doesn't want to kill him. She promised him she would, but she's trying not to. And Lucas basically punches through her walls. And like after she goes unconscious, he's able to sort of like get her to take the bond because she's not consciously not taking it, if that makes sense. And what we come to find out from this is that basically, a mating bond between changelings is a kind of psychic bond, not like telepathic, but there is a psychic level of connection, which, you know, even early on in the series that does suggest interesting things about sort of the roots of where changelings and Psy come from and if maybe they have more similar roots than they would like to think. But anyway, so the bond is there. And when Sasha wakes up, she's pissed because she's like, I have sent in to you to death, I'm going to drain you of all your energy, and now we're both gonna die. And he's basically like, well, if you died, then I want to die. So like, we might as well go out together. They're both mad, he's mad at her for not for lying to him. She's mad at him for forcing the bond. But eventually, they kind of come to this detente, and they're like, you know, I'd rather if we're, if we're both gonna die. Let's enjoy the time that we have left together, we see Sasha, helping Doreen again, she goes over and like gives him a kiss. And Lucas has been super possessive of her, but he doesn't react to this. So again, I think it's like an evolution or a metaphor for sort of acceptance within the pack. And then basically, we're kind of in wind down mode for the book. So we find out that the changelings brutally slaughtered and reggae they went to his house, they found him, they cut his body up into little pieces. And they tacked a message to his tongue. They sent the pieces of his body to different members of the Sai Council. It was so intense I could totally forgot that this became so fucking brutal at this point, but it does. They also are able to save the changeling woman who he captured. But he has been emotional basically the way this is described as as a as psychic rape, and torture. It's awful. Like when it's described, it sounds horrible. So they have her but she is a she's in complete mental. She's like locked into her own mind. And she thinks that everything that's happening around her is a trick from Enrique making her think she's safe. But she's not because that's what he'd been doing her

which is awful.

So Sasha goes. And she because of her si designation, she's able to get through to Brenna, who is the woman who was taken. And she's able to help her come out of that sort of lockdown mode and wake up, basically. So that is really touching. And I cried. She also talks to her mother, she talks to Nikita, and nikitas. Like, oh, yeah, you've been disowned. But we're going to keep working with you and your new husband, basically, on this construction deal. It's sort of the way it plays out. You're kind of left to believe that. Yes, Nikita is acting very cold on the outside. But she did take steps to save Sasha, in the midst when everything was going down. And she is still wanting this connection with Sasha. So like, it raises some ambiguity as to what Nikita his motivations are. So that's kind of a question mark. Time passes. It's been like, I think six ish weeks later, Sasha is kind of you know, she wakes up one day, and she's like, Lucas, what is going on? Because at this point, we should both be deteriorating because I should be draining you of energy. And yet, everything is fine. So like, Can I kind of mentally poke around in our heads and see what's going on? He's like, Sure. Okay, what it is, which is so clever. I remember the first time this went down, I was like, I did not see this coming. But this totally makes sense within the rules of the world that Nalini Singh sets up, especially once we find out how the mating bond works. So because Lucas and Sasha have this mating bond, they are psychically intertwined, but there's also it's called, she calls it the web of stars, which I think is adorable. Because Lucas has these blood outs and I guess I should have mentioned that the sentence the sentence, sentinels have all taken a blood oath to Lucas because they have done that. They also have this psychic bond to him. So it's not just her and him in this you know, little mini signup thing. They are she also is getting biofeedback from each of the Sentinels and she can see Their connections to him, she can see their connections to their meat when they have one. They're providing her the biofeedback she needs. And she's also able to help them like she she can say that her psychic presence has been helping to heal dorians presence like she's been empathically helping to heal his soul basically.

And so I just thought that was

such a clever solution to you know,

what,

like, how to leave this, I just thought that was so I remember at the time being like, Hi, see what you did there. That was a really smart use of your own world. And yeah, so basically, it ends with them kind of letting the Sentinels know like, Hey, we all kind of have this psychic link. Hope that's cool. And, and we kind of have a, it looks like we found a happily ever after for these two. Okay, so that is the recap of what goes down in this book. If you can't tell, I was incredibly impressed with it. I, oh my gosh, like I just I saw so much foreshadowing in this. And I don't want to get ahead for those of you who are reading along with the podcast. But there is so much foreshadowing in this book of all of the things that are going to come over the next at least the first season of it, which is the first like 14 books. There's so much setup in terms of like what's going on with the sign at. Some of the seeds are planted in terms of things that are happening with snow dancer, we get a peek of Hawk and Sienna, which I totally forgot she kind of foreshadows even in this first book, the ongoing kind of travails between Sasha and her mom are set up in this one. Yeah, just so I just was so impressed of either Delaney Singh had this all planned out from the jump, or she had enough seeds planted in the first book, and she was a good enough reader of her own work, to go back and find those seeds, and then kind of grow them into something more meaningful. As the series goes on. I was just so impressed with how, how much this book is how, you know, this feels like a very confident book. Maybe that's the way to say it, it just feels like this is an author who is really confident in the world they've set up and the journey that they're taking you on. And like having read the series, I can tell you that confidence as well earned or like well placed, because yeah, she just called so many of her own shots in this first book. It's amazing. So anyway, in terms of themes, and motifs that I may not have touched on. So first of all, I mentioned this in the intro episode, but this is definitely, particularly this one is very much a cross cultural romance. There is a lot of discussion in this book about like learning each other's ways of life, learning about how the other other person lives, and how that impacts the way they view the world and how they, you know, view romantic relationships. That is a huge theme in this one. It's not always a theme in the sort of Psy changeling, like sci fi with changeling, or changeling, with human whatever. That's not always like the biggest theme in these books. But in this one it certainly is. So I think that's a huge element of the book. Something that really resonated with me just sort of on a personal level is a lot of what's happening with Sasha, is her questioning her own sanity. And,

you know,

I think for any of us who have had any kind of mental illness or mental health issues, I just found that to be incredibly relatable. And I that's part of I think why this got to me so much emotionally, these scenes of Sasha just really feeling like she's falling apart, and trying to have some kind of control in a situation where she feels like she is completely been stripped of her control or agency. Ah, I just completely just that just really resonated with me on this read. And I think also seeing how Lucas is with her. It's just like a really beautiful if you think of what's going on with her sort of a metaphor for either being terminally ill or having chronic illness, and seeing how he responds to her. I just think that's like such a lovely metaphor and such it just really hit me in the fields basically, some of that is that I you know, I was diagnosed with a chronic condition this last year. So I think I just I resonated with her sort of in the mental health piece of it, because I've certainly had points in my life where I felt like, Am I just going crazy, like, I don't know, I think anybody who's ever kind of struggled with that maybe can relate to it. I know I could, but also just that feeling of like, not having agency over your own body or your own mind. I definitely really related to that. So anyway, I just thought that was a really great poignant metaphor throughout this. And then I was talking in the beginning about this hair up and down bit as very much a kind of motif throughout a sort of a metaphor for Sasha sort of giving into her more sensual side. That definitely is something that I think we see throughout. And then the last thing I did want to mention, I alluded to this earlier, but I certainly see a lot of influence in this book, from naked and death, which is the first of the in depth books from JD Robb aka Nora Roberts, both. So I mentioned that Lucas physically is described very similarly, I feel like to how I picture work, but also just this, the structure of this first book is very much a hero in pursuit model, which is certainly how that first in depth book is. There's this sort of insuperable barrier of intrinsic identity. So in this one, it's We are from two different species in the in depth books, it's Roark is this sort of reformed thief? Eve is this very, by the books cop, like intrinsic to who they are, and like what they're about in life seems like it may be at odds. And then also, this idea of the heroine really being on the verge of a mental break and sort of joining the heroine at this point, this real like pivot point in their life of will they retain their sanity and their identity, or will they not? For Eve, it's because she has all of this on address trauma from her childhood. And I guess you could say the same thing for Sasha. But in this case, it's also sort of literalized into her psychic powers, and actually in depth is also set in the in near future, but our world, but kind of a more sci fi version of it. So I just think that there's a lot of parallels between these first two books. And I did notice in Melanie Singh's kind of about me age that she mentioned that as a particular favorite series. So I definitely see the parallels there. And then just to start to round things out, I thought what we would do is for each book give a rating. So I mean, every rating on four things. One is the cozy community vibes, like how much sort of back found family elements we've got. The second is the heat level. The third is how much political machinations we have. And then the fourth is how much angst we have in this book. So for like the cozy community vibes, a found family element, I'm going to give this book seven out of 10, leopard cub twins, adorable leopard cub twins. I think that this does have quite a bit of pack action, actually, somewhat more than I'd remembered. There's a lot of time just spent sort of hanging out in the safe houses of these changelings. So there is more than I remembered. And that's that scene I mentioned with the adorable leopard cub twins, for which I named this category this week, is a very iconic one in the series, those twins Julian and Roman go on to be notable recurring characters that Sasha has a particular bond with throughout the series. So it's sort of a very memorable scene in the history of the series. I don't think that this has like the highest level of found family cozy vibes in the books, but I definitely felt like that was a strong element. I'm going to give this also seven out of 10, telepathic sex dreams

for heat level. So again, I forgot how steamy this first book was, in my mind, I think because I'd forgotten that there were sexy sex dreams, I thought that they didn't really get it on till until the end. But because of the sexy sex dreams, we do have these very sensual sort of exchanges in the first half of the book that I just didn't even remember. So it's definitely not the hottest of the books, but it was steamier than I remembered. And then in terms of political machinations, I'm going to give it an eight out of 10 emergency psych council meetings. I do think that it had a lot. I think that this book was very heavy on political machinations because we were setting up a lot of sort of the kind of the chessboard of the different pieces that are going to be in play. So I think I can think of other entries to have a little bit more but this definitely was pretty weighted to political machinations, this particular entry. And then, in terms of the anx level, I'm going to give this nine out of 10 temporary psychic links between mates. This was a much lengthier book than I remembered, but it was it Nxd so good, like it was, it was the kind of angsty enjoy, in part because I felt like it was earned. You know, the whole metaphor basically, of her almost sort of being terminally ill, I think was very, very designed to pull on heartstrings and my heartstrings. We're in fact pulled. So congratulations to the book for that. I did think that this is one of the Anke steer entries in the series, but I was into it. And overall,

I'm getting this four out of five stars. For me, that means it's a favorite of the year.

I think my original rating of this was either a three year and a three and a half. So I certainly have grown in my appreciation for it. And it's just hit the spot. And really,

it said,

I just thought this was such a great setup for where the series is going to go. And then in terms of like the podcast, I just have so much energy from this reread. I'm so excited to continue. So yay, that is our first episode with a book. definitely let me know what you guys thought if there are things you want me to get more into, or do less of definitely appreciate feedback, I'm still sort of filling things out. I'm assuming ones where it's just me are going to be kind of a different tone than when I have somebody with me to sort of have cross cross talk with and some banter with but when it's just me, you know, you can let me know how you guys felt about this. But yeah, I think that will do it for me. So if you enjoyed today's episode, please take a moment to rate and review the show, as well as share it with your fellow speculative romance loving friends. Thank you for listening, and we will be back in two weeks to talk about visions of heat by Nalini Singh, which also has a Psy heroine and a changeling hero, but this time it's Vaugh the jaguar who is in the dark

river pack so

rare. Wow. Come back for more in two weeks.

Bye