I can't stand the heroine. This is when the books start to decline, for me. ( )

Clay Bennett es un poderoso centinela del clan de los DarkRiver, pero creció en los suburbios con su madre humana, sin saber en ningún momento que su padre era un cambiante. Siendo un muchacho sin lazos con el clan, trató de reprimir su naturaleza animal. Pero fracasó… y cometió el acto de violencia más terrible que se puede cometer: mató a un hombre y por ello perdió a su mejor amiga, Talin. Todo lo bueno que había en él murió el día en que le comunicaron que ella también estaba muerta.

Talin McKade sobrevivió a duras penas a una infancia empapada en sangre y terror. Ahora una nueva pesadilla está poniendo en peligro su vida: los niños de la calle que trabaja para proteger están desapareciendo y siendo hallados muertos. Decidida a mantenerlos a salvo, libera el secreto más oscuro de su corazón y regresa para pedir la ayuda del hombre más fuerte que conoce…

Clay perdió a Talin una vez. No dejará que se marche de nuevo, su ansia de poseerla es una acuciante necesidad fruto del leopardo que habita en su interior. Mientras actúan contrarreloj para salvar a los inocentes, Clay y Talin debe hacer frente alas violentas verdades de su pasado… o perder todo aquello que alguna vez ha importado.

Not keen on the slut-shaming, to be honest. ( )

This was definitely my least favorite of the series so far. As I said in an update, I just could not get into the romance and I really didn't like our male lead, Clay. The mystery element also was really watered down but this books own introduction. This intro basically gave the plot away, at least in my opinion. Normally, I don't really care about spoilers and am totally fine with finding out plot points about a book prior to reading but I think in this case I was more annoyed because the book spoiled itself. Also as a note, this book deals with abuse of a child.

To get into the romance a bit, I was trying to work through why I didn't like this romance as much. Almost every book in this series thus far has the male character sort of pushing the female character past where they say their comfortable. It didn't bother me in those books but it did bother me here and I'll try to parse out why. In the past books, some of the main characters, typically the Psy character, were convinced that they physically wouldn't be able to handle a physical relationship and that's why their partner had to push them. Brenna from the previous book is probably most similar to Tally. They both have gone through a trauma that makes them really reluctant to be physical. However with Brenna, Judd also had reasons to be hesitant of forging a connection where in this book, Clay had no such reservations and was also really judgemental of Tally's past sexual history. Clay is genuinely angry at the fact that Tally has many past sexual partners and that just made me feel really bad considering why Tally did that. Since Tally's trauma is really wrapped up in sex and a lack of control in sexual situations, I just couldn't give Clay's boundary pushing the benefit of the doubt like I could in previous books and that made me really dislike Clay.

I don't actually have that much to say about Tally; she mostly washed over me. I like that we finally got a human love interest and she was the catalyst for introducing us to new parts of the world that seems like it will be really interesting. There was her sickness that we're introduced to early on that I thought would play a bigger part but actually just disappeared for the whole middle part (which is the same thing that happened with the idea that Clay was close to going rogue, which was introduced and then never came up again). I think that some of her story could be impactful to people but I just could not connect to her in this story.

As I signaled, the plot of this let me down. The pacing of the mystery and insertion of the politics of the world felt a bit off to me here. A lot more of this book focuses solely on Clay and Tally and doesn't include the rest of the pack compared to other books and I found myself missing that pack element. Maybe this was because I didn't like the relationship as much but to me it felt like the child kidnapping plot was introduced and then it went away for a bit and then a while later they got everyone else involved but only after they realized a certain connection this disappearances had. The second half is significantly better in this regard than this first, which I think is why I found the pacing a bit uneven. We also barely check in with the Psy council in this book and I would have liked to see them folded in more.

This is not a bad book and I still enjoyed parts of it and read it pretty quickly. It's just a step down from previous books. It was a few small complaints and then the larger complaint of really disliking Clay that added up to a above average rating. Honestly, it's a credit to Singh that I can really dislike the male love interest and still give a romance three stars but I'm hoping this is the bottom and the books are only up from here. ( )

My twin sister has been telling me to read this series for years and despite liking the other Nalini Singh's I had read I never got around to reading it. After reading these books I can't imagine why I hesitated to read them ; they are really good. The story is fresh and original, the writing style is engaging and the characters are so well written that you truly get invested in their lives. I have enjoyed all the books in this series psy, changeling and human as they are all fascinating in their own way. ( )