awesome

If you love her books you will not be disappointed. Get the book. It is worth it.

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Nalini Singh's imagination...

Nalini Singh's imagination is extraordinary. another one that i couldn't stop listening to. Thank you!

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Spoiler-free initial description, because Audible.

ADDING, NO SPOILERS: The descriptions of these books on Audible, for some reason, are now totally devoid of information like characters or plot, which is really unfortunate.

This book is about previously-unexplored Designation A, Anchors in the Psy race. The main characters are both Psy: Canto Mercant and Payal Rao (other main characters include the adorable romance between Pavel the Stonewater Bear changeling and Arwen Mercant, the rest of the Rao family, Hub Anchors and the eventual Anchor Representative Association, plus the usual suspects).

Major themes include continuation of the Scarab storyline and the continuing degradation of the Psy-net, themes of mental illness in Psy as something that isn't just murdery-murder but still a thing people people deal with, the continuing fallout of Psy eugenics in the name of perfection and the toll it is taking on their race as a whole not beginning or ending with Silence and the erasure of the Empaths, physical disabilities in someone who isn't tele-kinetic to make up for them, and early childhood trauma and the results both with therapy and a stable support network, and without. Family -- specifically Mercant vs Rao -- is a huge theme, as is of course finding love in unexpected places, and bending two adult lives to meet each other somewhere in the middle (Payal and Canto are both nearly 40).

CONTENT NOTES: Contains a truckload of f-bombs (I think one character makes up 90%+ of the profanity in this book, and he happens to be a main character, and this matters to some people) -- probably as much swearing in this book as the rest of the series COMBINED. Contains early childhood physical/mental abuse with some description, as well as on-page murder and blood. Contains underage and adult physical/mental abuse and torture as well as murder, although the underage only in a past tense description. No sexual abuse at any time. No cheating, no weird sexist spankings or domineering, no racism, no sexism, no homophobia, no ridiculous misunderstandings that could have been solved using their words. If I've missed anything, I apologize profusely, as I rely on content labels myself.

END OF DESCRIPTION

So a year+ later and 4 re-listens, and while this is not my absolute top favourite of the many Psy-Changeling novels out there... it is totally in my top 3. Which, considering how many are out there and how wonderful the characters and storylines are, is really saying something. I'm waiting with hope for a new short story anthology, but honestly, Singh has been a pre-order auto-buy author for over a decade for me, and my first gateway into capital-R Romance, so I'm just grateful she is such a prolific and thoughtful and imaginative writer that I will happily take whatever she offers us. Not without my own thoughts and criticisms, but I can enjoy something and be critical about parts of it at the same time, and I truly hope other people enjoy it, too.

(If anything, the short stories are where she positively shines and contain my absolute favourite stories and characters. I can't recommend them highly enough, they're such great explorations of different facets of the world!)

I laughed, too, seeing some reviews upset either by the inclusion of "disenfranchised" (you're showing your age, Boomer) characters, or just that there are more than one non-cis/white/hetero character in a single book, but I'm not sure if they've just been ignoring descriptions in previous books or what. I mean, the joy of books are that you can paint pictures in your mind of all kinds of things, like blue leopards, so if that's how you find your place of happiness then go for it. I don't understand it, but I also don't think everyone is me and shares my exact same tastes. So I don't think anyone is wrong for liking or disliking a book, but I do think you're going to be disappointed if you think this was a one-off. If anything, I'm shocked that agender/gender-neutral/non-binary is not already a bigger part of Psy life and lexicon.

If Indian people in India, gay characters in love and still being active individuals in the story, people with disabilities, and someone who feels like gender doesn't really work for them and people don't make a fuss about using they/them pronouns for a single minor character is a problem for you... you're going to have a tough time. If this is what makes you say goodbye, that's cool, bye! Lots of ultra white able-bodied neurotypical hetero stuff to read out there.

This book actually reflects where I live and my life experience more fully than any of Singh's other books, so to me, this is the most "normal" of her books, and what has been missing from the San Fran-based books since the beginning in terms of "showing, not telling" regarding diversity. A lot of the short stories explore things like physical disabilities in an active leopard pack, cultural clashes and adaptations to the world containing three races and not just Human, etc.

But this is something I've craved in the full books, and this one delivered in spades. Canto is an "absolute fucking delight" of a character, an utter bear with a sore tooth of a Psy who gets away with his surly attitude and profanity-laden speech both by hiding behind his physical disability (people are uncomfortable about his wheelchair), and by silently being giving and supportive to the exact same people he's grumbling at. He fits in perfectly with the Stonewater bears, living on the edge of their territory, and acts surprised and grouchy when they are constantly showing up at his home uninvited while also keeping his cupboards full of bear-favourite snacks and toys for tiny gangsters in reach and view for them. He's a caregiver and as a result his loved ones run rather roughshod over him, but he's also pushy and stubbourn enough to get his own way if it's something that really matters to him. He's never been Silent ("Too pissed off"), and has been an utter failure at most attempts to civilize him ("Arwen stole my shirts. He says this one is 'Steel Grey'. It's just GREY. What was wrong with my shirts?!" "He should steal your pants next.").

He's been SO ANGRY for most of his life (understandable, as he was thrown away like garbage by his fertilization contract family), and that anger comes out through growls and biting sarcasm. For all of that anger, though, Canto is ferociously gentle with the people he interacts with and cares about, never once putting them in danger -- and not showing his anger to those too young or inexperienced to handle it. He doesn't yell to scare people. This is not the explosive anger of someone who is out-of-control or dangerous, but the frustration of someone who is faced with daily pain and fear even as he pushes himself to his limits to stay as mobile and competent as he can. Canto is secretly afraid that he'll be rejected again, that he doesn't deserve any love or caring, so he shoves people away before they can hurt him. He'd throw chairs out windows except he only keeps chairs around for all his guests. His totally unwelcome guests. That he has a guest room and stairs for.

Fortunately, everyone around him is very un-shove-able. Mercants are stubbourn, also, water is wet. More breaking news after these messages.

Canto has spinal injuries that mean he's paralyzed from thighs down, although he informs us he's, ah, "fully capable" and goes on to demonstrate it. The caveat is "for now", as he and experts fully expect his physical condition to degenerate at any given time. He uses a wheeled chair that can hover if needed, but he tends to overcompensate by insisting on doing things physically whenever possible and is built as heck because of it, further separating him from most Psy. Unlike most Telepaths (and he is a cardinal) he is very rooted in the physical and not the realm of the mind, where he might be tempted to flee to the distance of the psychic plane where his disabilities vanish. This might also be due to the physical nature of Anchors, as we learn about how they're firmly part of geographical realms and not psychic, even though they're the only Psy capable of accessing the "Substrate", the deepest level of the Psy-Net that most Psy don't even know about.

Anchors are a little secretive and a lot anti-social, although we learn a lot of the why over the course of the book. Marshall, the Psy Councilor and terrifying myrderer from the very first books of the series, was an A. They're also both taken for granted and otherwise considered "a waste" of other potential psychic abilities, despite being what holds together the minds and lives of their entire race. They're kind of like road repair crew -- nobody likes them, nobody wants to run into them, nobody really knows what they do but figures they're really bad at doing it, smooth roads are taken entirely for granted, and if they disappear then life totally grinds to a halt very quickly. And legislation has to be enabled to stop people from murdering them, sigh. Construction zone, fines are doubled -- Anchor, do not kill or maim.

Payal Rao is the CEO of the many billions-worth Rao family enterprise and the hub anchor of Delhi, along with being a cardinal TK. She's a fury of competence with a seriously abusive family, and 90% of her difficulties stem from their direct actions. She's also what we'd currently diagnose as Bipolar, and like in our world, mental illness carries a huge stigma in hers. Between Canto and Payal, Payal's disability is the one considered to be a personal failing even though she's doing everything she can about it. It's a very interesting double standard, and very intentionally written that way. Psy consider both to be imperfections and better off hidden or dead, but Payal's is by far the worse offense.

I happen to be Bipolar (Idiopathic), so her experiences rang hauntingly familiar for me. As she has many times before, Singh proves her research or experience is absolutely dead-on not just regarding symptoms, but how they interplay and interfere with one's life. We see things like self-soothing and grounding with patterns and repetitive motions, but also "losing time" while organizing/arranging things during up or manic periods. We don't see true Mania, thanks to her medication and methods of coping, but she's definitely on the edge of it a great deal. The fact that she's not only adulting, but is so wildly competent at it, is humbling. I am nowhere near as put together, and I only experience true Mania once every 10 years or so (and it always ends with hospitalization).

The fact that her condition wasn't something magically cured but was maintained by medication was something I appreciated. That Payal herself identifies as neuro-diverse is fascinating, and some emphasis is put on how the things in her and Canto's lives that made them so different from most people also made them able to do/see things others could not was appreciated. Payal asks things others wouldn't think to or dare, and as a result we hear some very interesting responses from typically closed-off will-murder-you-for-blinking characters like Kaleb Krychek and Nikita Duncan.

Watching Payal take zero shit from the Psy Ruling Council is also just glorious. I adore the Empaths (who doesn't?), but the Anchors are such an enjoyable slap in the face after them. They don't want to be here, they just want to do their jobs and be left alone, but everyone else is screwing things up so badly they can't anymore. YOU HAD ONE JOB! Don't blow up the Psy-net, FFS.

I love this book, the journey of building trust and seeing acceptance long before the person ever accepts themselves. It's a huge struggle for most people to accept "disability" as a label, both out of pride and out of desperation. We still equate it with being totally incapable, even when it's just one facet of someone's life. Sometimes it's a part that touches all of them, sometimes it really isn't, and whether visible or invisible it carries a lot of weight on the person wearing it. This book shows, very well, just how high people can climb despite and sometimes because of their disabilities. It doesn't fawn with things like "differently-abled" -- Canto can't walk. Payal will be on medication for the rest of her life. But these things define them far less than their abilities to love, to protect, to solve problems no one else can even see, and to triumph.

It's a long review with lots of thoughts, and I hope it helped in some way, as it helped me organize my thoughts about it. While this book is part of a long series, the series can be jumped into fairly easily, even starting with this book as there is enough explanation of the world and people of power within it to keep you from being totally lost. I'd suggest something where one of the main characters is NOT Psy for better explanations of how they work, and Silver Silence is only a few books before this chronologically and a great way to get into this world. There are major plot lines spanning multiple books, and each book is also a self-contained story with a happy ending for their focused couples, but we tend to see these people again and again both as individuals and as parts of pairings throughout the series. Still happy! But more and more deeply sure of themselves and the people they love, their found families and the families they create for themselves.

I hope you enjoy this book as much as I did. Canto and Payal are some of my absolute favourite characters in a sea of great people Singh has written, and their angry arguments about who gets to take care of who are the sweetest, grumpiest delights you've ever seen.

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Great Book!

Great book by an outstanding author! This author is in my top five favorite authors, and she always delivers. This book is in the Phy/Changeling Trinity series, and it's an awesome story of phychic abilities and shifters based in Moscow and Delhi. Thank you Nalini!

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would give more stars if I could!

Each time I listen, I enjoy it more . I adore Nalini's writing, and Angela Dawe is quite possibly my favorite narrator. she is quite talented with the many voices, and I never have to wonder which character she is portraying. Love, love, LOVE!!

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Another excellent addition

Couldn’t stop listening. Cleared in in record time. Thanks again Nalini and Angela! Story was excellent and am grateful to always have Angela Dawe to recite it! On to the next!

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Lackluster....not worth the price or your time

Narration was okay until it came to the horrible fake Russian accents. The story was incredibly slow, awkward, and repetitive - scarred psy meets another scarred psy who thinks they are too scarred to be together - we've been here before......The new psy designation was interesting but doesn't seem to move the story along. Almost completely new set of characters and all of them seem to all be from a disenfranchised group like the author is ticking off a list to meet a quota.

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Not my favorite

Not what I was expecting. No marginalized group was left out. Least liked of Series.

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