Primal Mirror

 

Primal Mirror (Psy/Changeling Trinity #8)- Nalini Sigh

Berkley

Release Date: July 25, 2024

Rating: 📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: Daughter of two ruthless high-Gradient telepaths, Auden Scott is not the child her Psy parents wanted or expected, even before her brain injury. Her thoughts are scattered, her memories fuzzy—or just terrifyingly blank. The only thing she knows for certain is that she must protect her unborn baby . . . a baby she has no recollection of conceiving and who draws an unnerving depth of interest from her dead mother’s closest associates.

Leopard alpha Remi Denier is a man driven by the primal instinct to protect. Protect his pack, protect his allies . . . and protect the mysterious woman who has become a most unlikely neighbor. With eerie eyes that see too much and a scent that alters in ways disturbing and impossible, Auden Scott is the enemy . . . but nothing about this strange Psy is what it seems, and Remi’s feline heart is as fascinated by her as his human half.

Then Auden asks Remi to help her shatter the wall of secrets that is the Scott bloodline. What they unearth will reveal a nightmare beyond imagination. This time, the battle is to the death. . . .

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Leopard alpha Remi Denier is building a new pack in the Smoky Mountain area of the United States. They may be allies to Arrows and larger packs, but they themselves are small and fly under the radar. Until the day Auden Scott moves into a small cabin at the edge of their territory. The daughter of two powerful and ruthless former Councilors, no one in the PsyNet has ever heard of her. A woman with an impossibly changing scent, Auden is both an enemy and someone Remi wants very much to get to know better. Especially when she comes to him for help: her home isn't safe, and people are much more interested in her unborn child than they should be. Can he protect them when Auden herself may be one of the threats?

Primal Mirror is a tough book to review without giving away spoilers. Nalini Sigh does her usual wonderful job of world building, giving us the large view of a failing PsyNet and the people we know from other books trying to save the Net and prevent what would basically be the death of the Psy race; and the personal story of Auden and Remi. Both have their own damaged pasts to overcome. Remi is working on building a new pack and proving to himself that he is capable of being the good alpha that everyone else knows is he. Auden has the bigger baggage, which includes us getting to learn about a new designation of Psy: psychometrics. Learning about objects by touching them sounds great, until you really think about it, and it doesn't take long into this book before that sounds like the last 'gift' you'd want!

Remi and Auden are great together, and I loved meeting a new pack- with definite hints that we might get to follow some of these members in the future. There are a few guys here crying out for mates so hopefully Singh will set them up in future books. The way Singh wove the stories of the big picture PsyNet and the smaller romance together I thought worked really well, and reminds us that everyone has an important part to play in the world. 

Some of the bigger picture PsyNet story will help if you've read some of Singh's earlier books, at least Obsidian Heart if not also the earlier Psy/Changeling Trinity books like Resonance Surge. I recommend reading them anyway because they are awesome (I'm a huge fan of all Singh's Psy/Changeling series if you can't tell). If you can't wait and have to start with this book, just accept the fact that there's backstory- you'll get the gist of it enough to follow along, and it won't effect Remi and Auden's main story.

Nalini Singh fans will love the newest addition to her Psy/Changeling world. I'm already set to read it again and can't wait for the next book!

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Daughter of Fair Verona

Daughter of Fair Verona- Christina Dodd

Release Date: June 25, 2024

Rating: 📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: Once upon a time a young couple met and fell in love. You probably know that story, and how it ended ( badly). Only here’s the That’s not how it ended at all.

Romeo and Juliet are alive and well and the parents of seven kids. I’m the oldest, with the emphasis on ‘old’—a certified spinster at twenty, and happy to stay that way. It’s not easy to keep your taste for romance with parents like mine. Picture it—constant monologues, passionate declarations, fighting, making up, making out . . . it’s exhausting.

Each time they’ve presented me with a betrothal, I’ve set out to find the groom-to-be a more suitable bride. After all, someone sensible needs to stay home and manage this household. But their latest match, Duke Stephano, isn’t so easy to palm off on anyone else. The debaucher has had three previous wives—all of whom met unfortunate ends. Conscience forbids me from consigning another woman to that fate. As it turns out, I don’t have to . . .

At our betrothal ball—where, quite by accident, I meet a beautiful young man who makes me wonder if perhaps there is something to love at first sight—I stumble upon Duke Stephano with a dagger in his chest. But who killed him? His late wives’ families, his relatives, his mistress, his servants—half of Verona had motive. And when everyone around the Duke begins dying, disappearing, or descending into madness, I know I must uncover the killer . . . before death lies on me like an untimely frost.

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 If Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet didn't end in death, what would have happened? The "happily ever after" everyone wanted. Then 20 years later, we would get The Daughter of Fair Verona. Romeo and Juliet now have 6 kids and another on the way. The oldest, Rosaline (call me Rosie) is practical, hates poetry, and has managed to get out of her previous betrothals by matchmaking the men with women they were better suited for. She's smart, can do math, studies alchemy with the Friar who married her parents and promises he doesn't make those pesky sleep-like-death potions anymore. But when Duke Stephano insists on a betrothal, Romeo can't say no and Rosie doesn't know how to get out of it. It's rumored the man has murdered each of his three wives, no one likes him, so what is Rosie to do?

Nothing as it turns out. He's found dead at their engagement party, a knife in his chest. Which would be great, especially since Rosie meets a guy she's sure is her True Love the same day. But people start thinking she's the one who killed the Duke. More bodies follow and Rosie, her Nurse (who's gotten a lot tougher since her days trying to keep Juliet in line) and Prince Escalus need to find out who is killing people before Rosie is attacked by a mob- or gets killed herself. Rosie wants to be able to marry her love Lysander and not get killed, Prince Escalus really doesn't want a mob in his city, and Nurse was hoping at some point her job would involve less drama. Will anyone get their wish?

This was a fun rom-com historical mystery. Rosie's description of what actually happened to her parents instead of Shakespeare's version in the first few pages will have you laughing out loud (you've been warned!). Rosie herself is a delightful mix of snarky humor, self-awareness, and Montague temper that sometimes overrides good sense. And while she may be a good matchmaker for others, let's just say I saw what was coming her way by the time they'd hauled the first dead body out while she didn't figure it out until the surprise scene at the end. Everyone has blind spots for themselves I guess. 

Solving the murder was a fun combination of Rosie, Nurse, Prince Escalus, Lysander, Friar Laurent, and others each combining knowledge and clues. What was kind of fun was even when you had a good suspicion of who did it, you still didn't know who did it or why until the end, even though all the clues were there for you. 

I enjoyed how Christina Dodd played with the world and the characters, allowing Rosie's parents or the Nurse to be blind to something until Rosie realizes they are just pretending to not see it. Romeo teaches all his children sword skills and Juliet pretends not to know until she gets mad at him and then says he better make sure to step up the secret training- and Romeo and the kids realize they aren't as sneaky as they thought they were! There are beautiful descriptions of what it would be like to walk down the streets, what you'd see and smell and experience, that I loved. The foods and wines leap off the pages in wonderful descriptions.

The one thing that took a little getting used to was the odd combination of more 'historic' speech with very modern language. I'm still not sure how I feel about that. I'm glad the whole book didn't go for a 'Shakespeare' feel to the language, since that would have slowed the pacing and this worked really well as a fast paced romantic comedy. The older' language tended to stay in more 'formal' situations, which worked, but sometimes it inched out into others, which didn't. The more modern language mostly stayed in casual interactions, which worked, or when Rosie is talking to us as a narrator, which worked, but then sometimes bled over into other situations, where it didn't.  That's the reason I'd give the book an actual rating of 3.5.

Overall a fun read. Fast and humorous, with entertaining nods to Shakespeare if you look but nothing that won't ruin things if you aren't a big Shakespeare fan. Definitely note- this is book one of a series. The mystery gets solved, but there will be further adventures to look forward to!

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review