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