Hostage to Pleasure [Mass Market Paperback]

Hostage To Pleasure starts right where Mine To Possess left off. The DarkRiver clan has paid off it's debt to Ashaya Aleine and have kidnapped her son and hidden him away in their Pack. With her son safe, Ashaya also manages to escape the Council's sphere but her contact had to abandon her in lynx territory. Surrounded by the vicious animals, DarkRiver sniper Dorian Christensen comes to her rescue, drawn to the smell of her blood and the unmistakable scent of her exotic femininity. The scent that has been haunting him for the last two months. The last time Dorian had seen Ashaya had been through the scope of his sniper rifle and seeing her again brings back all the hate and rage he has towards her kind, as well as a fierce need to claim her as his own. Dorian needs to come to terms with his conflicting emotions because she needs his protection now more than ever. She has information that could bring down the Psy Council and she's not going to hesitate to use it. Ashaya hopes by bringing her story public, it will make her and her son untouchable in the eyes of the Council. Unfortunately she has another enemy that is a much bigger threat to her safety, someone who has been slipping in and out of her mind since childhood and knows her every secret. Ashaya's twin senses her emerging feelings for the DarkRiver sentinel and refuses to share her. Ashaya has been dealing with the burden of her twin sister's sociopathic tendencies since the age of seventeen and it's this responsibility that keeps her from falling for Dorian's seductive lure and the promise of a full life with him. Dorian however is not going to deny his feelings for her and neither is his cat. He uses every sensual weapon he has and slowly wears down her battered defenses. She has been living a lie for so long and wants nothing more than to accept him, but can the two of them survive both her twin sister and the Council that is hunting them?

Dorian Christensen has a lot of bottled up anger inside him, due to his inability to go full leopard and the brutal murder of his sister. He can't stop blaming himself. If he could go full leopard, maybe he could have been a little bit faster in saving his precious baby sister. His rage at first holds him back from seeing Ashaya as his mate, the female who his latent cat has recognized as it's own. His moods shift dangerously from lust to anger and back again as he tries to come to terms with himself and the fact that Ashaya is protecting a Psy very much like the killer who destroyed his sister. Dorian is deliciously dominant with Ashaya who doesn't let him boss her around. She quickly learns that she needs to stand up to his cat if he is to respect her and listen to her. Ashaya is heartbreaking to read about in that she's a woman stuck between her need as a mother to protect her son and as an older sister trying to protect her younger sister. She doesn't flinch from what needs to be done and tries to execute everything as precisely as possible.

This is the fifth book in Nalini Singh's Pst/Changeling world and it was excellent. It has a slightly darker feel to it than earlier books and there's a definite tension running throughout that you can practically taste. She is steadily building a coming war between the Psy and the Changelings and she is also bringing the human world into the fight. After eons of being in third place, the humans are about to make their move, which is only muddying the waters and adding to the conflicts. Silence is breaking at a much faster rate within the Psy race, creating a power vacuum that could turn into anyone's game. While reading Hostage To Pleasure you can actually see the Psy/Changeling world developing under Nalini Singh's skill as an author and her seamless world building just gets better and better. This series is one of my favorites and I can't wait to read the next one!

I have waited for Dorian's story and I think this is one of the best in the series. This is a very sensual series and this book is no different. Dorian is a sniper and the only one of the Dark River Pack who can't shift to cat. He has been like this from birth and has never let it stop him from becoming one of the sentinals of the Pack.

Ashaya Aliene is an M-Psy, one of the smartest. She helped the pack recover two young children in the last novel. At that time she told them she might need help at some future time and now that time has come. She needs them to kidnap her son who is being used as a hostage to her good behavior.

This is a deeply sensual read, with a wonderful fully fleshed out world. The demarkation between good and evil has been clearly marked, but now we find shades of gray. Maybe there are some good Psy. Just as there are some evil shapeshifters. We also learn there are other players in the game. I found the story engrossing and captivating. The relationships between all the characters are growing and all will learn that they come from the same root stock.

Good book do not miss it.

I've heard so many amazing things about Nalini Singh's books that I worried they might not live up to all that hype. I shouldn't have worried. Hostage to Pleasure is an absolutely fantastic book. It has a ton of action, plot, twists and turns---far more than most romance novels. There are plenty of fascinating characters, and while I would have enjoyed them even more if I were familiar with the preceding books in the series, this one stands alone surprisingly well. If anything, the designation of this book as a romance rather than an adventure or a paranormal or near-future SF is mostly an arbitrary marketing thing, since it functions just as well on all of those levels.

The world-building is stunning---of particular fascination to me are the Psy in this book. They undertook something they call Silence (a forced suppression of emotion) in order to curtail the danger from emerging aggressive and unstable psychic abilities. Unfortunately this has backfired---those best able to be emotionless are the dangerous sociopaths. Over time these people have gone on to rise in the ranks and take over. As a result, Psy society is becoming dangerously unstable in new and different ways.

Ms. Singh has found a beautifully plot-based manner in which to keep her two would-be lovers apart. Dorian's presence threatens Ashaya's carefully-cultivated Silence, which for her is more than just a protection against her government's scrutiny. It's also a protection against an even greater threat that stalks her and her son in particular. Meanwhile, Ashaya threatens Dorian's sanity---his hatred and loathing for the sociopath-dominated Psy society is so great that the very idea of desiring one of them is nearly enough to send him off the all-too-close deep end. Giving in to their feelings for each other is very literally dangerous for both them and those they care about.

Action, danger, intrigue, a fascinating world to play around in---this book has it all. (Adult material warning: there's a mild amount of explicit sex as well.)