Branded by Fire

Title: Branded by Fire

Author: Nalini Singh

Series: Psy-Changeling #6

Genre: Paranormal-Romance, Were-shifters, Adult

Published: July 7th 2009 by Berkley

Plot: When a brilliant changeling researcher is kidnapped, DarkRiver sentinel Mercy, a cat, and SnowDancer lieutenant Riley, a wolf, must work together to track the young man-before his shadowy captors decide he’s no longer useful. Along the way, the two dominants may find that submitting to one another uncovers not just a deadly conspiracy, but a passion so raw that it’ll leave them both branded by fire.

Review: Before I begin, I adored this book, but something seemed to niggle at the back of my mind whilst I read it and it gained 5 stars because of my adoration of the characters and the secondary characters, not the overall ‘plot’ as such.

Mercy is a dominant female and she defines female independence and intelligence. She is a sentinel and that makes her not your cute ‘kitty cat’. You are certainly kept on your toes with her mood swings and kick ass nature, but throughout it all she becomes a character you can’t help but fall in love with. At the heart of her character outside her crusty exterior is a woman who has a heart just as much as every other women.

Riley we haven’t seen much of until now. We know him as Brenna’s overprotective brother and he’s certainly making his stance in the novel. It’s hard to forget his imposing character and he made me want to drool.

This book does not know the meaning to slow build up, everything is fast, hard and a struggle for dominance, but it works and it doesn’t take away from the nature of the story. I’m partial to believing this is because it’s the first changeling-changeling pair we’ve met together. It was an interesting story because these two weren’t from the same pack, so the cross pack dilemma is raised as well as the truth about female sentinels.

Secondary characters are something some authors fail to really achieve in the sense that they develop their own personalities and quirks. Singh is a master! She incorporates every tale we’ve seen previously, and teases us with the prospect of new pairings. This particularly story looked more into the Alpha pairing and Amara and Ashaya. These really made the book well-rounded because a constant presence in Riley and Mercy’s relationship I fear would have made the book dry out.

The plot is your hot man + hot woman = sex and a happy ever after.

In that we get:

A denial
A family initiation
Lots of hot sex
The couple on the verge of losing one and other
Dilemma averted by the end

In between we get road blocks and curve balls that you don’t expect and they are introduced largely by the secondary characters, but it seems to fall into the A + B = C slot for me in terms of plot. I did in large enjoy the story, I just felt like the plot was becoming overused.

If Singh intends to spice up the series and keep it going, then I hope we don’t continue along the similar lines of a relationship forming and when it cements the lovers end in peril. It’s one of those problems with the paranormal world that everything seems to become the ‘same’.

However despite my feeling of familiarity with the plot, I adored the book! I would recommend it to fans of Singh, fans of wild animal romances and paranormal romance lovers!

Rating: