Hostage to Pleasure

Ashaya and Dorian's story was even better than the previous stories. They were SO different, and honed to hate each other, but still ended up loving each other against all odds. Beautifully written, and the other characters stayed true to character.

I can't wait to read Hawke's story! And I look forward to learning more about the psy / changeling / human difficulties. ( )

Another great installment in Nalini Singh popular series. All fans of hot and sizzling romance between cool Psy & hot Changeling won't be disappointed.

Some of the previous book suffered from plot imbalance - Nalini Singh tried to cover too much ground and some thing felt under-developed. In Hostage to Pleasure both Ashaya & Dorian have great characterization and from time to time we get chapters with sneaky Psy council and other parties that plot how to rule the world. Some of the elements from previous books were barely mentioned here. For example: I would love to learn more about NetMind, but I know that there are a lot of more books to come so I hope that it will be covered in some of the next books.

Although some paranormal romance novels can be read out of order, I sincerely do not recommend you that you try it with Psy-Changeling series. There is a grand back story going on and if you jumped in right now you will just be totally lost.
So if you wanna give this series a try - start from [b:Slave to Sensation|178476|Slave to Sensation (Psy-Changeling #1)|Nalini Singh|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347798536s/178476.jpg|172416]. This is great pnr series and I recomend it to all fans of paranormal romance, shifters & alpha males but be prepared that a lot of attention will be focused also on a complex world building. ( )

Hostage to Pleasure
4 Stars

Synopsis
Forced to work for the Psy Council's implant program, Ashaya Aleine will do anything to rescue her son - even die... After a daring escape, Ashaya finds that she is still far from safety as the Changeling assigned to protect her is Dorian Christensen, the deadly sniper who hates all Psy with a vengeance.

Review
A vast improvement on Mine to Possess but still lacking the perfection of Caressed by Ice.

Dorian and Ashaya are likeable as individuals and as a couple. Their romance is sweet and passionate but their chemistry is a little off and the sparks never really fly.

Ashaya is an wonderful heroine - courageous and single-minded. Seeing her facade of Silence crumble with Keenan and Dorian is one of the best aspects of her personality. Some readers may find her cold at times but her intense love for Keenan (I saw the twist in her relationship with Keenan coming a mile away Amara is his biological mother) and her need to keep him safe from the beginning negates this. Dorian is fierce, loyal and protective but his anger issues come to the fore often and seem unresolved at the end.

Amara and Ashaya's twin connection is interesting and the correlation with the NetMind/DarkMind dichotomy is very cleverly done. Amara is one of the most compelling villains in the series so far. She is truly diabolical and to be honest, I never completely understood Ashaya's need to protect her and the way in which her storyline is resolved is ambiguous.

The overall story arc needs further development and seems to be stagnating. The appearance of new factions is interesting but none is fleshed out sufficiently and the various agendas of the Human Alliance, the Pure Psy and the Rebel Psy remain unexplained.

The writing is good and the snippets at the beginning of each chapter add another dimension to Ashaya's characterization but their connection to the contents of the chapter are superficial at best.

Overall, an OK addition to the series and I will be continuing on to Mercy and Riley's book. It should be interesting to see the fur fly. ( )

ironically, I felt the most for Amara. a definite product of her society. she knows she's wrong inside but can't do anything about it. and having the darkmind influence pathways in her mind…
I find myself sometimes getting distracted by the spellings of names in these books. they're close to something sort of familiar, but different enough that they occasionally jar me out of the story. ( )

This was an extremely well written relationship book. The two characters were both interesting and well developed. It certainly wasn't steamy by any means, but you felt their love develop and it felt real. The plot regarding her twin was also very interesting and suspenseful.
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