Blaze of Memory

Devraj is the director of the Shine institute, the organisation created to find, protect and help the Forgotten. The descendants of those Psy who decided to resist conversion to Silence and went into hiding to escape the Council

The Council still knows about them and plots against them – so when Katya turns up on his doorstep, broken, amnesiac, tortured and blocked from the Psy Net he instantly suspects a trap

Katya is considered dead by the Psy – which makes her a perfect tool for Ming LeBon, Psy Councillor, deadly telepath and ruthless fighter. He can use her to research the Forgotten… and if not? Well, she’s disposable. But as Katya starts to rebuild herself from the ruin he left, she is determined to find answers in her show more shattered memories – even if it means defying Dev’s control of her.

Let’s address that perennial problem with these books – the romance. I knew very quickly in the book who the romantic partners were

Was it because of how attractive they were? No

Was it because of how compelling they found the other? No

Was it because of them simply being the protagonists? Well, yes, but not the prime reason

No, I knew they were love interests the minute Katya turned up on her doorstep like a lost broken bird in need of sanctuary and protection and healing while Dev was the big, gruff, super dangerous-oh-so-dangerous man who needed to decide whether or not she was the enemy he may need to kill.

Because for some unknown reason there are apparently a vast number people who think “damaged, traumatised woman and the violent man who may murder her” is really hot. And my gods, WHY? Why does this storyline keep happening? Not just in this series but in general?! Who are these hordes of people who are gasping “ooooh, she’s completely traumatised and facing death, such a perfect candidate for romance!” or “he’s so angry and cold and unemotional – this is so haaaaawt!” or even “he just threatened to kill her for the THIRD time! It’s getting steamy in here!”

It boggles me, it really does, that this is not only seen as romantic, but it is so often seen as romantic it has become such a prevalent trope. This is problematic in its own right – the rigid gender roles that it promotes (women as weaker, as fragile, as vulnerable, man as tough, angry, aggressive, in control, domineering) as well as the very damaging dynamics it not only portrays but encourages (male as violent, threatening, controlling, possessive) and puts on a pedestal. These are not healthy relationships. These are not relationship dynamics we should encourage. These are not a template for a happily ever after.

But it’s also, frankly, getting boring. This is the seventh book in this series. And in all but one of the previous books, this is exactly the same romance storyline. Vulnerable/fragile/broken/breaking woman, facing collapse, implosion, menace, destruction meets aggressive, emotionally distant, uncommunicative, angry, dangerous man who may hurt or kill her and LOVE HAPPENS. Sasha, Faith, Brianna, Ashaya, Talin – all have the same story with Lucas, Vaughn, Judd, Clay and Dorian. Only Mercy and Riley have a different story and it’s still not that far from it. Change the record already. We even have a moment in this book where Dev is violently jealous for no good reason and this is even lampshaded as “normally a Changeling trait.” Yet, it is – but we’ve so strongly established the idea that a man in love is 2 seconds away from axe murdering any other man who comes near that it feels almost like love can’t be depicted without it.

More annoying is that this is actually damaging to the awesome storyline of this series (beyond the fact we have to approach the storyline while skimming past a copy & paste romance). The whole complexity of Silence – not just that it’s a terribad thing that turns the Psy to monsters, but also that it’s an essential tool that made so many Psy safe. That it saved untold numbers of Psy from death, insanity and tragedy which constantly haunted their people before Silence was imposed. One of the complexities of this series is that some Psy – and the world – need Silence for survival, safety and stability. We’re beginning to see more and more of that addressed with each book, including the excellent storyline of the Forgotten, Psy outside the net and Silence, which was continued in this book. Another point it made excellently was how many of the Psy fighting against Silence are Psy who are largely not at risk for it – dangerous telekinetics, for examples, are almost unknown among them

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So far, I've been annoyed at every single book in this series. Without fail, the male main character acts disrespectfully and without decency at the beginning of the book, and he never apologizes for it. However, it's mostly been of a level that I've been able to ignore, and it doesn't last very long.

In this book, it takes ages, and it disgusts me. The female main character, Katya, has been brutalized and has had some REALLY bad experiences with being locked up. And the male main character, Dev, keeps her prisoner. The justification is nowhere near good enough. There would have been ways around the problem, and even if there was a risk in helping her, it would have been easy enough to involve Katya in the decision making, instead of show more forcing her. She is a reasonable woman and obviously a good-hearted one, she would have complied with what was necessary. Dev was very well aware that she was not to blame for what happened to her.
So, no excuse for locking her up, and definitely no excuse for making a move on her when she is your prisoner, and the power balance is so far off to be almost non-existent.

Aside from all that, I really saw nothing appealing in Dev's character, not even when he turned around after half the book. Also, at least the main characters in the other books had an excuse for acting Neanderthal, if not a good one, since they were half animal, but Dev really doesn't.
Then there were the letters of someone who lived through the period when Silence started. They were boring and didn't add anything to the story. I already feel that the books are starting to splinter more, with little intermezzo's of side characters, and the stupid letters weren't helping.
And finally, there were nowhere near enough changelings in a book that belongs to the psy-changeling series. There was a psy and a forgotten, and I find the forgotten to be boring. The only character that appealed to me was Dev's grandmother, and she has a very small role.

So, I would give this one a pass. show less

"Trembling from the wild fury of the kiss, she gripped the solid muscles of his shoulders and did precisely what he’d told her she would—she let him do exactly what he wanted. Because this man was as wild as any changeling, as dangerous, and right now, so on edge, she had a feeling any resistance would be read as the wrong kind of challenge."

Um...

In the bygone days when tumblr still ruled, there was a gif of a boy dancing in front of a psychedelic background only to suddenly stop, and the word "problematic" flashed by. I cannot find this gif anywhere, and yet it is the only thing that fully captures how I feel about this series. Why do I continue reading it? Why do any of us do anything? Is life meaningful? What does "meaningful" show more even mean?

Anyway, this book is fucked up. Like, honestly. This is a romanticized depiction of an emotionally abusive relationship, that's it.

The way the narrative is structured is antithetical to the way the central romantic tension in the previous books was set up, and replaced by a straight-to-VHS spy movie plot from the 90s. Which is both dissatisfying - because the story fails to meet the expectations the author set up with the previous books - and boring.

I mean if you're reading this series for the overarching plot I guess you need to read it but like, don't?

Don't. show less

In Blaze of Memory, Dev Santos, head of Shine Foundation, an organization that tries to find and protect Psy descendants among the human population, finds an unconcsious, tortured woman outside his door. When she regains consciousness, it turns out the woman has amnesia but she's also Psy, thus an enemy of Shine. They all deduce at once, that she must be part of a Psy-plan to hurt Shine and probably Santos in particular. The obvious solution to that would be to keep her locked somewhere until they find out who she is and what goal she has. Dev however, cannot bear to have this tortured, broken woman, suffer any more. On the contrary, she's so helpless and battered that all his insticts cry for him to protect her. The fact that she's show more also quite beautiful, makes him feel not only protective but also attracted to her, as he has been to no other woman. Dev has been a cold, ruthless man, as the head of the Shine Foundation has had to be. But this woman cuts straight through his defenses and makes his heart ache. Is she really who she seems or is she a Psy spy after all? What future can there be for them when he cannot trust her?Before I started the book, I had trouble imagining Dev as a hero. It turned out that I shouldn't have, as Dev was quite a nice and intersting guy. My problems focused on the heroine. The heroine who, in those 375 pages, showed that she had some spine after all, in 3 or 5 of them. IMHO, the author kept trying to convince us that she had some spine by having Dev say it quite often, but it never really showed. Their relationship felt too unbalanced, and honestly, I never understood how Dev became so quickly attracted to her. 30 pages into the book and he had feelings for her he never felt before, while she, a Psy, could barely keep her hands off him. He kept saying that he had an Achilles heel for weak women, but is helplessness reason enough to fall in love with someone? And what does that say about her or him as a character? What will happen if she someday finds some self-confidence and inner strength after all? He'll give her up and go to save another damsel in distress? Although, I must admit that judging by what I read, the posibility of her finally developing a spine, is an extremely small one:)Scene:"Dev, you're not taking me seriously!" she exclaims. And proceeds by throwing him a shoe. Yeah, that's guaranteed to make him see her as a grown up all right!*****Spoilers and some mad raving********I knew the Forgotten had some Psy powers, but from the previous books, I had judged that these powers were weak more or less. It turns out that the Forgotten are Psy with feelings. They have all the range of powers that the Psy have and even some unique ones, telepathy being a very common one so they use that one pretty often. They even have their own Net, called the ShadowNet. So Dev was more like a changeling hero -extremely protective and jealous- but with Psy powers. I'm not exactly thrilled by this revelation, as I expected the third power in this game (=humans), to be something different than a combination of the two others.As I said, I couldn't like the heroine. She was so weak that she was pathetic. Singh had Dev say a couple of times how strong she was undreneath because she managed to beat Ming. How exactly did she beat Ming is beyond me. Ming mind raped her, turned her into a puppet by planting a triggering device in her mind that would turn her into an assasin and released her on Dev's doorstep. She doesn't know if her thoughts are her own, if her insticts are her own, if her actions are based on her decisions or are been guided by Ming. So, how exactly did she beat him??? He did what he wanted, turned her into his puppet and set her free to execute a mission. I repeat, when exactly did she beat him or did she show her inner strength?Also, I had problems with Dev's decision to take her with him everywhere he went. He was a leader, thus his first duty was to protect his people. As everyone agreed, she was most probably sent by Ming to kill someone inside Shine (probably Santos himself) but he believes he can handle her. So instead of locking her up, he takes her with him in Shine's offices where she shows powers they didn't know and detects a child they desperately try to hide from the Council. Nice handling Dev! And after that, he carries her with him in Changeling territory, where she asks -and gets her wish- to meet Jon, the kid that Ming was after during Talin's book, so she can say she's sorry. For all they knew, this could be her target! Now, how stupid was that? And all that, because he can't think of imprisoning her -an enemy from crying out loud!- because she appeals to his protective instincts. Give me a break! In a realistic senario, the rest of the Shine whould have shoven him off the director's seat at that point and take care of her themselves, instead of befriending her like Tiara did. One more unbelievable situation above the other... how could this not turn into a disaster in the end? ********End of Spoilers**********Another bad thing is that IMO, the story between Psy, Changelings and Humans progressed very little in this book. It was based solely on the romance while, what little action and revelations occured, took place near the very end. We learn however a lot of things about the Forgotten, which are more or less summarized in just one sentence found in the spoilers section above, and see a couple of potential new heroes and heroines. Nothing new about the Psy Council, Kaleb, the Ghost, Hawke (not even a single line!) or the Changelings. It may be the fact that I didn't find the romance satisfying or believable, but I think the pace was also slower than the previous books. All in all, it was a huge disappointement for me. I'll just pretend I didn't read it and hope she'll make it up in the next one. show less

Blaze of Memory
5 Stars

Synopsis
As the leader of the Forgotten, Devraj Santos will do anything to protect his people from annihilation. When Katya Haas, a possible Psy assassin, is deposited on his doorstep suffering from amnesia, Dev knows he should kill her. As Katya penetrates the coldness within him, Dev finds himself incapable of extinguishing the one bright light in his life but soon discovers that forces beyond his control may take her from him forever.

Review
First book in which neither of the main characters is a Changeling but this does not detract, in fact, the book exceeded my expectations.

Dev & Katya have an intense chemistry and their physical closeness and emotional intimacy is virtually tangible.

Katya's Silence is broken show more and she feels every emotion intensely, which may explain why she is my favorite Psy heroine. Some readers may view her as weak and submissive but to me she exhibits incredible resilience and strength of will (as Ming Le Bon quickly learns).

Dev is an intense and compelling hero with just the right of amount of tortured thrown in to have me drooling. His skill with metal is very cool but underdeveloped and he has a tendency toward domineering but Katya's quiet strength completely undercuts this.

The climax and resolution of this book are simply heartwrenching and Blaze of Memory is added to the list of books that had me crying all over the pages.

There are several developments in the overall story arc with the origins of the Forgotten explained in the form of a series of wonderfully written letters, the questions regarding the Arrows' allegiance and the fractures in the NetMind. Things are certainly getting interesting and I look forward to the next installment. show less

This is the one book of the series I find hardest to give a rating and review. On one hand, this is not the smoothest text (especially in the beginning of story). There are points where it stuttered to the point that I had to reread sections, more than once, to make sure I understood. Really, the transitions could have been pieced together better by the Editor. However, this book really takes you on a sweet ride and it’s exhausting…in a good way. The last 100 pages of this novel will leave you spent, teary and amazed. The final twist is wonderful and sets the stage for a future of interesting gifts. I know many fans find this their least favorite in the series. For me, this simply isn’t the case. Katya and Dev swim around in my show more head, popping up at the oddest moments and if that isn’t the sign of a powerful read, I don’t know what is. (I am re-reading the series in anticipation of the next release in June of 2013. I am not much for re-reading as there are so many good books out there to be read, that I hate to spend time rehashing old reads. That really speaks to how wonderful this series is.) show less

I was hesitant to start this book because there are no changelings in it and I really thought I was going to miss them. Yeah, nope, Dev definitely makes up for the lack of changelings in this story. He is actually just as protective as a changeling (which is on of my favorite changeling qualities) and incredibly intense, so I was more than happy to follow along with him.

The woman he falls for, Katya, is a Psy, but she shows more emotion than any Psy I have ever seen, which was another bonus. No Silence to have her work through and try to disable. The reason she is free of Silence is actually heartbreaking and something I am not going to go into because I think you need to read it for yourself. I was always afraid that these books were show more going to hit a routine with the Psy stories, but Nalini keeps coming up with ingenuous ways to have these characters develop so I am never bored.

A little heads up though, this book is going to make you cry. I am not usually a crier but this book really yanked at my heart strings, I couldn’t help it. I even knew certain events were coming and I still cried. I think I was just trying to deny the inevitable, but it always seems to catch up with you doesn’t it? Okay enough about that, you are going to have to read the book yourself to see if it plays on your emotions too.

Blaze of Memory is a fantastic addition to the psy/changeling world. Even though changelings are the not main focus of this story we still get little snippets of their world, which was enough to keep me happy. So go check out this series if you haven’t already I am sure you will love it just as much as me. show less