Review: Tangle of Need

TANGLE OF NEED 

(Psy-Changeling #11)

Nalini Singh
Adult Paranormal Romance
432 pages
Berkley
Available May 29th
Received from publisher for review

THE STORY (from Goodreads)

Adria, wolf changeling and resilient soldier, has made a break with the past--one as unpredictable in love as it was in war. Now comes a new territory, and a devastating new complication: Riaz, a SnowDancer lieutenant already sworn to a desperate woman who belongs to another.

For Riaz, the primal attraction he feels for Adria is a staggering betrayal. For Adria, his dangerous lone-wolf appeal is beyond sexual. It consumes her. It terrifies her. It threatens to undermine everything she has built of her new life. But fighting their wild compulsion toward one another proves a losing battle.

Their coming together is an inferno...and a melding of two wounded souls who promise each other no commitment, no ties, no bonds. Only pleasure. Too late, they realize that they have more to lose than they ever imagined. Drawn into a cataclysmic Psy war that may alter the fate of the world itself, they must make a decision that might just break them both.

MY THOUGHTS

Tangle of Need is a bit of a transition book in the Psy-Changeling series, destined to have to work harder to captivate readers for the single reason it’s the one to follow the raw beauty of Kiss of Snow and the culmination of a combustible courtship so many books in the making. Adria and Riaz share their book with the entirety of the SnowDancer den, their romance existing alongside snippets of past pairings moving forward with their lives as well as little glimpses of an impending brutal war that will be the catalyst for a paradigm shift for the Psy, Human, and Changeling races. That being said, Ms. Singh’s characters are as dynamic as ever despite this story being a kaleidoscope of small elements casting multiple shadows we know will soon reach us in future books, but for now, in this book, we’re able to revel in the display of light and dark, vibrancy and color, that comprises the SnowDancer pack and its allies.

While Adria and Riaz are the sole focus of the romantic element of the book, a little of their light is dimmed by the radiant presence of a deliciously blissful Hawke and Sienna as they try and settle in to the newness of their mating bond. The fact that Hawke and Sienna are a prominent part of this book is in no way a complaint, instead reading the quiet moments between them feels like something special Ms. Singh added just for her readers, granting us added time with one of our favorite couples free of some of the tension and responsibility that weighed so heavily on them as we read their story. In Tangle of Need we see the seemingly innocent and ordinary moments between them, simple day to day things that strengthen our already unbreakable bond with them and further solidify our love for them as a couple.

Adria and Riaz are not fully eclipsed by the not-insignificant shadow cast by Hawke, Sienna, and the Psy civil war though, still magnetic enough to draw us to them as strongly as they are drawn to one another. Both are emotionally damaged in the beginning, hearts in multiple pieces with ragged edges that take every single one of the four-hundred plus pages to begin to piece back together, open wounds healed but souls still decorated with extensive scarring. Their romance is perhaps not the most compelling of the series, but not much can hinder our enjoyment of Ms. Singh’s writing, her world vast and complex and inhabited by men and women, human and otherwise, who bring a smile to our faces every time we peel back a Psy-Changeling cover.

Rating: 4/5