Caressed by Ice

Third in Singh's Psy-Changling series, CBI gets a near 5 star rating from me too! In CBI we get the story of Judd, a cold as ice member of the Psy race who dropped out of the psynet- a kind of psychic internet that connects all psy together- after he discovers his job as assassin is in fact much more murky than he had originally thought. (Think Jason Bourne!)His odd mix of talent, telekinesis mostly, made him one of the top assassins for the increasingly devious psy council- the ruling body of the psynet. His gift is also so dangerous, if left unchecked, it is fully able to kill anyone around him, however inadvertently. The Psy's fix? To hamstring his brain so that the emotional use of his power would bring on so much pressure to his body that self-destruction occurs before he releases it.When Judd decides to leave the psynet, he drops out with his family, who have similar abilities, and joins the snow river changeling pack. Although keeping himself separate, he is helplessly drawn to wolf changeling Brenna Kincaid, one time hostage and victim of a demented psy killer with the same abilities as Judd.Brenna is just as drawn to Judd and though he is determined to keep his walls up, she begins to breakthrough while finding her own healing along the way.CBI manages to gives us more insight into the psy-changling world without losing the sizzle of sexual tension- something that is becoming a signature style for Singh.

Brenna Shane Kincaid, after being kidnapped and tortured by a serial killer, is vulnerable. Brenna has been violated especially by her mind, and she can sense evil very easily. Brenna is one of the Wolf Changelings, but ever since her kidnapping she hasn't been able to shift, only use her claws and teeth. Brenna wonders if she will ever regain her wolf, for she feels lost. Having older brothers, who are very over protective and she want's to have space and freedom back. Judd Lauren is a elite soldier of the Psy, and now having defecting from the council and the ranks knowing he doesn't want a future of having doing terrible things in the name of the Psy. Having been silenced ( feeling no emotion) he is a cold unfeeling being, however when he meets Brenna he finds his cold nature melting away. Passion and desire ignite between Brenna and Judd, that shock and delight them both. Judd unused to what he is feeling, feels the silence slipping away from him, and desiring the touch of the one woman that fires up his passions. Brenna seeks Judd at first to help her with what has gone on in her mind, however she seeks more with him than just mental assistance. She starts to care for him in a way that she never expected of a Psy. But will their connection and love they find together be strong enough to survive the upcoming dangers that could destroy everything they have built and what they have found in each other?This was the first book of Nalini Singh that I have read. I wanted to read this Psy-changeling series in order, however since this one came through the library, I might have had to wait weeks, and I wanted to read her books, and I found that even though I wished that I could have read the series in order, I didn't need to. I can usually figure things out pretty fast, and I did with this one. It was a intense love story that mesmerized my senses. Brenna was the kind of heroine that I always love reading, her kind of character creates a kind of conflict that I love reading and enjoying their journey of healing. She has been defiled and treated abominably yet she remains strong, and despite her brother's wanting to protect her. Brenna doesn't want their protection, despite her love for them. The one that she wants protection from is the cold and ruthless Judd. I also enjoyed seeing how despite how cold he is at the beginning, he definitely starts to heat up throughout the rest of the story that captivated my attention. He knows that Brenna needs touch often, so he tries to accommodate her, to help her in her challenges, but Judd never expected to start feeling. I also loved the love scenes between these two characters, definitely heated and timed perfectly throughout the book. I am so glad that I finally was able to get drawn into the world that Nalini Singh has created and I am looking forward to reading the rest of the series!!!

I like this book much better it and the strength of the warrior came very handy at the point. Which helped save the last victim.

4.5 Stars! This one was really strong and I really enjoyed both these characters!

In this book we are following Judd Lauren, who is part of the Psy family that found refuge in the wolf changling pack, and Brenna, who is a wolf changling and was rescued in book one. I didn't know much about this third book going it but I knew a lot of people really like this book so I was very excited and I was not disappointed. I thought Brenna and Judd worked really well as a couple. I liked how they played off of each other and how they really balanced each other out. This is the first book where they hero is the Psy and the heroine is changling and I really liked the dynamic. I don't always like a very tough and cold hero who is softer around the heroine. Sometimes it works for me and sometimes it doesn't and I haven't quite figured out what makes the difference but luckily I did like it here. Judd is so lovely to Brenna even with his icy exterior. But even beyond that, I loved seeing him interacting with the other pack members because to me, that's where you can really see his kindness. There were some moments between him and the pups that I just found to be so lovely.

Brenna is no slouch either. I really enjoyed her character in this. We only hear about her in the other books but I loved reading about the strength she shows in this book. She has to stand up to her brothers, figure out her relationship with Judd, and deal with the severe trauma of her kidnapping. I really grew to love Brenna throughout this book and I really liked seeing her and Judd get together.

The angst between them is also so good. They're clearly interested in each other but there are so many legitimate things keeping them apart. It can be hard to create scenarios where it's believable that the two love interest wouldn't be together but Singh does it really well here. I loved all the stuff with Judd trying to figure out his relationship to the Silence now that he is with the wolves and Brenna trying to figure out a relationship where she can barely touch Judd, something she needs as a wolf. It created a lot of really good tension and I really liked it.

There's also a lot more plot stuff introduced here that I'm really intrigued about. The stuff going on with Judd and the Psy-net is super interesting to me and I can't wait to see how that develops in later books. I am also really intrigued with what's happening with the Psy-council, especially with Kaleb. There is also a mystery in this book that is pretty well done and did intrigue me, but I am even more intrigued by those larger political threads running through this series.

This whole series has been a really great reading experience but this book was especially good and I can't wait to see where the story goes from here!

This book switches it up a bit instead of a Psy woman leaving Silence and hooking up with a changeling guy we have a Psy male that left with the PSy community when they were going to kill his brother and his nieces and nephew. The five Psy were able to create their own small net and convince the entire Psy community that they were killed by the changelings for trespassing on their lands. Of course there are issues with the romance since this time the changeling woman is being hunted by a changeling that is being controlled by the Psy since she was a previous victim of a powerful Psy that broke the Silence and tortured and then killed changeling women. There is more resistance to the romance from family members than in the previous books and this one follows the wolf pack instead of the leopards. Once again I'm skimming the kissy parts to get more of the world building. I know I'm doing it wrong but the world building is pretty good in the books.

Caressed by Ice is the third full-length novel in Nalini Singh’s Psy-Changeling series. It pairs Brenna Kincaid, the SnowDancer wolf who was kidnapped in the first book, Slave to Sensation, with Judd Lauren, a Psy who defected from the PsyNet with his family to save them from rehabilitation. The entire Lauren clan has been harbored by the SnowDancers ever since, and as a former soldier, Judd sometimes helps them with sticky situations involving the Psy, while trying to keep the full nature of his powers under wraps. In the previous two novels, we’ve had female Psys coupled with male leopard changelings, so this new pairing of a female wolf changeling and a male Psy was an intriguing one that I looked forward to exploring, and I wasn’t disappointed. Most of the heroes in this series so far have been pretty intensely alpha, which is always a hit and miss proposition for me. Whether I like an alpha male depends on how he’s written. When I discovered in the previous book that Judd seemed equally as alpha as the changelings, I had a few reservations, but they soon dissipated in light of his sexiness and vulnerabilities. Brenna was the perfect mate for him, a strong woman with a few alpha tendencies of her own, but an underlying gentleness and vulnerabilities that made her likable and relatable. So I very much enjoyed this book, which has edged into the top spot as my current favorite of the series so far.After her ordeal of being kidnapped, tortured, and brutally mind-raped by a powerful Psy serial killer, Brenna was a broken shell of her former self. It’s taken a lot of time and work with Sascha, the empathic, healer Psy, to find some peace and normalcy in her life again. But just as things start settling down for her, she begins to have frightening, blood-soaked dreams and visions that are more Psy in nature than changeling, leaving her believing that her captor did something to alter her mind and that she might be going crazy. These episodes have a tendency to leave her extremely agitated and the only person who seems to be able to calm her is Judd. She’s deeply attracted to him on a physical level, but with the cold, emotionless Psy existence brought about by the Silence Protocol ruling his life, she’ll have her work cut out for her convincing her Psy protector that they’re meant to be together. Brenna is a very strong young woman who had a promising career ahead of her in the technical field. She has a genius-level mind that proves extremely helpful in sending a message to the Psy after they attack defenseless changelings. She’s still affected by the things done to her during her kidnapping ordeal, but she’s determined to put it all behind her and live the fullest life she can, which I found very admirable. She’s often the pursuer in her relationship with Judd and refuses to give up on him finding a way for them be together.Judd was trained as an Arrow, one of the elite Psy soldiers, from a very young age. Ever since taking refuge with the SnowDancers, he’s been working as a freelance operative, making hits on Psy targets under instructions from the Ghost, a mysterious person with high-level intelligence who is trying to dismantle some Psy structures. The SnowDancers also sometimes use him for certain purposes, but haven’t yet fully integrated him into pack life. Judd has a powerful telekinetic gift that makes him a lethal killer. In fact, before Silence, those with his talents always ended up accidentally killing someone they cared about. Under Silence, he’s able to keep himself in check, but it also means that every time he gets close to Brenna, his own body rebels against him, causing him great pain that will eventually kill him if he maintains his course. He soon realizes that being without Brenna isn’t really a choice, but he isn’t sure if it’s possible to undo the extensive programming of his mind to make a relationship work. Judd may be a hardened soldier, but he has a sexy intensity that I like in my alphas. Although he has the typical cold, robotic, Psy veneer on the outside, I could sense a gentler heart beating inside. For quite a while, he braves a significant amount of pain to be with Brenna, which IMHO, showed how much he loves and cares for her. His virginal status brings a small touch of sweetness to his character, but he’s no slouch in the bedroom, using that logical Psy brain of his to plan an incredibly sexy seduction for their first time together while giving freely and generously of himself during their love scenes which again showed his tender side.As with seemingly all the Psy-Changeling books, Caressed by Ice boasts a plethora of supporting characters to make things interesting, so many that it’s sometimes hard to keep track of them all. There are the members of the Psy council working in the background in an effort to maintain what they see as order, but which is usually damaging to society as a whole. Some of them get their own short POV scenes, including Kaleb, who I’m starting to have suspicions about. I’m eager to see how his part in the greater story-arc plays out, and to eventually see him as the hero of book #12, Heart of Obsidian. Then we have lots of changelings from both the SnowDancer and DarkRiver packs. On the cat side, we have Lucas and Sascha (Slave to Sensation), Dorian (Hostage to Pleasure), and Faith (Vision of Heat). Since this is primarily a wolf story, there are lots of wolves present, including Brenna’s brothers, Riley, who ends up paired with DarkRiver lieutenant, Mercy, in book #6, Branded by Fire, and Drew, who’ll be coupled with SnowDancer lieutenant, Indigo, in book #9, Play of Passion. Then there’s Hawke, the SnowDancer alpha, who will get a romance with Judd’s niece, Sienna, in book #10, Kiss of Snow. I felt a little tension between these two even though Sienna is still just a teenager, so I’m pleased to see this future pairing. And finally, Judd’s brother, Walker, will find love with SnowDancer healer, Lara, in the novella, “Texture of Intimacy,” from Wild Invitation. I very much look forward to eventually reading all these characters’ stories.Overall, Caressed by Ice was a wonderful read. There were a couple of tiny things that made me waver just a bit on my rating, but in the end, I had to give it the full five stars. Judd and Brenna play off of each other so well, and have a tendency to electrify the pages whenever they’re together, making me love this pairing. There’s also lots of intrigue going on in the background, as we learn more about the overarching Psy agenda that I hope will eventually be dismantled, as well as who killed one of the SnowDancers and why. This part was nicely tied in to events both in this book and a past story. This was a book that really kept me on my toes, trying to keep up with everything that was going on, but at the same time, it didn’t really skimp on the romance which was a major plus. Everything put together makes this book a highly recommended read from my perspective, and really makes me look forward to both the next book and the rest of the series.