I was really invested in the story. The Psy and changeling lore was really interesting and the philosophical questions on the importance of emotions were fascinating. 
But the relationships between the characters? Mhm. Difficult. It is made quite clear again and again that all characters in romantic relationships consent to the behaviour that their partners, specifically their changeling partners, portray. Yet consent is quite frankly a slippery slope in this book. A lot of the phrasing of thoughts, wants, wishes, etc. from the male mc are very worrying. And while the female mc's thoughts voice consent, some of it is given because she knows he needs it. Which is..a little uncomfortable.
I still had fun following the plot but you can bet that I wanted to punsh several characters multiple times.

It's okay. It's sort of similar to the first book where Sasha had to use herself as bait to identify the killer... Faith had to do the same thing. I like the hints that there's more to her father than they know. That's cool.

 

What did I tell you? The “I need a paranormal romance series to binge” bug has bitten me. I started this one basically immediately after finishing Slave to Sensation and here I am, like 24 hours late, already done. Now granted, I did have some plane travel hours in there, so the reading time was higher than normal (as a percentage of my “hours in the day” as compared to regular life), but still. I called it. And here we are. 

In this second installation of the Psy-Changeling paranormal romance series, we get the mating of Vaughn D’Angelo and Faith NightStar. Vaughn is a sentinel in the DarkRiver Pack of which our previous male MC (Lucas Hunter) is alpha. However, Vaughn is not a leopard, but rather a jaguar, adopted by the Pack after almost going feral to survive being abandoned by his parents as a child. So his animal side is much closer to the surface than many of the other changelings. Faith is a powerful F-Psy, meaning she has visions of the future (very beneficial for Psy business interests). She’s been kept basically in isolation since she was a child “for her own protection.” But Faith is feeling the cracks in her emotionless façade and when she seeks out the DarkRiver Pack to try and speak to Sascha about it, her interactions with Vaughn are hot and heavy from the start. But though they may have a connection that will overcome her Psy emotionlessness, that doesn’t mean the Psy are ready to lose such a major asset, so soon after Sascha, without a fight. 

Well, the “this is pretty much what you expect it to be” review from the first book in this series could, potentially, be copy and pasted here. So may of the aspects remained the same. Which, I realize, could be taken in a negative way. But I’m here to tell you that the part of me that was so ready for this binge is very happy with that. I want exactly what this series is giving. It’s such a low stakes and highly entertaining reading experience. 

There was definitely a different kind of sexual heat in this one, with the tension and build-up being the primary “steam” factors, since due to Faith’s intense touch sensitivity, she has to slow roll that part. And the “alpha male” vibe was, if anything, stronger here. But also, for all that, maybe healthier? Because Faith needed so much time/space, and Vaughn was deeply careful for his part, there was an interesting dichotomy in his extreme animal-ness and the intensity with which he held back. That gave this story a little something different. And while the “you have to choose: changeling mate or Psy loyalty” aspect was the same too, because of the “future visions” piece (and the related mental health scare involved) there was a unique tension as well. Again, it made it different enough, while still holding to the original formula. Past that, there was a bit more expansion as far as world-building, which I did enjoy, since, as I mentioned in the review for Slave to Sensation, there was some really cool psychic/mental power sci-fi type details. And the way this one developed gave some great, but not overbearing, foreshadowing for future plotlines and Psy-changeling relations on a larger level, which holds promise for the future books in the series to stay fresh. 

I flew through this second book, because now that I’m more familiar with the world, the page-turning is happening even faster – the details build on the structure I’m already comfortable with. I like Faith and Vaughn together more than Sascha and Lucas, I think, (though I was excited with how involved in the story those two remained – I’m glad we aren’t fully leaving behind each couple as we move onto future main characters in the romances), but I also feel like their story is not going to stick out as far as details, more an overall vibe of liking them better as a pairing. This second one stood up/added to the first well, for me, and I’m already getting started on book three!  

I really enjoyed the first book in the series, but this one was, for the most part, a massive disappointment. My first problem is that it uses a lot of the same elements as the first romance: a possessive Changeling man and a repressed, more naive Psy woman. Because we'd already been over a lot of these concepts and seen the great initial worldbuilding, a lot of this feels like a pale imitation. But many of the things that did feel different about their dynamic made me really uncomfortable. Vaughn is incredibly aggressive and possessive and one of his traits is that he's more "animal" than the other shifters, while Faith, as an F-Psy who can predict the future, is more "delicate"--she's been sequestered for most of her life, and touch can make her spiral and is (at first) incredibly physically and emotionally uncomfortable for her. 

Because of these elements to their characters, a lot of their interactions involve Vaughn ignoring her boundaries. And yes, to an extent there's a good plot reason: Faith has to be able to live in the world and accept stimuli. But the extent to which it happens, and the way it's mingled with Vaughn giving in to his attraction to her, is really gross to me. 

Some quotes that I highlighted because they made me uncomfortable (and these aren't all of them): 

Another element of the plot is that Vaughn could lose control and hurt Faith during sex/foreplay. Even though he's terrified of hurting her and doesn't end up doing so, I really don't like that as a conflict/theme. It plays into this idea that men don't want to hurt women, but sometimes it just happens. We're also given to understand that he needs to have sex with her without waiting too long because she's his mate. While I understand that Changelings need touch, the focus on him needing to have sex also plays into harmful ideas about men and women. (To be fair, at a later point he does tell her that he won't die from blue balls, and that if he's going "cat", she should leave the situation and not worry about him.) 

The last third of the book really picked up. One thing that I liked about Faith and Vaughn's romance is that they completed their mating bond a little earlier than Sascha and Duncan. It was nice to see them together as a slightly more settled couple, and I actually really enjoyed them after that point. What we did get of the politics and further worldbuilding is really good; I loved learning about the NightStar family, seeing more of the Council, and especially the NetMind. I will be continuing this series because I've heard that the third book is one of the best, and that it switches up the dynamic from a male Changeling and female Psy. 

Faith and Vaughn really don’t click as a couple for me although I like each of them individually. This is a fairly gripping story about Faith, the loss of a sister she barely knew, the ethics of having a power like precognition and how it should be used, the tension between whether her handlers are protecting her or using her. Vaughn is The Prince to Faith as Rapunzel, necessary to the story but not very important.