The Stolen Child: A Novel

Keith Donohue's sparkling debut novel was first presented by the publisher as a "bedtime story for adults." Intrigued by comparisons to Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell and The Confessions of Max Tivoli, we dipped into the book, only to find ourselves transported into a strange and wonderfully rich story--a perfect blend of literary fantasy and realism that kept us captivated until the very end. Find out what our top reviewers have to say about The Stolen Child, and hear from Keith Donohue about about the origins of the story below. --The Editors

Early Buzz From Amazon.com Top Reviewers

We queried our top 100 reviewers as of April 6, and asked them to read The Stolen Child and share their thoughts. We've included these early reviews below in the order they were received. For the sake of space, we've only included a brief excerpt of each reviewer's response, but each review is available for reading in its entirety by clicking the "Read the review" link. Enjoy!

Harriet Klausner: "Keith Donohue writes a great novel that will have readers debating the impact of nurturing and naturing as both Henrys adapt and adjust, but never feel whole. This is a fantastic fantasy that readers will enjoy immensely." Read Harriet Klausner's review

W. Boudville: "An updated and realistic Peter Pan. Keith Donohue has produced an exquisite first novel. Exceedingly polished prose with a compelling and original twist on a classic theme." Read W. Boudville's review

John Kwok: "Inspired by the W. B. Yeats poem "The Stolen Child", Keith Donohue's novel of the same title is a fine addition to the fantasy literature genre, yet told with the ample realism one expects from great works of mainstream literature." Read John Kwok's review

A. Joseph Haschka: "The Stolen Child is a fairy tale for adults that transcends standard fare. An ingeniously crafted tale about hobgoblins, is a coming of age story and one about identities both lost and found." Read A. Joseph Haschka's review

Robert Morris: "Donohue brilliantly explores all manner of themes, many of which are found in the most popular fairy tales and nursery rhymes (e.g. fear of separation from one's family, especially from parents). " Read Robert Morris's review

Donald Mitchell: "What would it like to be adopted and have your head full of fantasies? It might feel very much like this story. However, I think a story about an adopted child without the parallel changeling world would have been more interesting. Perhaps I lack a sense of romance and sympathy for the strivings of the dispossessed. If so, the fault is mine, not that of the story." Read Donald Mitchell's review

Joanna Daneman: "I found the writing stunningly simple and gripping. Within minutes, I was completely drawn into this book. I am a very finicky fiction reader, and I was delighted by Donohue's incredibly ability to make sensory experiences real, to make conversations flow naturally and logically--yet leading to surprise after surprise." Read Joanna Daneman's review

Charles Ashbacher: "The book moves back and forth between the two Henry's, how the substitute Henry handles his assimilation into human society and how the original adapts to the society that kidnapped him. It is an interesting story, as both "boys" have different perspectives on the life of a "growing" boy." Read Charles Ashbacher's review

Lawyeraau: "This haunting and beautifully written debut novel had me compulsively turning its pages. I simply could not put it down! The author has created a fantasy world that exists on the cusp of the consciousness of humans. It is a world that is the stuff of fairy tales, only the author has turned it into one that is fitting for adults." Read Lawyeraau's review

Gail Cooke: "It has been called magical, beguiling, remarkable, and vividly imagined. The Stolen Child is all of that, and much more. Keith Donohue's debut novel is an intriguing mix of imagination and reality, a story that reminds us of the joys of being human and the transcendency of love." Read Gail Cooke's review

Grady Harp: "Longing to belong is but one of the essential facts of life that author Keith Donohoe weaves into his debut novel, The Stolen Child, a stunning work of fiction that brings alive an ages old myth involving faeries, hobgoblins, changelings and magical transformations to confront contemporary readers with food for thought about being careful of what you wish for!" Read Grady Harp's review

Lee Carlson: "The story is as much a celebration of memory as it is in belaboring its mysteries. Every character acts in concert to remind the reader of the subtlety of memory along with its power." Read Lee Carlson's review

Daniel Jolley: "Keith Donohue has brought forth a magical debut novel full of insights into childhood and adulthood and the seemingly endless longing that largely defines both. He conjures a world of ancient legend and places it on the outskirts of modern civilization, thereby casting an insightful eye upon both." Read Daniel Jolley's review

An Autobiographical Note from Keith Donohue

My dad used to call me, the middle child of seven, "the youngest of the oldest, and the oldest of the youngest." Being dead smack in the middle of a large Irish American family, it is no wonder that I have felt like a changeling myself now and again. We were just like the Kennedys, without the money or the power.

We lived in a cramped yellow house at the bottom of a steep hill in Pittsburgh. Climbing that street as a small child was like hiking up a mountain, but it instilled a sense of ambition and determination. In the mid-Sixties, we moved to Southern Maryland, to a town so small that there was but a single commercial crossroads with a High's Dairy Store across from Ben Franklin's Five and Dime Store. There were still enough woods and swampland available to allow for hours of exploration and getting lost nearly every day.

On a whim, I went back to Pittsburgh for college and began to write in earnest at Duquesne University, studying under the Pennsylvania state laureate poet Sam Hazo, and putting myself through school through two creative writing scholarships. My dream was to be a novelist, but there weren't any openings.

Upon graduation, and being unable to find a job in the city, I moved back to the Washington area to work for the National Endowment for the Arts, answering the mail for the chairman of the agency. Within four years, I was writing speeches for a new and different chairman, a job I held for the eight years that coincided with what some have called the culture wars. I wrote for the freedom of expression crowd.

Off hours, I went back to school, earned a doctorate in English literature, specializing in modern Irish literature. After stints working on federal child care policy and as a cultural policy analyst, I circled round again to that steep hill and wrote The Stolen Child, figuring that if I was to become that novelist, the time had come to stop dreaming and simply climb.

I'm married, have four children, and am back working at a small embattled agency that gives grants to archives across the country to preserve and publish the records of the American experience. In my spare time, I'm writing another novel about myths in America.

The Story Behind the Story

The very first image that came to me when I began The Stolen Child was of a young boy hiding in a hollow tree, face pressed against its wooden ribs, determined not to be found by anyone. His defiant wish to be alone struck me as a universal gesture--a striking out for independence that children make when frustrated by the confines of childhood. When the changelings come and get that boy, he becomes a victim of his own imagination. He is stolen away by his own worst nightmare.

As concerned as I was about the boy hiding in the tree, I also knew that I wanted to write about an adult struggling to remember the dreams of childhood. He had to be as trapped and frustrated by the strictures of his adulthood. And in order for any drama to exist, these two emotional states must clash.

That's why there are two narrators telling two intertwined stories--one adult trying to remember his "stolen" childhood and one child trapped in time at age seven. Since the conflict is primarily between the grown-up Henry Day and the child Aniday, the story needed some way to make both characters alive, have parallel and mirroring lives, joys and challenges, and allow them to confront one another. I needed some way to make the metaphorical be literal.

That's where the changeling folk myth came in. Changelings and faeries have been around for eons in virtually every culture. They are the mysterious beings flitting around the corner of the imagination, and in many places, faeries and changelings have the reputation of breaking into homes and replacing babies and young children with replicas. Or luring children away from their homes to come live in the wild and become part of their unaging magical tribe. The child is stolen by the faeries, and the faery changeling "becomes" the child.

In reality, the legend grew from real human predicaments dealing primarily with the inability of some parents to care for children with a failure to thrive. They explained away the unwanted children by claiming that they were not human at all, that the changelings had come and stolen their child and left one of their own in its place. Having a changeling rather than a real human made it much easier for parents to get rid of such a child.

Through our wild imaginations and fear of the dark and unknown, the changeling myth evolved into a spooky story. Careful, kid, or the changelings will come get you. Or, conversely, as an explanation for why you're so different from all the rest of the kids; you're actually a changeling.
"The Stolen Child" by William Butler Yeats, is one of the more well-known literary uses of folk legend to comment on the real world. Reading the poem, we get caught up in those wonderful images of "hidden faery vats" and the faeries "whispering to the slumbering trout," but then Yeats gives us, in the final stanza, an idea of the family life that the stolen child is leaving behind. But away he goes, "from a world more full of weeping than he can understand."

How perfect for a story about what it's like to be seven and to remember being seven.

So I asked myself: What if we make the changelings real? What if we have the boy out in the woods with a band of faeries, the flip side of the real world? What if he is replaced by a changeling who can grow up and become the adult, who fools everyone into thinking that he is indeed the real Henry Day, when he knows all along that the authentic Henry is out there in the woods?

That's when the fun began. The two narrators' stories spiraling around and interlocking like a Celtic knot. The changeling who steals Henry Day's life gradually realizes that he, too, was a real human boy once upon a time. He, too, was a stolen child and must struggle to dredge up that childhood and deal with his dreams and his own weeping world. The real Henry Day--now known as Aniday among the faeries--faces what it means to be a part of a fading folk myth at the latter half of the 20th century, and the struggle that all children have coming to terms with their mortality, leaving family behind, and leaving childhood behind in order to find some speck of love, happiness, and the road ahead.

Book Description

Inspired by the W.B. Yeats poem that tempts a child from home to the waters and the wild, The Stolen Child is a modern fairy tale narrated by the child Henry Day and his double.

On a summer night, Henry Day runs away from home and hides in a hollow tree. There he is taken by the changelings—an unaging tribe of wild children who live in darkness and in secret. They spirit him away, name him Aniday, and make him one of their own. Stuck forever as a child, Aniday grows in spirit, struggling to remember the life and family he left behind. He also seeks to understand and fit in this shadow land, as modern life encroaches upon both myth and nature.

In his place, the changelings leave a double, a boy who steals Henry’s life in the world. This new Henry Day must adjust to a modern culture while hiding his true identity from the Day family. But he can’t hide his extraordinary talent for the piano (a skill the true Henry never displayed), and his dazzling performances prompt his father to suspect that the son he has raised is an imposter. As he ages the new Henry Day becomes haunted by vague but persistent memories of life in another time and place, of a German piano teacher and his prodigy. Of a time when he, too, had been a stolen child. Both Henry and Aniday obsessively search for who they once were before they changed places in the world.

The Stolen Child is a classic tale of leaving childhood and the search for identity. With just the right mix of fantasy and realism, Keith Donohue has created a bedtime story for adults and a literary fable of remarkable depth and strange delights.

Customer Reviews:

A Story of Progress and of Stagnation.......2007-10-02

This was one of the best novels that I've read this year. What stood out for me was the importance of valuing one's life and appreciating the here and now--be it family, friends, or the community. The changes that Henry and the changeling experienced represented the immature human desire for the greener grass on the other side of the fence. Despite the moving ups and downs for Henry and the changling community, I could not help but wonder what would happen if the changelings decided to just grow up. There were so many unnecessary sacrifices because the changlings chose to hide and not to become apart of society. Through the use of the prose, The Stolen Child demonstrated the pitfalls of a lack of faith, low self esteem, and fear of the unknown. But all is not lost, we get to see the changlings grow into self actualized beings with peace for their station in life and hope for what they can become.

Hobgoblins and Children.......2007-09-26

This is definitely a fairy tale, the story of a little boy, stolen from his family and exchanged with a "changeling" to give that once stolen child another chance at a life--even if it isn't theirs to have. As the old myths go, a changeling was the child of hobgoblins, switched from the child's bed while the family slept or worked, unaware of the evil deed going on right beneath their noses. This story has a different take though--the changelings were all once children themselves, who spend years in the forest forgetting who they once were and preparing to switch yet another child and take their life. No parents in the forest.

The author narrates the story from both points of view--the child and the changeling, alternating chapters. The writing is compelling and beautiful--descriptions of the "indifferent children of the earth" and their lives abound, and are lyrical and strangely beautiful, and sad.

All in all a great read, although I felt at the end the story lacked a real emotional connection for me. I grew to care for Aniday and Henry Day and their respective families; but the ending didn't provide the closure I felt the story really needed. Still, it was an interesting study of the changeling myth and what those stories could really mean.

Steals your Soul.......2007-09-25

The sometimes not-to-be-taken-too-seriously fantasy genre is served well by Keith Donohue's novel, "The Stolen Child." Using the changeling legend as a basis, Donohue explores complicated themes that may include growing older with a diminishing sense of self-worth, the search for identity, unhappiness caused by unrequited desire or restlessness attributed to middle-classed conformity. Whatever the focal point, Donohue does a magnificent job of entertaining even if none of the seriousness I perceive to be inherent within the novel's pages is intentional.

On face value, Donohue could just be exercising his whimsical side by revitalizing a well-known fairytale ala Gregory Maguire in "Mirror, Mirror," or "Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister." If this is the case, he does this well, beginning his tale in the 1950s when a small child is kidnapped by a band of hobgoblins and replaced by a changeling who has waited for over a hundred years to leave the Peter Pan Never Never Land world of the fey to reclaim his former humanity in the smaller universe of a real family. Using the technique of alternating narrations, Donohue allows Anyday, the stolen child, and Henry Day, the changeling, to tell the story from both perspectives. As Anyday struggles with his forever child fate, bemoans the loss of his family and learns the ways of the wild, Henry is torn between successfully impersonating the boy he has replaced and remembering the child he once was long ago when he had been abducted a century earlier. With a deft assuredness, Donohue writes prose that moves the story along interjecting fantasy with reality while still maintaining a real feel.

Whatever his intention, along the way he uncovers issues that have little to do with the realm of the fantastic and much to do with living in general. As Anyday becomes increasingly fey, he grapples with his loss of memory and recalling one of the last skills learned as a human child, writes down his story to assuage his unhappiness and remember his one time identity. In almost the same way, the changeling evokes a talent from a previous childhood almost forgotten; he plays piano like a young Mozart. As he strives to forget the wild, he uses his artistry to assimilate into the conformity of life as a human. As he transitions, Henry Day regains his sense of compassion and through his music begs forgiveness from the person whose life he stole. Likewise, Anyday relishes his sense of freedom and forever childishness and literally runs away from something he can never have and really doesn't need.

On another level, Donohue allows the reader a glimpse at the human psyche, yet he doesn't compromise his story with an overabundance of metaphors and symbols. No underlying hackneyed meanings or moralistic message cancel out the magic that Donohue so effortlessly infuses within his work. Donohue could be commenting on the mediocrity of the middleclass lifestyle; Henry Day and Anyday may represent two sides of the same persona, simultaneously desiring the conformity necessary to make it in the everyday world and yet coveting the freedom of never having to grow up while living without rules in the wild.

Bottom line: "The Stolen Child" represents superlative reading. The mythical quality of the prose sends the reader into the realm of fantasy while the intense emotional confessions of each character resonate with a poignancy classic in its perfection. Highly, highly recommended.
Diana Faillace Von Behren
"reneofc"

Haunting literary novel about identity, loss, love, family.......2007-09-23

This has many markings of a successful novel. Fantasy element; check. But grounded in the world, check. Same events seen via two perspectives (aka The Time-Traveler's Wife), check. Insertion of a cultural motif like painting or music, check. One or several characters with a sad history and intense yearning as a result, check. Beautiful writing, check check check.

The title comes from WB Yeats' famed poem, "The Stolen Child." Changelings will often lure a child away from the real world into the faery one, and put in its place a changeling disguised as the stolen child. In Donahue's novel, a child is taken and, bereft of his true name and longed-for home and family, becomes a changeling himself, one who waits for the day he can return to the human world, but only as an imposter, and not before the rest of the changeling crew get their turns.

The novel speaks eloquently and often quite hauntingly of the loss of identity, love, family, and the great desire to belong. There were nights when I read certain passages and ached for the changeling who dreamed of the people and things he'd lost; surely we too - whether we did once upon a time or still do - dream of the people and things gone from our lives.

The Feel-bad Book of theYear.......2007-09-19

Take a story about fairies and remove all the magic, and you've got a pretty good idea of what The Stolen Child is like. Parents used to use stories about changelings to frighten children into behaving, but the story here is much more likely to bore than frighten. Both the stolen child and the fairy who replaces him suffer serious trauma that leads to severe identity crises, leaving one to lead a "normal" life that isn't any fun, and the other to lead a "magic" life that is even less fun. Rather than enjoying their magical powers, the fairies are reduced to a pathetic "endangered species" whose life become more and more miserable as their habitat shrinks, driving the survivors to suicide.

While this twist on a familiar fairy tale provides some intellectual satisfaction, nobody in the book is having a good time, making it difficult for the reader to do so. The "big revelation" never comes, and the "redemptive ending" is simply a matter of the characters resigning themselves to accept their lot and muddle through as best they can. Oh boy.

Visions of Heat (The Psy-Changeling Series, Book 2) (Berkley Sensation)

Average customer rating:

I LOVE this series!
This talented author has done it again for me.
More than it seems
Second in Psy/Changeling Series
Still happy.

Visions of Heat (The Psy-Changeling Series, Book 2) (Berkley Sensation)
Nalini Singh
Manufacturer: Berkley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Book Description

Hailed as a major new talent in paranormal romance, Nalini Singh takes us deeper into the world of the Psy and the changelings in her latest extraordinary novel, where a gifted woman sees passion in her future-a passion that is absolutely forbidden by her kind... Used to cold silence, Faith NightStar is suddenly being tormented by dark visions of blood and murder. A bad sign for anyone, but worse for Faith, an F-Psy with the highly sought after ability to predict the future. Then the visions show her something even more dangerous-aching need...exquisite pleasure. But so powerful is her sight, so fragile the state of her mind, that the very emotions she yearns to embrace could be the end of her. Changeling Vaughn D'Angelo can take either man or jaguar form, but it is his animal side that is overwhelmingly drawn to Faith. The jaguar's instinct is to claim this woman it finds so utterly fascinating and the man has no argument. But while Vaughn craves sensation and hungers to pleasure Faith in every way, desire is a danger that could snap the last threads of her sanity. And there are Psy who need Faith's sight for their own purposes. They must keep her silenced-and keep her from Vaughn...

Customer Reviews:

I LOVE this series! .......2007-10-01

I didn't read these in the correct order, but that was okay; it's a tiny bit better if you do, though. I loved all the psy/changeling series, can't wait for more!
Very decent alpha heroes, and wonderful, competent heroines. Lots of suspenseful action. And the world building that goes into this series by Nalini Singh is awesome. Every novel is so compelling, so fascinating. The secondary characters are also good, particularly if you follow them through the series. I love the cubs.

This talented author has done it again for me........2007-09-26

I'll bet the people at Berkley Sensation are dancing little jigs in delight for having this wonderfully talented writer on their list. I read SLAVE TO SENSATION and was bowled over by Nalini Singh's talent. Now I've finished VISIONS OF HEAT and cannot believe how seamlessly the two books work together. If at all possible, I would recommend reading SLAVE TO SENSATION first. It lays all the groundwork for the paranormal environment where the books take place. VISIONS OF HEAT can be read as a stand-alone book, but I am personally glad that I had already met so many of the characters depicted in this book. It was wonderful to revisit Saschia and Lucas along with all the other Changelings from book one.

Faith NightStar was unaware of the fact that her subconscious had been preparing her for the changes which were about to take place in her life. Living in total isolation, within her own compound, she had time to read anything and everything which caught her interest. Only later did she see that she had been choosing reading material which would help her understand the world she would walk into when she went in search of Saschia Duncan, the E-Psy who had escaped the PsyNet shortly before. Faith needed the empath to tell her why she had begun to "feel" emotions during her dreams. Dreams which had become increasingly dark and frightening. Due to the Silence Protocol, Psy did not feel any emotions. Was this a sign that Faith was beginning to go insane? If her handlers thought so, she would be placed under protection, used as long as she could predict financial data accurately, and then be left to exist within her deranged mind until her body finally died.

Vaughn D'Angelo was a true alpha male in personality, even though he was not the alpha of the Changeling pack. His interactions with Faith were so crucial to her ability to survive in the world outside her bubble existence. His past history explained why he was always much closer to being jaguar than human. Too many weeks on his own at a young age had left him closer to feral than human. Together these two damaged individuals helped each other through feelings of guilt and fear so that Vaughn could claim Faith as his mate, and she could submit to all that term meant.

I loved it. Some reviewers wanted it to be "hotter". Not me. With these books, the story, the plotline, the building of block upon block is the ultimate pleasure. Yes, there are sensual moments. No, they are not excessive. I look forward to book 3, CARESSED BY ICE, due out soon. Nalini Singh is peppering her books thusfar with lots and lots of potential heros and heroines for future adventures. I look forward to many stories in this fascinating universe.

More than it seems.......2007-09-24

Having heard that this book was too much like the first one in this series, I was expecting a letdown. I can happily say that I definitely *don't* agree with whomever made that assessment!

Of course, there are some similarities. The first in this series - Slave to Sensation - was about a female Psy overcoming her lifelong Silence conditioning to learn how to feel again, helped and encouraged by her attraction to a Changeling leopard.

Visions of Heat also chronicles the struggle of a female Psy to overcome her conditioning and learn to love a Changeling, this time Jaguar. But other than that, it is quite different.

Faith, the heroine in Visions of Heat, starts off in a much more difficult place than Sascha did in Slave to Sensation. She has been isolated all of her life, is constantly monitored by others, and her talent hasn't given been giving her flashes of emotion all her life. She is basically fully Silenced. But her talent is manifesting some new twists - very uncomfortable ones - and she needs to find a way to manage them without causing her monitors to clamp down even tighter.

So, she sneaks out to see if Sascha can help her. Sascha does, but mostly, it's Vaughn, the Jaguar that intercepts her in Changeling lands and immediately begins challenging her conditioning with constant touching.

At first she is afraid that all this touch and emotion Vaughn is exposing her to will damage her, cause her to shut down entirely, especially on top of the stresses her foresight talent has recently been giving her. But Vaughn lets instinct guide him and quickly learns when to push and when to give her some space.

Eventually she is able to throw off her conditioning enough to be with Vaughn. Vaughn is a quintessential alpha hero - strong, possessive, challenging and just a little bad. Any woman would be thrilled to have all that intensity focused on her, and Faith isn't stupid. She figures out that it's worth the trouble.

These characters have to work pretty hard to get to their happy ending and with Faith's unique talent, there is no guarantee of forever. But I found this story very satisfying, while still leaving me curious about the next installment.

This author has created an incredibly detailed world for this series and introduces new, interesting ideas in each book. I'm very excited to see where it goes - not just with the main characters of each romance, but with the overarching concepts she is explaining as she goes along. I can only wish I had an imagination like hers!

If you enjoy something different, something creative to go along with the emotional ups and downs of the hero and heroine, pick up the Psy-Changling series. If you're like me, you'll be thrilled you did.

Second in Psy/Changeling Series.......2007-09-23

For anyone who hasn't read the first book in the series (Slave to Sensation), Visions of Heat is set on an alternative history Earth, where the planet is populated by three races: - Changelings - shapeshifters who rely on their animal instincts, The Psy who are emotionless and cold, and human beings. I would recommend you read Slave to Sensation first if possible, as there are plotlines started there that continue into VoH.

Faith NightStar is an F-Psy (F-foresight) tormented by dark visions (no pun intended :)). Unsure of what is happening to her and not wanting to reveal her fragile state of mind to the Psy Council she seeks out Sascha Duncan (Slave to Sensation) the only Psy known to be free of the Psynet. It's while she is looking for Sascha that she meets Vaughn D'Angelo, a jaguar Changeling who is inexplicably drawn to Faith. (I note here that Vaughn is an incredibly alpha hero, almost to the point of being unbearable on a couple of occasions.)

I've read on some reviews that there is a preference for Sascha (the heroine of StS) over Faith. I however, like Faith, she's a contradiction - incredibly fragile, but at the same time so single-minded she manages to push herself farther than she thinks she can go.

It almost seems like the relationship between the two of them shouldn't work. Vaughn the irresistible force willing Faith to take on more. Faith the immovable object giving in. And yet they fit, in a way I don't think either of them would be able to with anybody else. I wish the book had been longer so we could see this relationship evolve even further.

One of the things I really enjoyed was the continuance of plot threads from StS - we meet up with Sascha and Lucas again, and it's interesting to see how much Sascha has changed between books. There has also been fallout from the incident at the end of StS and this is still being dealt with by the Psy Council, who, if possible, got scarier. We also find out more about how the Psynet itself functions and get a hint of how this will impact the Psy. Visions of Heat is perhaps not as intense as Slave to Sensation and we're now clued into how this alternative world works; but there is an awful lot here to mull over.

I very much like how the overall arc of the series is developing. Nalini Singh starts to increase the tension in Visions of Heat and I can't wait for Caressed by Ice.

Still happy........2007-09-03

I finished this some time ago. Actually the day it came out but didn't get around to reviewing it until now.

Yes I am still happy with Nalini Singh and this series. Can't wait for the next one!! The series has not yet lost focus on the main plot. The character were very well built and story very well written.

Highly recommended.

Slave to Sensation (The Psy-Changelings, Book 1)

Average customer rating:

Unique outlook on paranormal romance. Some pages were skimmed for TMI about technical stuff.
Slave to Sensation
Fresh new story
A wonderful surprise!
One of my favourites from 2006

Slave to Sensation (The Psy-Changelings, Book 1)
Nalini Singh
Manufacturer: Berkley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Book Description

THE HOT NEW NAME IN PARANORMAL ROMANCE.

Nalini Singh dives into a world torn apart by a powerful race with phenomenal powers of the mind-and none of the heart.

Born a Psy, Sascha Duncan must hide the emotions which mark her as flawed. But a passionate Changeling will tempt her to reveal everything-and risk her very soul.

Customer Reviews:

Unique outlook on paranormal romance. Some pages were skimmed for TMI about technical stuff........2007-10-03

I enjoyed reading about a whole new paranormal society. Nalini Singh creates a fantasy future unlike any other. She uses true California locations, based around the year 2080. Her world includes 3 types of species... human, changelings (predatory cat/ humans & wolf/ humans), and Singh's own creation: a species of people known as "Psy".

The Psy have bred all emotions out of their people. They exist only for the sake of gaining power through cold efficiency. If any of their breed show emotion, they are considered "broken". Broken Psy are sent to a clinic to have their mind chemically washed, leaving them vegetables. If any Psy tries to leave their community, called "PsyNet", they will instantly die from the lack of interaction with other Psy minds.

Lucas Hunter is panther/ human changeling of the DarkRiver Pack. As alpha of his pack, he is heading an investigation to find a Psy who has been murdering female changelings. To get the info he needs, he enters into a construction contract with the Duncan family of the Psy. Sascha Duncan is going to be working closely with Lucas on the construction of homes. Neither Lucas or Sascha knows that the other is only in the contract as a means for finding info on the other species.

Early into the contract, Lucas recognizes that Sascha is different from most Psy. She reacts and shows hints of emotion. Sascha is doing her best to hide that she is "broken". If her species finds out, they will send her to the clinic to be brain- washed. As she learns more about Lucas and his pack, she has no choice but to accept that there is a murderer among her species.

Lucas has begun to acknowledge that Sascha is more than a business contact. She is his life- mate. He makes it his goal to convince her that she is not "broken", but gifted. The affection and protective possessiveness that Lucas shows for Sascha works to break down her personal barriers. Now Sascha will sacrifice everything to help save the pack of changelings who have made her one of their own. Facing off with the murdering Psy will mean exposure of her emotions. Sascha would rather be killed by breaking away from the life force of the PsyNet than be sent to the clinic. When Lucas discovers that he can save her for a few months by giving her half his life force, he decides he would rather die with her than live without her. Neither can bare letting the other die. Neither can find an answer to save them both.

Overall, a great story with vivid landscapes and intricate personalities. About 3/4 of the way through, I skimmed some pages that got too detailed about how the PsyNet works, etc... There were some pages with too much planning for the future actions to capture the murderer as well. Some of this would have been better left a mystery. Another slowing point was the reiteration of Sascha's sorrow and hopelessness for a future with Lucas. The martyrdom was a bit too much.

After all of that detail, the whole thing is solved in just a few pages. We don't get to actually "be there" when the murderer is caught. We are just quickly told about how it happened. The dilemma involving saving Lucas and Sascha was wrapped up in one paragraph. I would have preferred less planning 3/4 of the way through the book, and much more solid solutions at the end.

The Pack is terrific. Loyal and fierce, there is nothing they won't do for one another. They show affection openly and share in the caring of the young. The males are very possessive. The females are strong and independent, many of them warriors. The Pack made the story for me.

Slave to Sensation.......2007-09-25

I thought this was a very interesting premise and a very good book. In it the Psy (those with physic gifts) have been taught since birth to repress all feelings and don't touch others-if they don't do so they will be rehabed into walking vegetables. The Changelings can change between human and animal form and are very into their feelings and touching. This is the romance between a psy and a changeling and about the couple helping to track down a psyco-killer. The second book in this series is good too, but these kind of books always make me feel like us regular humans are just not "good" or "special" enough to attract anyone. But that is my own prejudice.

Fresh new story.......2007-09-18

This is a fresh new author, at least for me. I believe this is her first paranormal novel. Nonetheless, it has a well developed premise and fully fleshed out world.

One of the races in Ms. Singh's world are the Psy, who have trained themselves to suppress all emotion. Ms. Singh did an excellent job of believably transitioning her heroine from coldly dispassionate to deeply in love and learning to express her emotions - always a tricky proposition.

Overall, an excellent entry into the paranormal arena. Ms. Singh is an author to watch and I'm very much looking forward to getting the second book in this series!

A wonderful surprise!.......2007-09-17

I hesitated in buying this book. While I normally read time-travel, paranormal romance, I simply couldn't see how a science fiction wolf book could work. (Yes, I know they are out there but I simply don't enjoy them.) I enjoy Sci Fi but I usually want to separate it from romance. First, if you are now or have ever been a Sci-Fi nut AND a romance genre person, you will REALLY enjoy this book. I found myself caught in the intricasies of Singh's description of the Psy Net she has created here. If you enjoy Feehan or J.R. Ward then this is probably right up your alley. The female isn't quite strong enough for me, but then I'm not a sweet young thing myself anymore and I want my characters to have alot more spine then women in the romance genre generally have. But again, What a great writer! This is no throw-down romance. You'll think while you read it and hey, the sex is great! :-) In a sea of average books out there, most of which I've read and not been able to finish, this is really a find. I'm off to pick up the next two in the series and from me, ever determined not to spend more money on books, that is a real compliment!

One of my favourites from 2006.......2007-08-27

Slave to Sensation is an alternative history paranormal, set in the year 2079 on an Earth populated by three races: the Psy - emotionless and cold, the shapeshifting Changelings who rely on their animal instincts, and humans.

From the moment that Lucas Hunter (Changeling) and Sascha Duncan (Psy) meet there is a chemistry between them that fairly leaps off the page. This causes conflict as Lucas is a creature of instinct and sensation, whilst Sascha must maintain a facade of logic and efficiency at all costs.

Although it is the love story between Lucas and Sascha that is the driving force behind the narrative. The reason this book works so well is because you can immerse yourself in the world that Nalini Singh has created. The dynamics of both pack (Changeling) and Psy life are well-explained and the book is populated with interesting characters that give the story an added depth. And at the same time leave you wanting to know more about them. :)

One of the things I like is that it's made clear that both species are equally capable of brutality. Psy who don't conform to the acceptable standards of the Silence live with the constant threat of rehabilitation (mind-wiping) at the Center. Whilst the Changelings live under a territorial law that can erupt into violence. However, the reader does come down on the side of the Changeling way of life with its emphasis on family and pack.

There are one or two slips, but when the standard of storytelling is this high, they are easily forgiven. This is one of the best paranormals I've read and I would rank it with J.R.Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood as one of my favourite series.

Also available
Visions of Heat (Book 2)
Caressed by Ice (Book 3)

Changeling: The Dreaming, Second Edition

Average customer rating:

Great game, but not for all
the last hope
5 stars from a french roleplayer
Changeling is Great for People Who Like Low Powered Games
A good idea gone bad

Changeling: The Dreaming, Second Edition
Ian Lemke , Jackie Cassada , Brian Campbell , Richard E. Dansky , Chris Howard , Angel McCoy , Neil Mick , and Nicky Rea
Manufacturer: White Wolf Games Studio
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Puzzles & Games | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

Changeling | Gaming | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 1565047168

Customer Reviews:

Great game, but not for all.......2006-03-27

This is a wonderful, comprehensive book. Even if you only have this to work with, you can run a successful Changeling game. Changeling is, by the way, my favorite of not only the WhiteWolf games but of all games I've played - so I admit I am quite biased. Changeling is well put together and a joy to play; however, since it is quite different from the rest of the WhiteWolf pantheon it is not for everyone. Hope is a strong aspect of this game, whereas the other games - Vampire, Wraith, etc. - lack that particular element. Changeling has it's dark sides, too, but the system is much more malleable and can easily range the entire spectrum of emotional settings at the GM's discression.

the last hope.......2004-06-03

so youve played a vampire where you suck the life out of humans

youve played a werewolf where you go crazy and kill humans

youve played a mage where most humans who know about you want to kill you.

enter, changeling the dreaming, a world of darkness game that allows for a bit more. most people at first look pass off changeling as a bunch of shiny happy people, they couldnt be furthur from the truth. changeling has its dark side and its as black as night. so your this fairy soul trapped inside a human sack of meat, you spend too much time as a human? your fairy side dies. you spend too much time as fae? you go insane. its a good balance, some say that the seelie/unseelie courts have been messed up from the get go and have many other problems. i have problems with most games but luckily whitewolf has the golden rule, if you dont like it, change it, if you dont have enough imagination to adapt something you dont like what are you doing playing rpgs anyway? go back to killing monsters on your console and leave those who roleplay for the joy of the story be.

5 stars from a french roleplayer.......2002-04-01

Yes, we also play changeling in France. And although the first edition has been translated a few years ago, we prefer this one.

Changeling is a great game. I love the seelie/unseelie division which is not a manichean good/bad division. I love the way faeries are somewhat alien to this world and nevertheless part of it.

I love the fight against banality : it's the fight of my life!!

Changeling is Great for People Who Like Low Powered Games.......2002-03-31

Changeling is a great game that is based on fairy tales from around the world. You play one type of Fae or another (anything from a globe-trotting Eshu to a blood-thirsty Redcap). It's hard to make these characters bland and the flightly nature of the Changeling world allows for endless possibilities as long as your GM is flexible. This is not a game for GMs who like to have all their ducks in a row, nor is it a game for people who only like high powered campaigns. It is ideal however, for the low powered player who likes lots of character development. Also, the nature of Changelings makes it very easy for the campaign to stay upbeat if that is your choice. However, Changelings can have all sorts of interactions with other supernaturals, giving the campaign a chance to get dark if that is your desire. The book itself is in full color, and has the most beautiful art work of any Whitewolf book I've seen (the whole Changeling series of books is well done). I can see how Changeling's reputation for being a girls' game is true but guys, if you like character development, you should give this one a try!

A good idea gone bad.......2002-03-01

I'm not particullary fond of fairies, but I seem to enjoy detailed stories of this kind. Not nursery rhymes, but true folklore belief of spirits that seem to be inhabbiting our world many ages before us. Fairies do have their certain charm, and when stories about them can turn nasty enough (which is most of the cases if we study what folklore tells us) this seems like a perfect concet to introduce to White Wolf's excellent World of Darkness.

Meet Changeling. A game where fairies of folklore shield on human hosts to protect themselves from the ravages of unbelief. The concept itself is a great one; one probably even greater than any other World of Darkness concepts.

Unfortunatelly, the main book seems to do it completely wrong. It's written in a way that it seems a nursery tale, and while it mentions a clear seelie/unseelie division among changelings, this division seems more of a plain good/bad one than what the fairy courts originally seemed to mean on Irish folklore.

Rules are completely upside down, too. The magic system (a combination of what you can do (Arts) that is frankly narrow, and to whom you can do it (Realms) that is completely annoying) is the worst White Wolf has ever created. The Kiths (the game splats) are based on wonderous creatures, but the descriptions used are completely uninspired. The Dreaming is a great concept, but how mechanics work around it are too rigid.

Book Description

A ten year veteran of the Providence Rhode Island vice squad Gwen “GiGi” Gellman began her life as a foundling and is used to being on her own. So when she finds herself unemployed and on the outs after a standard bust goes bad resulting in a bloodbath, she welcomes the occasion to break from routine. She scrapes together enough capital to start her own PI business specializing in “family problems.” But, in doing so she never guessed that she would uncover her own mysterious and mystical past.

When GiGi becomes involved in the case of a missing wife and child, she initially dismisses the matter as good sense on the wife’s part--she knows the husband to be less than stellar in his role. But, as her investigation progresses GiGi discovers a pattern of lies and deceptions, some of which expose hidden ties to her own mystifying existence.

Otherworldly powers try to intercede, and soon GiGi finds not only her own life threatened, but those of her friends and family as well.

Customer Reviews:

Follow-up to Shadows in the Darkness.......2007-09-09

Shadows in the Starlight picks up where the first book in the Changeling Detective series ended. Whilst investigating the aftermath of her previous case, Gwen is also looking into the case of a missing wife and child. Once more she finds that her own past is inextricably linked to the case and as she delves deeper she puts not only her own life, but also those of her friends in danger.

Unlike Shadows in the Darkness the elves are much more in evidence here. Anyone who didn't appreciate how manipulative and cruel they can be from the first book will do so by the end of this one. We get a better insight into their machinations and through Gwen we begin to learn how their society works - and it's not pretty. They have an Aryan attitude to humans and imperfections, and it appears anyone who doesn't reach their standards is terminated. Slightly worrying for Gwen who has only manifested two of her three powers.

The reader is slightly ahead of Gwen in knowing what's happening, as once more the beginning and ending of the story are told from another character's point of view. Quite a clever device as it gives us an idea of how out of her depth Gwen is, whilst at the same time we can accept that she's working in the dark with limited information.

There was just one point where I really thought she was stupid. Which is when Ian Forest asks to demonstrate on her how sacred oaths are binding to elves. Even though she patently doesn't believe him I think she should have exercised more caution. Also after this she does become a little trigger happy with the use of this sacred oath. I'd kind of got the feeling that it was used by the other elves only for really important things. But I guess this serves to illustrate how different Gwen's priorities are to the other elves and how her agenda is almost diametrically opposed to theirs. The things that she takes seriously such as a missing human child seem trivial to them.

The story ends with Gwen slightly further along the way to finding out who she is but we are still left with the main arc unresolved. If you haven't read the first book you may struggle a little to get into the story though the main plot points are covered. Recommended for fans of urban fantasy who like a strong PI twist - such as Charlaine Harris's Harper Connelly series or Kat Richardson's Greywalker.

Also available
Shadows in the Darkness (Book 1)

Interesting Sequel.......2007-05-06

In this new Changeling book, it basically picks up right after the first one. Gwen has changed the name of her PI business to have the word "changeling" in it. This time Gwen is trying to find a missing woman and her child who happens to be the wife of one of her friends' ex husband. As she is trying to solve this case she also still ponders on the case of her dead partner. But she soon realizes that she is heir to the property that Edmonson owned. This relates to her case because a powerful drug that effects humans is being grown on the property, which ultimately ties back to her recent case, where the missing woman has many secrets, some that are closely related to Gwen's. Overall a good book, and still a little confusing with all the characters that are involved, but it is still pretty easy to follow.

Didn't live up to the first book's promise.......2007-04-27

I loved the first book, "Shadows in the Darkness" four years ago.

What happened? The book started off with a bang. A young female ME was murdered in a heinous and cruel manner. Then we wait til page 150 to have someone find the body? That was the sole point of the ME. Cunningham let the lady 'talk' and get us to like her, then she killed her. Then we have to wait several days after the heart-rending beginning for the ME to be found. While this is definitely 'real' in the case of crime-solving, the problem is, Cunningham set up a thriller and she certainly did not deliver.

While this is a sequel, I think a little less time mentioning the previous cases would be a good idea. The book second doesn't have to rehash the first in a series to carry on continuity. The jacket tells you pretty much what you need to know.

Further--without spoiling the end, situations do not get better for our heroine. I love serial fiction that addresses a problem in the main book and solves that problem but leaves some teaser threads for us to look forward to later. Cunningham's end just read 'hopeless' to me, reminding me very much of why I don't read the old-line fantasy that doesn't stand alone. The epilogue made me want to throw the stinking book against the wall. If you want to read some of the best stand-alone serial fiction in urban fantasy, try Carrie Vaughn's "Kitty" books, C. E. Murphy's "Walker Papers", and Vicki Petterssen's "Signs of the Zodiac."

Finally, it's often interesting to have multiple points of view in a novel, but if I'd written this story I would not have the antagonist as one of the novels' point of view characters, but in the case of a mystery we need a bit more opacity because quite often the antagonist has given the answer long before our good guy (or in this case, girl) can figure it out.

I really regret buying this book, because I genuinely enjoyed the first and was looking forward to the sequel. I won't be buying the third.

A Solid Second in the Series!.......2006-09-09

This story moves from a single story line to a couple or three parallel ones and from there it kind of turns into a river delta with multiple tributaries of story winding this way and that are related, but meandering into areas where we can't quite see around the next bend. Certainly Cunningham wants to keep us around and needs loads of characters who are not yet fully developed to continue pulling off this series...I suspect that we will NOT be seeing the ocean where all these individual tributaries pour for some time yet.

We start out with Gwen, continued story from the fist book in this series (Shadows in the Darkness) where a bust has gone bad, cops were killed, her mentor died under suspicious circumstances (deemed an accident, but Gwen believes it was murder). We are reintroduced to a lot of characters from the first book, each of whom is multi-layered and comes from a seemingly remarkable background and each of whom (with very few exceptions) seems to have an ulterior motive or secret agenda going on at cross grains to the current story (this is where I assume the author is building up credibility for various story lines for additional books down the line).

We have Gwen who is a remarkable woman...but not really a woman, a changeling, an elf, something she's only just found out about herself and is struggling to come to terms with throughout this book. We get her long time lesbian, lawyer friend, complete with jealous lover and a psycho controlling Ex, whose new wife turns up missing. We also have the African-American male "partner" who happens to come from a long line of "gifted" individuals and a plethora of male characters who are all vying for her attention in one way or another and claiming to want to help her...in the end, who's really on her side? That's what makes this series quite the page turner...you just have to know what the next twist in the plot is going to be!

The one quibble I have is that no one really has any trouble with her "abilities," every character seems to have a bend over backwards acceptance of what she can do without much curiosity or desire for explanation...to me this is the opposite of what happens in say Hooper's books where the incredulousness goes on and on and on until you think you're going to have to throw the book at the wall...this is the other extreme. Everyone is shocked, but no one really says anything or is suspicious of what she can do. Overall it's a small quibble, and I can live with it.

In Gwen we get a feisty, touch, kick-a** heroine, bent on finding out the truth - and that's quite a feat considering she was disgraced as a cop in the previous novel and now makes her living as a P.I. We find out where she is willing to compromise her principles and where she isn't and ultimately, for every question that is answered about the cases she's working on, more and more is alluded to about her own parents death and the more questions we are left with as a result. So, really we learn a lot in this book...but at the same time, we learn so very little. The author is certainly mysterious about the "Qualities" of both Gwen and those like her, about the lives of the "Elder Race," frankly, there are so many facets to this story that it's hard to keep track of them all, but it does make imagining where Cunningham will take this story as she weaves each new world for us to dive into quite fun! This one is fast paced and leaves many possibilities for the future...I, for one, am looking forward to the next one in this series!

Blah, Blah, Blah.......2006-07-17

I had to force myself to finish this book for the sole reason that I ALWAYS finish a book. You never know, sometimes a book is just slow in the start and will eventually pick up pace. Not so with this one. Granted I did not read the first in this series which became apparent after the first ten pages. I had no idea what the author was talking about. Take my advice, don't bother picking up this book if you have not read the first in the series, Shadows in the Darkness, I believe it is called. The author spends the majority of this story going on and on about events and people from the previous book but doesn't elaborate at all on what the situation was previously. It's like evesdropping on total strangers.

I've read books previously and had skipped over early books, but this was just terrible. The first two chapters describe a terrible event, a murder. The author does not even revisit this event until page 150 of the book and there are only 286 pages all together in the entire novel. I'm telling you, she doesn't even mention it. The whole book made me feel like a butterfly flitting around from flower to flower and never making up its mind enough to choose just one or two flowers. I'll not read another.

Changeling (The Sisters of the Moon, Book 2)

Average customer rating:

Loved the book
Go Delilah!
Great book
A little disapointing
good book

Changeling (The Sisters of the Moon, Book 2)
Yasmine Galenorn
Manufacturer: Berkley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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On the Prowl

ASIN: 0425216292

Book Description

"The first in an engrossing new series, [Witchling was] a whimsical reminder of fantasy's importance in life" (Publishers Weekly). Now comes Changeling-again featuring Camille, the good witch, Menolly, the vampire, and Delilah, a feline shapeshifter. They're the D'Artigo sisters, half-human, half-Faerie supernatural agents who are now enlisted to find the fiends responsible for slaughtering the weres of Rainier Puma Pride.

Customer Reviews:

Loved the book.......2007-10-11

This book as well as the previous book (Witchling) are two of my favorite books now. I can't wait for Darkling to come out to read more about the third sister. I also am on pins and needles for the books after to come too. I know Yasmine is hard at work on them. She has quickly become one of my favorite authors. She has a wonderful imagination and her characters really do come alive for me. I believe her personality also comes through in her writing.

Go Delilah!.......2007-10-10

What a surpise! I thought it was better than the first and that says something! This author creates a fantastic world of sensual intrigue in the life of three sisters! I completely associated with Delilah, and I can't wait for Darkling, which I have already pre-ordered!
Keep Smiling and Blessings
Kimmer

Great book.......2007-10-06

The Changeling by Yasmin Galenorn is written very well., a well-crafted portrait of the D'Artigo sisters. I felt all they went through in Witchling and now even more so in Changeling, which is Delilah's story. Delilah is a were and turnes into a beautiful tabby when she becomes stressed or at the full moon. Delilah is torn between her love a FBH (Full Blood Human) and a handsome Were Puma, who has come to her and her detective agency to find out who/what is killing members of his pack.

This story takes over where Witchling leaves off and preps you for Darkling. Yet each of the books could really stand on it own. Like any other series, they go best when read in order. I thoroughly enjoyed this book--each story takes me deeper into the D'Artigo Sisters' world, and I cannot wait to read more of Ms. Galenorn's books.

A little disapointing.......2007-09-27

Delilah is the second of the sisters (see Witchling (The Sisters of the Moon, Book 1). She is a tall athletic blond and a real pussy cat. (She turns into a red/gold tabby when under too much emotional strain or when something tempts the cat too much). Unfortunately she is a changeling and the cat is just a fluke not a heritable trait, so she and others like her are looked down on by weres.

More scout demons are coming and are looking for another of the talismans which would open earth, the otherworld and the underworld to each other.

Some whimsical humor as when she loses it with the decorated Christmas tree and then there is the turkey at the mail petting zoo.

A few typos like the bramble sucker, must be an interesting carnivorous plant.

The characters are still good and the plot not bad but getting obvious and not saved by some decent plot twists.

Overall this reminds me of a FRPG where the heroes are bumbling around collecting allies, artifacts and power until they can defeat the bad guys. As numerous and powerful as the opponents are I don't really see why the whole party is not toast.

good book.......2007-09-17

I loved this book. Couldn't put it down and now I can't wait until the next one comes out.

Average customer rating:

Lots of shorty short sexy stories
Hot, Hot, and did I mention Hot?
10 Fantastic Holiday Stories!
Jingle Balls
Snippets of pure "'Tis the Season" decadence

A Changeling For All Seasons
Angela Knight , Kate Douglas , Shelby Morgen , Kate Hill , Sahara Kelly , Judy Mays , Marteeka Karland , Willa Okati , and Lacey Savage
Manufacturer: Changeling Press LLC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Secrets: The Best in Women's Erotic Romance Vol. 14 (Secrets (Red Sage))
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ASIN: 1595962808

Book Description

A Changeling For All Seasons Ten unforgettable Erotic Tales to warm your nights and keep you in holiday spirits all year long! Angela Knight - A Vampire Christmas Sahara Kelly - A Christmas Pageant Judy Mays - Jingle Balls Marteeka Karland - Sealed With A Kiss Kate Douglas - My Valentine Shelby Morgen - Changeling Willa Okati - Elven Enchantment Kate Hill - Jolene's Pooka Lacey Savage - Chemistry to Burn Shelby Morgen - Troll Under The Bridge Filled with the unexpected, A Changeling For All Seasons offers something to savor for every palate. From humorous to magical, from Christmas to St. Patrick's Day to the 4th of July, these stories are alight with unbridled lust, sensuous passion, and hot, hot sex, guaranteed to entangle your senses and leave you breathless. www.ChangelingPress.com A Vacation For Your Mind -- No Passport Required.

Customer Reviews:

Lots of shorty short sexy stories.......2006-05-16

The 10 stories in this book are hot and mostly good: two I really liked (those by Angela Knight and Kate Douglas) and the others are enjoyable. There is only one story that was so bad - bad story, bad writing - I did not even finish it. Every story presents a paranormal caracter and a holiday (Christmas + Vampire, St.Valentine's + St.Valentine, 4th of July + Troll, St.Patrick's + Pooka, etc.) Also, as the stories are so short, they go quickly to the point (which is, hum... sex. With a happy end, of course).

All in all, the buy is worth it.

Hot, Hot, and did I mention Hot?.......2005-11-29

Those familiar with Changeling Press already know this book is a scorcher. For those unfamiliar with Changeling Press's fantastically erotic e-books, let me just say, they have made the transition to print with stories that will blow your pants off. I loved it! It features vamps, fairies, elves, trolls, and more to satisfy your paranormal cravings! And with authors like Angela Knight, Kate Douglas, Shelby Morgen, and the rest, you can't go wrong. The only bad choice you could make is to NOT buy it! Definitely 5 stars from this reviewer.

10 Fantastic Holiday Stories!.......2005-11-19

This is a collection of excellent holiday stories from Changeling Press by nine wonderful authors.
They are hot, steamy and wonderfully written.
Highly Recommended!

Jingle Balls .......2005-11-19

JINGLE BALLS is a witty, seductive story that grabs you from the very beginning. Richard and Jessica are well-written characters who quite simply intrigued this reviewer... Jingle Bells is one of my all-time favorite carols but after reading JINGLE BALLS .., I will never think of that song again without laughing. With its humor-filled plotline, captivating characters, and some of the most amusing scenes I've ever read, this is one story that readers will enjoy for sure.

Sinclair Reid
Romance Reviews Today
http://www.romrevtoday.com/

Snippets of pure "'Tis the Season" decadence.......2005-11-17

That's what you'll find in this holiday treat! A taste of each fabulous Changeling author, rolled into a delightful concotion of sumptuous,delightful, sinfully good reading. Savor these sweet morsels of sensual exploration, revel in adventures that are brimming with naughty fantasies!

The perfect way to spend an evening with some of the best of the best the erotic writing world has to offer!

Dakota Cassidy :)

Average customer rating:

riveting crime fiction
Gripping Supernatural Thriller
A good read
Slow Start, and Okay Read (3.5 Stars)
Intriguing

Shadows in the Darkness (Changeling)
Elaine Cunningham
Manufacturer: Tor Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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ASIN: 0765348519
Release Date: 2005-12-27

Book Description

Gwen "GiGi" Gelman, a ten year veteran of the Providence, Rhode Island vice squad, finds herself unemployed after being blamed for a routine bust that turned into a bloodbath. GiGi is used to being on her own, though, and with the help of a DA who owes her, she's scraped together enough capital to start her own PI business, specializing in"family problems"-in particular runaways who have disappeared into Providence's seamy underside.With a few custodian kidnapping cases under her belt, as well as a case against a Catholic school teacher/molester, GiGi is doing well for herself --until she takes on the case of a fourteen year old runaway who may or may not have been kidnapped.As GiGi investigates, she accidentally opens the door to her own mystical past. Now long-hidden family ties threaten her, and the secret of her identity unlocks a conspiracy that reveals the forces of darkness that play in the shadows....Forces that intend to be the masters of all mortal life.

Customer Reviews:

riveting crime fiction.......2007-09-09

This is paranormal suspense, but unlike most paranormal suspense, the paranormal is very much at the side through most of the story.

The story itself centers around Gwenevere GiGi Gellman - a former cop and current PI who searches for missing women. Much of the book takes up with establishing Gwen's history: why she is where she is, and what she's done in the past. While she's solving her current case, she's also revealing shadows from her own past.

Like most crime fiction, there is a fair amount of disturbing violence in this book - nothing close to, say, Patterson, but still, it's there. It's also not got the huge amount of paranormal that folks who like that genre have come to expect. But it's a good, fast read. It's a series setup, but, for the most part, stands alone quite well.

(*)>

Gripping Supernatural Thriller.......2007-09-04

Following a drug bust which goes spectacularly wrong, Gwen Gellman leaves the police force to start her own PI business, specializing in finding runaways. As she investigates her latest case, she finds it has ties to her own past. Now her real family know about her, and though Gwen is determined to find the missing girl before it's too late, her time is running out.

Shadows in the Darkness is a PI novel with an urban fantasy twist. For much of the book the plot deals with Gwen finding a missing girl, and investigating the failed drug bust which led to her leaving the police force. However, every so often we are given the hint that there is more to this than meets the eye. Alongside her normal life, Gwen is also subject to a more supernatural heritage, of which she is mostly unaware. As a reader you realise there is a metaphorical net slowly tightening around Gwen as she tries to find the runaway - the deeper she gets into the case the more it wraps around her. This is a multi-layered tale of elves, missing girls, murder and police corruption; where it seems every character has an ulterior motive and a hidden agenda.

Shadows in the Darkness is probably not for those readers who prefer a more romantic urban fantasy. Gwen deals with the ugly side of life most people prefer to ignore. One of the reviews in the front of the book refers to SITD as a supernatural Alias and that's a good summation.

Recommended for fans of Wen Spencer's Ukiah Oregon series, Kat Richardson's Greywalker, Charlaine Harris's Lily Bard and Harper Connelly series. Also for anyone who likes crime/PI novels who's interested in trying a little urban fantasy.

Book #2 Shadows in the Starlight was released Feb 2007

A good read.......2007-07-24

Not a Princess Meredith clone. This is a well written book, with a unique heroine. There are so many Laura K Hamilton wannabe's out there and Ms. Cunningham has created her own world of elves. Refreshing after my last 6 books--I get to enjoy reading again.

Slow Start, and Okay Read (3.5 Stars).......2007-06-20

I bought this book a while ago, but I just finished about a day ago. That is very unusual for me. Usually I get a book and can't put it down. But when I first picked up this book I was struggling throught the first 1/3 of the the book. I couldn't seem to get into it. Nothing seemed relevant and i didn't see where this was going. But I picked it up again a few days ago out of boredom. And while I can't say that it was the best book I've read, I think will buy the second book.

I liked the fact that she had to figure out her past herself, that someone didn't just pop out of nowhere and tell her what she was. I am also glad that the book just didn't jump right in to the whole elf aspect. You had to kind of guess who was what. And it kept the urban setting and included the people that weren't involved with elves. Everything didn't just suddenly revolve about her identity.

But the book was still confusing. Many facts and hints weren't added until toward the end of the book so the reader couldn't draw any conclusions. The reader was almost always in the dark, sometimes even moreso than the main character. Also, I couldn't follow half of the logic in this book.

Though I sort of wish I was in her place, because she keeps getting all of this cool jewelry. I would love to get free jewelry every time I got into trouble. I wonder if she wears them. But i think I'm missing their role in this. They are supposed to make the book more ominous, but the thing is she never mentions the necklaces until she gets another one. She doesn't even say if she wears them or not. And they don't play a part yet (even though this is the first book, they should give at lest a hint.)

Unfortunately, this book is a little cliche. Like the ending: they most ominously anounce that Frank's son is really an elf. i know this leaves it open for the next book, but wouldn't it have been better if would at first suspected and then discovered it in the next book. I would have also gone along with the rest of the book's flow of info (we don't find out until the last minute). It's also cliche that they are playing her. And that bad guys were bad in the typical way. They had "low-life" written all over them. (even though she adds the fact one of them is her uncle to make it more original, it doesn't play much of a part and might as well have not been said). The elves also talk in the "old" voice that you hear in the movies when they have an old vamp- that elated higher-than-you, self-important sort of speech always used. And the hand-touchng thing reads straight out of a sci-fi movie. Though what bothers most is the fact that one of them constantly appears and disappears out of nowhere. (He does it one time and forgets his car.) I guess that is supposed to be foreboding, but it is overused. And she never mentions when he finally retrieves his car. But thats not the worst, twice he emerges from the shadows. He walks out of them and says some smooth comment. I think she stole some of the scenes from a B-rated vamp movie. The only thing is, I thought this was a book about elves?

What also bothers me is that it never takes long to get anywhere. I know RI is small, but the way they make it sound, it could be smaller than my neighborhood. Maybe RI doesn't have any traffic or stop lights.

But if you can get past the cliches and jealousy from watching her get all that free jewelry, it is a good book. Not the best, but I bet it will get better. I like reading a contemporary elf book once in a while becuase it's not overdone with sorceres and the like. It is also a break from vamp-hunter books, though a couple times I wondered if the elf was really a vamp, with the walking out of the shadows bit.

Intriguing.......2007-05-03

This new series (well not really new) by Elaine Cunnighman is a fresh new start. It is really intriguing because we have this P.I. as the main character who is on case that stretches out to reveal her past. Gwen, doesn't know much at all about her parents because they died when she was a baby, but there is more to their deaths than what she is led to believe. But as she starts to uncover her past and the secrets that ulitmately lead her to solving her case, lives become at stake. Including the life of someone close to Gwen. Overall it is not that bad of a novel, there is just a lot character confusion because there are so many. Although it is not too hard to follow.

Waterborn (Keyes, Greg, Children of the Changeling,)

Average customer rating:

Fantasy at its best !
Pretty good stuff
Fantasy infused with myth
A Great Writer
A Typical Freshman Effort

Waterborn (Keyes, Greg, Children of the Changeling,)
J. Gregory Keyes
Manufacturer: Del Rey
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | Science Fiction | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Blackgod (Chosen of the Changeling)
A Calculus of Angels (The Age of Unreason, Book 2)
The Blood Knight (Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone, Book 3)
Empire of Unreason (Age of Unreason, Bk 3)
The Shadows of God (Age of Unreason, Book 4)

ASIN: 0345403932
Release Date: 1996-07-23

Amazon.com

It's that story again: unsophisticated adolescent boy, spunky, curious princess, large landscape for them to tour, troublesome deities, a magic sword. J. Gregory Keyes's knowledge of epics, myths, and human cultures is a solid foundation for his series, making it far better than the average product: a story that might have happened sometime between the Ice Ages when numinous deities still dwelled in every tree, rock, and pool. The detailed social structures and customs feel more authentic, though they're also familiar--the urban monotheists, the shamanistic horseback nomads, and so on. The writing is workmanlike, but the anthropological soundness and echoes of ancient stories give life and dimension to the old archetypes.

Book Description

The River flowed through all the land, deep and unstoppable, a god in his own right. His head was in the mountains; his arms embraced the outlands; his body lay at the core of all the civilized realms; and his legs stretched on to the distant sea. Dark and sluggish, he rolled unchallenged, dreaming his own invincible might and glory into stark reality.

Everywhere he touched, the River God held dominion. And in Nhol, the fabled city at the heart of the world, an emperor ruled as the living aspect of the god, presiding over the splendors and intrigues of a prosperous land and a glittering court.

Hezhi was an imperial princess; her blood carried the seeds of the River's power. When her favorite cousin disappeared, Hezhi searched throughout the sumptuous palace with its ghosts and priests, giants and courtiers, and frightening creatures of wizardry. And the magic within her began to grow; soon it must attract dangerous attention. Hezhi's anxious quest ripened into a desperate fight for her own life--a battle she could not hope to win alone.

Small wonder that the princess wished for a hero.

And far away, a hero's journey began...

Customer Reviews:

Fantasy at its best !.......2007-02-16

This book would make you wonder "Where was Gregory Keyes all along"? The plot is dark, complicated, powerful and intense. It is adult fantasy at its best.

Having seen the rise and fall of many a fantasy writer getting bogged down by their creations, this book is a refreshing and welcome change. The story is unique and extremely well written. It will keep you hungering for more of Gregory Keyes and his other books are equally well written.

Pretty good stuff.......2007-01-19

I thought this book was pretty original. It did have the storied nobody becomes big important stud theme but a lot of fantasy does that. I thought the world was unique and interesting. The book was very simple and easy to follow. The only problem is the characters lacked depth as did the plot. Same goes for the sequel Blackgod.

Fantasy infused with myth.......2006-06-18

The problem with most fantasy is that it is written entirely within the world of fantasy literature. It refers only to other books, creating a mirror world in which every image has been seen before, and every character is the reflection of many others. With the Chosen of the Changeling series Greg Keyes has escaped from this trap by infusing his story with anthropology and traditional myth. These books feel original because they return to the tradition of heroic stories told around the hearth that lies behind all fantasy. Keyes' heroes are like the heroes of epic, chosen by the gods to play parts in stories they don't really understand. The setting is magnificent, the writing fine. I enjoyed both of these books and recommend them highly.

A Great Writer.......2006-05-11

This was the first Keyes book that I read and I have to say that, after wandering through a wilderness of some of the lousiest sci-fi and fantasy books over the past few years, that this was, oh so, refreshing.
I believe that Greg Keyes is probably one of the finer writers out there right now.
So, I'm picking up just about every book of his that I can.

A great read, well worth the money for a new one off of your favorite book store shelf.

A Typical Freshman Effort.......2005-09-26

"The Waterborn". What does one say about a book that hits the quintessence of average? We have our spunky little priestess Hehzi, who finds herself going up against a cabal of evil priests bent on, well, being evil priests. Elsewhere, wilderness warrior Perkar joins a quest to speak with a forest god about opening up some more land for cultivation. Unfortunately Perkar has recently had sex with a goddess, never a good thing, and consequently emerges with a fierce determination to kill some other god. Mix that with a good-sized helping of magic swords, swashbuckling action, and ill-fated attempts at romance, and you got a recipe for a book that plods along.

I won't say that "The Waterborn" is formulaic. It's not. In fact it has its share of genuine plot twists, hidden identities, and deftly concealed secrets. It would be more accurate to say that "The Waterborn" is a checklist novel. Stuff gets thrown in - the sex scenes, the irksome suitor, the mysterious warrior - and one feels it's merely because the author feels a fantasy needs to have all that stuff. I do certainly credit Keyes with respecting the reader's intelligence. "The Waterborn" unfolds with careful attention to motivation and psychology.

Keyes does have a mighty struggle with dialogue, unfortunately. Whenever people talk in this book, it's organized more around getting across the needed information rather than imitating the flow of a real conversation. I should perhaps be lenient. As Ernest Hemingway famously remarked, writing dialogue that really sounds like real people talking is the hardest thing any writer ever has to do, and it surely can't be done without practice. But as for that, I always review books by content, not caring whether it's the author's first effort or not.

Changelings (The Twins of Petaybee, Book 1)

Average customer rating:

Simplistic sequel
Another great story of Petaybee!
No Dragons!
Continuing The Series
More for teens

Changelings (The Twins of Petaybee, Book 1)
Anne McCaffrey , and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough
Manufacturer: Del Rey
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Science Fiction | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Maelstrom (The Twins of Petaybee, Book 2)
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First Warning: Acorna's Children
Power Play
Second Wave: Acorna's Children (Acorna Series)

ASIN: 0345470028
Release Date: 2005-12-27

Book Description

With three acclaimed novels–Powers That Be, Power Lines, and Power Play–bestselling authors Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough launched a vibrant new science-fiction saga that told the story of a sentient planet, Petaybee, and the humans who fought to protect it from the rapacious designs of an all-powerful interstellar corporation determined to exploit the icy world’s natural resources. Led by Yana Maddock and Sean Shongili, Petaybee’s protectors prevailed. But now Petaybee is changing in mysterious, unprecedented ways, and the return of off-world scientists threatens the amazing planet and its equally amazing inhabitants with new dangers.

CHANGELINGS

They are Ronan Born for Water Shongili and Murel Monster Slayer Shongili. Twin brother and sister. Children of Yana and Sean. Children of Petaybee. As such, theirs is a destiny deeply intertwined with the sentient planet that is their home. For Ronan and Murel are more than human. Like their father, each can transform into a seal and converse telepathically with the planet’s creatures–such as the friendly otter whose life they save one day from a pack of ravenous wolves.

But the twins’ bravery has unforeseen results when a visiting scientist witnesses their startling metamorphosis and becomes obsessed with their capture. To protect their children, Sean and Yana send them to stay with a powerful family friend on an orbiting space station. But no one realizes that Ronan and Murel hunger to discover the origins of their shape-shifting talent–and that their search for knowledge will place them squarely in the path of peril.

Meanwhile, Petaybee is changing–and much faster than an ordinary planet’s natural evolution. It appears that portions of the sea are heating up and a landmass is suddenly rising from the depths. To investigate the startling occurrence, Sean heads out to the open water in his seal form. But the newly unstable region holds untold mysteries–and the potential for disaster.

Customer Reviews:

Simplistic sequel.......2007-07-06

I was disappointed by this book, because it seems less complex and exciting than the Power trilogy. Or maybe the novelty of Petaybee just wore off. I can only hope the boring nature of this book is because it sets the background for something exciting in its sequel.

Another great story of Petaybee!.......2007-06-21

What a great story! I love Anne Mccaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern series, and so I read Powers that Be, and loved it as well! You do not need to have read the trilogy that preceded this book, but I HIGHLY recommend it. Those three books get you familiar with the planet and its inhabitants as well as give you a great understanding and love for the characters. I believe I enjoyed those books slightly more than this one, but only slightly. Looking forward to reading the next in the series, Maelstrom.

No Dragons!.......2007-05-13

Not Pern, no dragons. But the PTB (Powers That Be) series is just as good and just as soul satisfying as any of Ann McCafrey's books. If you don't read it, it's your great loss.

Continuing The Series.......2007-03-19

Although the cover of the book says it is a new series, it really is a continuation of the original Peytebee (sp?)story. I liked the original series both as one of the few fantasy stories I enjoy and as a break from the heavy-handedness of my murder mysteries, and it continues to fit that bill. The book is light and fast reading (as are all of McCaffrey's books) but is a pleasure to read. Anne McCaffrey has continued to write in an interesting way about a fantasy type subject and I will continue to read her work; I look forward to any new books she might write.

More for teens.......2007-01-22

I'm not sure how this ties in with the first Petaybee trilogy. Sure, it is about the children born in the last book but it seems to be written for a much younger audience than before. The storyline is gungho children win out over the adults who can't manage without them. Not within the same lines of the previous trilogy but acceptable with a very large grain of salt.

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