B+

Alpha Night

CW: general violence, discussion of past child abuse, off-page murder

Are super dramatic connections between mates your catnip? This is your book! Want to solve a mystery? Again, pick up this book! Are you okay with mild to moderate violence? Good, because this book has that too.

Ethan Night, an Arrow, and Selenka Durev, the Alpha of the BlackEdge wolf pack, mate in the opening scene of the book. Not in the sense of sexy time, although there is some of that a little later on, but in the sense of this-person-is-my-mate-and-we-will-be-together-forever. Not the kind of meet-cute I’m used to, but I bought it because it’s presented as an inevitable reaction on a soul-deep level: their inner selves pledging fealty to one another. But are they in love? Not yet…

Confession? I have not read any of the other books in the series, and while I am sure I would get so much more out of it if I had, this did not hold me back much. The sheer vigour of the writing dragged me helplessly into the book and before even a paragraph had passed, I had suspended my disbelief and was fully committed to wolves, psy, empaths, all of it.

Ethan has some things that he’s dealing with. He is holding back a tremendous power which he fears is a sign of his mental degeneration (Scarab Syndrome, for those interested) but Selenka is convinced that he is wrong. One of the threads of the plot follows this journey. Other threads include solving the murder of one of the wolves in Selenka’s pack and coming to grips with the cult that has set up shop on the fringes of her territory. And yet in the general calamity of their daily lives, they take infinitely tender care of each other. While outwardly Selenka is the more dominant one of the two – by virtue of her position as Alpha of a wolf pack – their relationship is one of partnership. Equals. And that in itself is a kind of bliss for me. All of the characters put such tremendous effort into taking care of each other. It’s hard not to love that.

There were times while reading that I was overwhelmed, however. Sometimes things become a little too much. Plot-wise a million things happen, and all of them at breakneck speed. It’s a bit dizzying. How much of that is because I’m new to the world? And how much of it is because the book itself is just jam-packed with plot? I’m not sure. I do know this book broke me out of a reading rut from which not even my most reliable comfort reads could save me. For that alone, it has my gratitude.

– Lara

New York Times bestselling author Nalini Singh returns to her breathtaking Psy-Changeling Trinity series with a mating that shouldn’t exist…

Alpha wolf Selenka Durev’s devotion to her pack is equaled only by her anger at anyone who would harm those under her care. That currently includes the empaths who’ve flowed into her city for a symposium that is a security nightmare, a powder keg just waiting for a match.

Ethan Night is an Arrow who isn’t an Arrow. Numb and disengaged from the world, he’s loyal only to himself. Assigned as part of the security force at a world-first symposium, he carries a dark agenda tied to the power-hungry and murderous Consortium. Then violence erupts and Ethan finds himself crashing into the heart and soul of an alpha wolf.

Mating at first sight is a myth, a fairytale. Yet Selenka’s wolf is resolute: Ethan Night, broken Arrow and a man capable of obsessive devotion, is the mate it has chosen. Even if the mating bond is full of static and not quite as it should be. Because Selenka’s new mate has a terrible secret, his mind surging with a power that is a creature of madness and death…