Nalini Singh, Visions of Heat

Visions of Heat

Nalini Singh

Berkley, Mar 2007, $6.99

ISBN: 042521575X

Psychic Faith Nightstar avoids extreme emotions because she knows she cannot afford to lose control as that would mean losing her tenuous handle on her skills. However, her latest visions are loaded with tense feelings that frighten her. Already tight, she is almost over the edge when her sister is murdered.

Faith must leave her safety nest for the first time in over two decades to learn what happened to her sibling if she is to regain her equilibrium on life and to insure she is not next. She leaves her sanctuary trusting no one. On the outside she meets were-cat Vaughn D'Angelo, who feels an affinity towards the frightened woman and a need to protect her. She knows she needs him to keep her safe, but fears her new feelings for this Changeling because if her "handlers" learn that she is falling in love they will kill him and probably her.

This is an exciting but strange romantic fantasy that grips readers from the onset as the restrictive, cocooned world of Faith Nightstar is revealed to the audience. She is a bird in a gilded cage who escapes to a wider world filled with senses rattling every step of the way. The mystery of her sister's death and the romantic subplot are delightfully created to provide deeper conflict within the soul of the heroine, but it does not take a forecaster, a psychic or a reviewer to know this is Faith's fate that turns Nalini Singh's thriller into what will be a sub-genre favorite.

Harriet Klausner