Reading the Psy/Changeling series is starting to feel like picking at a scab. You know that you shouldn’t, because you don’t really like it but at some masochist level, you enjoy the twinge of pain. Or perhaps it is just the hope that your favourite author will fulfill the promise of her earlier books.
With Tangle of Need, she brings us back to the SnowDancer pack with Adria and Riaz, characters her followship have met, and in all likelihood, liked to various degrees. The plot does not seem consequential anymore – Psy civil war progresses and the SD pack has to deal with shit.
Full disclosure, I like Adria and I dislike Riaz. She’s prickly without being a bitch. She has reason to put up walls, good reasons to protect herself emotionally. Especially since Riaz (to me) comes at first across as being something of a prick. In all fairness, Riaz does apologize and make up for it. But I still think he’s a prick. So, hey, I’m not gonna like this one much anyway.
Their romance is less over-the-top but it does not have the nuance to make it appealing. The book seems a little confused at times – jumping from Adria-Riaz to Hawke-Sienna to crazy Psy people to marginally less crazy Psy people (whom I like, Vasic and Kaleb, for example) without Ms Singh’s usual finesse. If I was to be cruel, I’d call the book tangled; heavily dominated by Sienna-Hawke scenes, it felt a lot more like an extension of Kiss of Snow.
Whatever it is that has made me pick, and then nit-pick, Tangle of Need, I’d paid 6.88 (and some time) for it. Was it worth it? Yes and no. There are moments in the book when I am reminded why time and again, despite my complaints, I even bother reading more. Like when SnowDancer gather for Sienna and Hawke’s mating ceremony and the strength of friendships, platonic to that which exists with deepest love, is so wonderfully described. Evie and Sienna’s friendship was a beautiful thing to read – and provided the best laughs. Yet, I’m left cold by the romance the book was supposed to be about.
(I’ll write a positive review soon! Promise.)
Books in Running Brooks 