Branded by Fire (Psy-Changelings, Book 6) by Nalini Singh

I loved this book.

This series is another of those that has a HEA romance within each book, but over the course of the series there are some very interesting long term plots. And the males in this series? Predatory Changeling Males. For the most part, anyway. One of the males was a Psy, and it looks like the male in the next book, Blaze of Memory, is going to have one of the Forgotten Psy as the male. And the book after that... Max appears to be human, but he has strong shields, so I guess we'll have to wait to find out.

A bit about the series - this is an alternate reality to ours, where there are humans, changelings (shapeshifters), and Psy. The Psy live partially on the psychic plane in kind of a psychic internet, of sorts. About 100 years ago they started a Silence protocol in order to gain control of their gifts. Silence trains kids from infants to not have emotions. Not just to not show emotions, but to not have emotions. At all. They are purely logical beings. But now some Psy are breaking Silence and escaping the psychic network. As things are in flux, the Changeling packs in the book (a wolf pack and a leopard pack) are emerging as one of the top power structures.

But in this book, in Branded by Fire, we have Mercy. She is a Leopard Sentinel, which means she's one of the baddest leopards on the planet. There are few people, be they human, psy, or changeling, who can best her. Which makes it hard to find a mate, when all of the males who are dominant to her in her pack are already mated, and when she knows she could never mate with someone less dominant than she is... what's a girl to do?

She has been paired with one of the wolves for a while, they are both the liaison for their packs, to keep the peace in the Pact between the wolves and the cats. We know from excerpts that they are going to have sex at the beginning of the book... but a wolf and a cat... mated? Wouldn't one of them have to give up their pack? Isn't the mating bond stronger than the blood bond to their alpha. Wouldn't it kill something inside of both of them to have to give up their pack? How can that possibly work?

Here's the blurb:

Though DarkRiver sentinel Mercy is feeling the pressure to mate, she savagely resists when Riley Kincaid, a lieutenant from the SnowDancer pack, tries to possess her. The problem is not simply that he pushes her buttons; the problem is that he’s a wolf, she’s a cat, and they’re both used to being on top.

But when a brilliant changeling researcher is kidnapped from DarkRiver territory, Mercy and Riley must work together to track the young man—before his shadowy captors decide he’s no longer useful. Along the way, the two dominants may find that submitting to one another uncovers not just a deadly conspiracy, but a passion so raw that it’ll leave them both branded by fire…

One of the things I loved in this book... remember the grief Riley gave Judd when Riley's sister Brenna started having a romantic interest in Judd? Well, Mercy's brothers and father give the same grief to Riley. It was a nice comic interlude in the rest of the drama.

And there is a lot going on in this book. We learn more about The Human Alliance, we learn a bit more about a few Psy Councilors, the mystery of The Ghost continues, we see more of what is going on with the NetMind, and the plots twist themselves just a bit more.

We also get to peek into the lives of some of the couples who are already together: Sascha and Lucas, Faith and Vaughn, Dorian and Ashaya. It's nice to be able to revisit those couples.

We also get an idea of some of the couples we may see getting together at a later date. What is going to happen with Hawke? With Sienna? How about Kit? And Indigo? And, speaking of Sienna, who is going to train her... it's looking like she's got that infamous X rating, and that means she probably needs to keep her Silence protocol in place in order to control her powers, right?

I cannot wait for the next book, and thankfully we only have four months until Blaze of Memory. I re-read the previous two books, Mine to Posses and Hostage to Pleasure, before reading Branded by Fire. I believe I will re-read the entire series in the weeks before Blaze of Memory is released.

I am giving Branded by Fire a 9 of 10, and I'm giving the Psy-Changelings series a 10 of 10. The characters are incredible, the plots are intricate and interesting and I have no idea what will happen next. The pacing is wonderful, I have no desire to put one of Nalini Singh's books down while I am reading them. She is truly a gifted author.


Book Rating: 9 of 10
Series Rating: 10 of 10







1. Slave to Sensation
2. Visions of Heat
3. Caressed By Ice
4. Mine to Possess
5. Hostage to Pleasure
6. Branded by Fire
7. Blaze of Memory (November 3, 2009)
8. Untitled, but it will be Max's book (the cop who helped Ashaya so much)