Tangle of Need, A Review

Nalini Singh has grown and developed as an author to an astounding degree. Tangle of Need is a complex tangle of desire, characters, emotions and plots. In the first books in the Psy/Changeling Series Ms Singh created a rich, lush environment. A world in the beginning of dissent. The characters were just starting to question the way things were. No longer quite satisfied with the status quo but really only willing to fight for themselves and their families. They did not see a need to fight for the world. As story has grown so too have her books.

Her world building in place we see a new capacity for storytelling. It started in Kiss of Snow. A book that was not just a one storyline book. It told us about the lives of our lead characters and more importantly about the lives of the people around them. The people that affected them and yes the people that wanted to see them destroyed. We got teeny peeks into the minds of those both good and evil. In Tangle of Need this style of writing grows. There is just so much more we need to know. Things we may not have been aware that we needed but now can not believe that this was out there. The power of this book goes beyond a strong main couple.

Riaz is a lone wolf who has come home to lick his wounds, the unimaginable has happened! He has met his mate and she is not only married, happily married she is irrevocably in love with her husband. Riaz can see the link just watching them. Amazing as they are both full humans. Not knowing what else to do he comes home. And yet even with the pack he is a lone wolf and unable to share. Unable to let those who care for him know what he needs, how they can help him. He is little wolf lost..

Adria, a strong dominant female whose self esteem has been battered. Betrayed on the most personal level. Her less dominant lover has spent years picking at her destroying her in a bloodless manner. Abuse at it’s finest. She too has come home to find herself. To remember that he failed.. that she needs to immerse herself in pack to become the woman she always saw herself as.  She knew something was wrong but she believed in the relationship, she was committed to make it work. On several levels, one she believed in keeping commitments made, another well her family warned her and so no way did she want to admit they were right and finally, she knew if she didn’t put her all into it she would look back one day and say what if I had.. It’s a hard thing to describe accurately a strong woman who becomes a victim. Outsiders can not understand what this does to her. They know the strong independent spirit who can scale mountains both proverbially and literally. They can not conceive that someone could suck the esteem right out of them. Ms Singh writes this character brilliantly. Tough, strong, determined to do it on her own. An I’ll show them attitude. Angry not at the man who abused her but at herself for not walking away sooner. But the worst thing about such a woman is her inability to trust. The barriers that she builds.. Always wanting to be the most important person in someone’s life and never trusting that she will be.

There was so much going on in this book aside from Adria and Riaz’s relationship. We see a lot of Hawke and Sienna. Of course the ever luscious Judd is there. We get glimpses of Sascha but almost no Lucas, little of Mercy, even less of Dorian and none of Faith. I think this is the one aspect that bothers me about the direction this series has taken. It’s more about the wolves (whom I adore) than about the Leopards.. whom I also adore. It’s almost like Hawke is the more important Alpha that Lucas is no longer needed. I miss Lucas and the play between his Sentinels. I am sure Ms Singh has a plan. Shoot I know she has a plan.. After listening to her speak at RT, I am convinced she knows exactly what steps she is taking and where we are going. I just wish she would share with us faster.

The plot is an intricate dance between the factors, The Changelings, the Psy both good and bad.. yes my friends I said good Psy.. they are there and the Alliance. An ever fluent dance of dominance and world control. One misstep can get you killed. I loved it! Was totally absorbed by the ever changing moods of this book.

To me the love story between Riaz and Adria was more powerful because it was set against a backdrop of war. And yet, there was time for them to find each other, learn each other and slowly love each other. It was also a book about choices. What choices should be made, what choices could be made and what choices would be made. This was an EPIC story.. amazing as it was about two characters that we pretty much had never seen before. Mere hints in previous books. Although there are so many other characters I want to know about.

We see the ghost.. no, we don’t see who he/she is.. although I have switched my opinion of who I thought it was.. I think my choice is too focused on some other plot, other intrigues to be the ghost. I think he (yes my choice was a he) wants to rule the Psy and I don’t think that the ghost does. Although some of the other options are too well known to Judd to be the ghost.. so it circles back to my first choice. Ms Singh has promised us that the ghost was determined well before her stories were written. That she knew from the beginning who the ghost is. There will not be a chance for us to go back and question the integrity of the story.. So I am excited.

Also, we get to know Vasic and Aden much better.. these two Arrows must have a story all but screaming to be told. Then there is an entire new set of changelings we get to meet.. And Bowen makes a wonderful appearance. There is just so much going on in this book and yet the struggles of Adria and Riaz are ever front and center. As it’s about the wolves and not the leopards it doesn’t have that sensual decadence I delighted in with the leopards. But I always thought that remained a cat characteristic and didn’t belong in the wolf books. They have their own strong, desirable traits.

I could go on and on about this book. Shoot I have.. what I will say is Ms Singh does it again and this is by far her best Psy/Changeling book to date.

Shauni