Book Review: Visions of Heat

Summary: Used to cold silence, Faith NightStar is suddenly being tormented by dark visions of blood and murder. A bad sign for anyone, but worse for Faith, an F-Psy with the highly sought after ability to predict the future. Then the visions show her something even more dangerous-aching need…exquisite pleasure. But so powerful is her sight, so fragile the state of her mind, that the very emotions she yearns to embrace could be the end of her. Changeling Vaughn D’Angelo can take either man or jaguar form, but it is his animal side that is overwhelmingly drawn to Faith. The jaguar’s instinct is to claim this woman it finds so utterly fascinating and the man has no argument. But while Vaughn craves sensation and hungers to pleasure Faith in every way, desire is a danger that could snap the last threads of her sanity. And there are Psy who need Faith’s sight for their own purposes. They must keep her silenced-and keep her from Vaughn

Now, this is what I am talking about. I thought Visions of Heat was a much better instalment in Nalini Singh’s Psy-Changeling series. At least, it grabbed my attention much more that Slave to Sensation.

It may be because the groundwork for her stories had been set previously and being already acquainted with the Psy and Changeling way of life certainly helped the easy flow of the story.

Faith NightStar is a F-Psy, a Foreseer. Before Silence , the program that conditions Psy into not feeling, most F-Psy would go insane from foreseeing deaths, disasters, crimes, etc. But because the Psy world these days is free from those things, Psy are merely used for predicting business trends. Faith is said to be the most powerful F-Psy of her generation and she has generated millions for her clan. The life of a F-Psy though is not one to enjoy the money they make. F-Psy must live alone, apart from everyone, otherwise their fragile minds can collapse. They are kept in a safe house, constantly monitored and cared. Their way of life reminded me quite a lot of Minority Report – where the Foreseers are imprisoned and do nothing but to predict the future. It is almost the same here, expect that some of the F-Psy like Faith are more conscious. For now. For she senses her abilities are mutating, something is happening to her and she can’t explain: she is having visions of disturbing, violent things. When she predicts the death of her own sister, she decides to get some answers. And the only person she can think of that would be able to answer her truthfully and not send her into re-conditioning is Shascha Duncan, the only Psy to ever leave the PsyNet and who is now the Alpha Female of the DarkNight Leopard pack.

She sets off to try and find her but she is found first by one of the pack’s Sentinels, Vaughn. Vaughn is a Jaguar who was left to die as a child by his own parents along with his sister, who died in front of him. He was found by the leopard pack and brought to live with them. He is very dark and moody and his animal side is much more prominent than the human.

He and Faith form an almost immediate connection – it seems he can not keep himself from touching her and even though touch is something F-Psy are particularly weary of , Faith can’t help craving for it either. Pretty soon is very clear that these two have a special bond and that Faith has a choice to make: to keep on living a robotic life, where her own family use her to make money or to join Vaughn and the pack. But this choice is not easy – Psy life is the only life she knows, they are her people. There is a inner fight and conflict about who she is and who she wants to be.

Visions of Heat was a very gripping read. Even if I still have some problems with the narrative and the way time after time it is repeated how the “beast thinks this and the man thinks that” , I was able to not let that bother me so much this time. The relationship between Vaughn and Faith was one exciting to follow but more than that the dynamics of the world they live in and the changes that are bound to happen were also very absorbing. It is clear now that the Psy world is a world founded on lies and that corruption is everywhere and that corruption is bound to bring them down eventually. And the change will come from within , which is even more interesting.

I also liked how book 1 interconnects so deeply with book 2. Slave to Sensation showed us how the Psy tried to destroy all emotions and how they tried to thwart the development of the E-Psy, the Empaths such as Sascha. Visions of Heat expands the theme by making it clear that by attempting to destroy the Empaths they made it more difficult for the F-Psy to remain sane once the more emotional visions started to appear. There is therefore, a deep connection between E-Psy and F-Psy and between Sascha and Faith , even more now that they are linked in the Net created by the changelings to keep them alive.

I am looking forward to seeing what’s going to happen next!

Notable quotes/Parts: I love the description of the Web of Stars – the web created between the Lucas and the Pack’s Sentinels that keep Sascha and Faith alive. How it was utterly different from the PsyNet:

“This Web had rainbows and sunshine, emotion and heart, predatory hunger and utter loyalty. Now those sparks healed the broken pieces of Faith and she never even knew that she’d been fractured. “

And the Wolves pack? Can not wait to read more about them. I think I may have developed a crush on Hawke, their alpha.

Additional Thoughts: The change from human to animal , from man to jaguar or leopard, reminded me of one of my favourite TV Shows from when I was a child. Do you remember Manimal?

Verdict: Interesting dynamics between the different races, hot relationship. Much preferred that than the first book in the series. And I believe the next books have the potential to be even better.

Rating: A solid 7 and I have the feeling further instalments will have higher grades.

Reading: If you Dare by Kresley Cole.