I received this book for free from Netgalley in order to prepare an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Ocean Light (Psy-Changeling Trinity, #2; Psy-Changeling, #17) by Nalini Singh
Published by Berkley on June 12, 2018
Genres: Paranormal
Pages: 416
Goodreads

“This woman was no princess. She was a warrior. One Bo was dead certain was fighting the compulsion to stab him.”

FINAL DECISION: Hopeful, sweeter than I expected but with lots of intrigue and double crosses, I really enjoyed this book which continues to explore the struggles to create a united world with a man and woman who both need to overcome damaging pasts.

THE STORY: Bowen Knight of the Human Alliance should be dead. He was shot through the heart in an attempted assassination attempt. But even surviving that, Bowen has a ticking time bomb in his head — a chip he had implanted to prevent psychic rape by the Psy is degrading and threatens to kill not only Bowen but his friends and family at the top of the Human Alliance. Taken to an undersea facility controlled by BlackSea, Bowen has to confront some of his deepest fears. And when he meets the sweet and sexy cook Kaia Luna, Bowen decides that he doesn’t want to spent what might be the last few weeks of his life, without her. Kaia has faced so much loss in her life and getting involved with the seemingly doomed Bowen only threatens her with more sadness and grief.

OPINION: The Psy-Changeling series is one that I re-read every year. It takes weeks now as this is book number 17 (not including the novellas and free stories), but I never regret those weeks because the series is nuanced and complex and presents at its center a sense of hope and the possible.

OCEAN LIGHT takes readers into the mysterious world of the changeling group of BlackSea (which covers the ocean dwelling changelings). By the end of the this book, I still find this group very mysterious as it doesn’t follow many of the “rules” readers have learned about changelings. I hope that we get more books about the BlackSea characters as this book only made me more curious.

This book leaving me even more curious is a theme for me in this book. In fact, I ended this book with even more questions about where the overarching storyline is going than when I came in. There is some serious stuff going on in this series and while some parts are resolved, the core of the mystery still remains after this book. The Trinity series continues to investigate the conflict between those for and those against the Trinity alliance. The “villains” have managed to efficiently organize Psy, humans and changelings and the question still remains whether the “good guys” can manage to form their own connections in time.

Bowen Knight is familiar to readers of the series. Nominally the security head of the Human Alliance, Bo is, in fact, the leader and the person keeping the Alliance together. Bo has been obsessed with the idea of protecting the vulnerable humans from the psychic powers of the Psy. His singlemindedness has led him to have an experimental technology implanted in his brain to shield his mind from Psy. As we learned, however, Bo (along with his sister and friends who also got implants) are living on borrowed time as the implant is unstable. But as readers of the series will recall, although Bo has but months to live, Bo was shot protecting his sister in SILVER SILENCE. This book begins on the heels of those events.

In this book, we learn the origins of Bo’s determination to find a way to protect humans. In the face of Bo’s intense dislike of the Psy, ironically, Bo finds himself attracted to a woman who has her own reasons for disliking humans and wanting nothing to do with Bo. Bo’s brush with death creates a determination in him to not miss a moment of possibility when he finds himself attracted to Kaia.

As the “alpha” of the Human Alliance, Bo’s world is complicated and filled with the possibility of betrayal. The Trinity world is more political and dangerous because it is unclear who can be trusted. And the lack of trust extends not only between groups but within the groups themselves as both the Alliance and BlackSea have to consider if there are traitors within.

Kaia is a new character to the series and one I really, really liked. She is caring and smart and not willing to put up with any nonsense from Bo. Her heart is so big and life has bruised her up pretty badly. Yet she still opens herself up and risks more pain with Bo. Kaia’s storyline here had much more interest for me. She is the one who is risking so much (because Bo could end up dead or as good as). And I admit that I was intrigued to find out what type of changeling she is. (I also want a cookbook with her recipes because they sound so good!)

I thought the romance between Bo and Kaia was intensely sweet. We get to see a side of Bo that he himself didn’t know existed until he met Kaia. There is something to be said for what a clever and determined man will do when he finds the woman. There is a bit of innocence in how Bo approaches his courtship of Kaia because he has truly never connected with a woman before. And that continues the irony of Bo’s life, just when he finds what matters in his life, this life has a countdown for him.

Most of the conflict here ends up being external and there is quite of bit of intrigue in this book. On the plot end, I was pleased to get to see some of my favorites from the series. Although we end up in a new environment, I like feeling the series grounded in its roots and with the characters who I already know and miss when they don’t appear.

I walked away from this book with a sense of warmth and joy and loved all the characters we got to spend time with in this book.

WORTH MENTIONING: I tilted between a 4 and a 4.5 for this book. The epilogue, however, firmly tilted this book to a 4.5 — any book where Kaleb and Sahara make a significant emotional appearance gets a little boost from me!

CONNECTED BOOKS: OCEAN LIGHT is the second book in the Psy-Changeling Trinity series. The books are interconnected with continuing storylines although the romance is self-contained. The Psy-Changeling Trinity series is a spin-off or Season 2 of the Psy-Changeling series.

STAR RATING: I give this book 4.5 stars.

NOTE: I received an ARC of this book via Netgalley in order to prepare this review. I was not required to write a review or to write a positive review. All opinions contained herein are my own.