Last Guard reminded me of bit of HEART OF OBSIDIAN. Similar to Kaleb, Payal was such an interesting character. Disciplined and cold on the outside, but broken on the inside. Her demeanour was fascinating. And she is probable the most distinctive character in this new series of books. And her relationship with Canto was romantic, deeply moving, and palpable. A relationships that was forged during childhood and was unbreakable.

Canto was a wonderful hero. Possessive, dangerous, smart, calculating, and decisive. When he finally found Payal he didn’t play around but bounced. He also displayed the most endearing Bear characteristics. And taking care of Payal was ingrained into his personality from a very young age. I also realised that The Mercant family is one of the most interesting families in this series, outside of the two big packs, SnowDancer and DarkRiver. And I would love to read more about them.

With each new book in this series, a slew of new characters are introduced. And with each book there is an additional layer to the overall story, another layer to the PsyNet. Also with each book I read I feel like I’ve heard it all, only to be shown that I know nothing. There is still so much to come.

There is a timely and timeless quality of Singh’s writing that I love. In Last Guard she explores the world of the Anchors of the psychic Net through the eyes of Canto Mercant (a paraplegic cardinal telepath and head of intel for the family known for collecting secrets) and Payal Rao (an apparently emotionless cardinal telekinetic and CEO of a major conglomerate)--also two of the most powerful Anchors in the Net—and the chaos of Scarabs and rot have forced the Anchors to come out of the shadows. This is not the place I’d jump into the series, but it is a wonderful example of Singh’s excellent world-building, attention to questions of diversity and diverse representation, as well as discussions of consent. It was a wonderful read!

This book really surprised me in the best way possible. I've been reading this series for over a decade now and thought I had just fallen into a grove, especially when the previous book did not wow me. But then Last Guard knocked it out of the park!

I don't want to give any spoilers but there are some aspects of this book that I absolutely loved and must talk about. First, for those of us that have watched the evolution of this world and love that part of the series- this book is for us. Don't get me wrong, the romance and the characters are classic Nalini Singh and are very good, but the expansion of the world is beautiful. I loved getting to better understand A-Psy and the Psynet as a whole. It was brilliantly done and I applaud Nalini Singh.

Second, THE REPRESENTATION! This book is beautifully diverse and I loved it so much. I know Nalini Singh has been slowly working more diversity into her series with background disabled and queer characters. But here they are fully on display. Canto, the male love interest, is paralyzed from the waist down, one of the Anchors is non-binary, and finally, a queer couple is fully written on the page and has their own scene! I loved every second of it.

Since this is a romance I will touch on that- it was honestly exactly as I expected. This is the 20th book in this world, and if you read the other 19 you have a solid idea of how this is going to go. Of course, each character is unique and they are NOT carbon copies of each other like you see in other series. I greatly enjoyed the character development and the romance, but it didn't surprise me in any way. I did really appreciate not having these characters play a huge role (or any role) in previous books so that I could go in with no previous experience and just enjoy meeting Payal and Canto.

Well, I ranted enough. If my star rating didn't give it away let me leave you with just saying- yes, I truly loved this book!

Thanks to Netgalley and Berkley for access to the digital ARC.

Overall, an excellent addition to the Psy-Changeling/Trinity Accords series. Payal and Canto are interesting characters due to their unique perspectives and I enjoyed the visits from previous characters. The mystery of the Architect continues to weave through this volume and I look forward to finding out who she is.