Loved these short novella interludes with new and familiar characters! In Echo of Silence, it was neat to see an introduction to the undersea world of Blacksea . The story titled Dorian gives the background to this intriguing latent leopard shifter and his upbringing and how he was able to do all his training to be a lieutenant without being to able to shift until much later in adulthood. My favourite story was Partners in Persuasion which puts a submissive wolf shifter Felix in the path of dominant leopard shifter Dez - a great dive into pack hierarchy. And finally Flirtation of Fate was quite captivating, a second chance romance for wolf shifters Garnet and Kenzi while solving a murder mystery. This really does a great job of filling in more details for the overall Psy-Changeling world. Highly recommended!

Echo of Silence



Tazia Nerif is an engineer on the deep sea station called Alaris. It’s an important job and one she work harded to get, and she loves it, but it also is a symbol of the loss of her entire family. Even though it’s been years since Tazia has had any contact with her family, she still dreams that one day they will send her a message. Stefan is the Psy in charge of the station. Stefan is a teleporter and was earmarked to become an Arrow, but because of a deep flaw, Stefan was dropped from the squad. Stefan has always kept his flaw under control—that is, until he accidentally hurts Tazia. Now he is willing to expose his flaw to her and to also learn how to help her obtain the one thing she dreams of—reconnecting with her family.



Echos of Silence takes two people who have been deeply hurt by things that happened with their immediate families and gives them a way to heal and find a deep love that helps them heal even more. I could all but hear Tazia’s heart break when Stefan says one fatal sentence. I could also tell that the supposedly silent male was anything but and that he was hurt almost as much as Tazia was by his statement when he discovers the fallout from it. I loved watching as Stefan and Tazia learned about each other and discovered how to heal with the others’ love and strength. A perfect story to kick off this group of stories within a series I love.



Dorian







Dorian is a glimpse into the life of a well-loved character and allows us to see the life he led and how he handled it and also the joy in finally being able to shift. I also loved watching as Dorian had to learn all the basics most shifters learn so young. I will admit to cheering a couple of times as I read and watched Dorian become the man he is today. A great second story for this book.



Partners in Persuasion



Felix is a SnowDancer wolf and head of the horticulture for them. He is also a submissive and one who has been hurt before by trusting a dominant female in a relationship. Felix would love to mate and have a family, but he is now extremely gun shy. Dezi is a leopard DarkRiver dominant and senior soldier, one who is fascinated by Felix. Dezi is used to going for what she wants and wanting to know Felix better is no different. However, at first it seems like one step forward leads to two steps back when they first try to have a relationship. However, Felix decides to take matters into his own hands and, between he and Dezi, they figure out a few ground rules that help these two very different people discover a passion that can only lead to love and mating so long as they can learn to trust each other’s strengths and weaknesses.



Partners in Persuasion is yet another relationship where DarkRiver and SnowDancer become united by a couple of lovers. I really loved reading along and watching as Felix and Dezi learned to take baby steps and didn’t allow his past or her dominance to stop them. The best part was how fast their inner animals mixed and seeing how the humans learned how to love without any barriers. I have loved Felix from when he first stepped into the picture to rebuild the forest that was destroyed during the Psy/SnowDancer battle. I was very happy to see him find his perfect mate. Yet another story that does not disappoint.



Flirtation of Fate



Garnet grew up just knowing that when she got older, her brother’s best friend, Kenji, would become her mate. As Garnet grew, she and Kenji grew closer and closer and yet on her eighteenth birthday, he shattered her heart. Garnet has been mad at him ever since. Now many years later, both she and Kenji are SnowDancer Lieutenants in charge of important parts of their property. Their dens are actually close together and therefore Kenji and Garnet have to work together quite often. Kenji has loved Garnet since they were both children, but he had a very specific reason for his actions—reasons that he has kept to himself all these years. Kenji is visiting Garnet’s den when a murder is discovered. The weather is making so whoever did this has to still be in the den. Garnet, with Kenji’s help, follows the clues to discover just what happened and the how and why of the murder. Along the way, Garnet also sees clues that make her believe that there is more behind Kenji’s actions than just being a playboy that made him hurt her so badly years ago. Determined, Garnet sets her sights on learning two truths: who murdered a member of her den and just what secrets Kenji is hiding from her. When the answers come out, one will make Garnet very sad, and one will make her dreams come true.



Flirtation of Fate finally brings Garnet and Kenji together after years of heartache. It also proves just how strong they are as partners, both for SnowDancer and as lovers. I loved watching them come together and to see the dual heartaches that happened so long ago become healed.



Wild Embrace is four strong and gripping stories in a world I have come to love. I have to say I didn’t feel there was a weak one in the bunch and all of them submerged me into their individual worlds and had me following the paths of each one intently. I also loved that each story could actually be read as a stand alone or with the knowledge of knowing the world and series in which they are all set. By time I was done, there was no doubt in my mind that this would be a Joyfully Recommended book. I highly recommend it even if you haven’t read any of the books in the series. Just be warned that you will probably become addicted to the world and will end up starting from Book One and going forward.

A short easy read that often follows the problems of grouped novellas in that a few of the reads are far superior to the others. Wild Embrace is a series of four stories within Ms. Singh's Psy-Changeling series. At this point, it is necessary to read the previous works to understand what is going on. Ms. Singh's work is richly drawn and full of backstory and it would be hard to be dropped into the world without a larger understanding.

The first of the four stories "Echo of Silence" introduces a character only mentioned in previous novellas. Stefan is a Psy telekinetic who falls in love with a shy engineer, Tazia Nerif in a underwater station. This was one my favorites in the novella. Both characters are richly drawn, with Tazia especially having a complicated backstory that adds depth to the character and the story. Each character acts in understandable ways and fall in love gently as they get to know each other. It was a sweet story and made me smile throughout.

The second novella, Dorian, was my least favorite. It is the backstory of the hero in "Hostage to Pleasure". It tells how Dorian, a latent changeling grew up to be a sentinel. To me, the story didn't add new information to the character and was just a retread of things we already knew.

The third story, "Partners in Persuasion" tells of the courting of Desiree, a female soldier for Dark River and Felix, Dark River's gardener. Desiree is the dominant in the relationship and has to make an effort to court a skittish submissive Felix. Felix, though attracted to Desiree understands that his submissive nature could be pulverized under Desiree and is unsure whether or not their physical compatibility could lead to a long term relationship. One thing I really appreciated about this novella was the talking. They had concerns but they talked through them and attempted to alleviate misunderstandings. They work through their problems in a very adult way that makes it easy to see how this relationship could work long term.

The last novella, "Flirtation of Fate" is the star of the book. It is long awaited backstory of Kenji and Garnet, Snow Dancer lieutenants who have been fighting for most of the series. Kenji and Garnet grew up together and developed feelings for each other, however on Garnet's 21st birthday, Kenji stood Garnet up, and changed their relationship for good. When the story begins, Garnet is dealing with a mysterious locked door murder in her territory and Kenji comes over to help. Of course, throughout the solving of the mystery, secrets come out about why Kenji stood Garnet up so long ago. In modern parlance, Kenji is a borderline TSTL hero. He keeps a secret to "protect" Garnet and even though the secret is semi-understandable, it is still frustrating. However the mystery of the murdered pack member and Kenji and Garnet and enjoyable leads.

A solid B story. It won't be one I re-read over and over again but it was an enjoyable couple of hours.

Review left on BN.com and Amazon as SJCReviews.