Book Review: Slave to Sensation
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Singh, N. (2006). Slave to sensation. London, UK: Orion Publishing Group.
Author:
Nalini Singh had her first novel published in 2003. Before that, the New Zealand writer had won several literary awards for previous manuscripts. Best known for her Psy-Changeling paranormal romance series, the first in the series – Slave to Sensation – but Singh has published over two dozen novels since this first best-selling book.
Summary:
Sascha Duncan is a defective Psy and had been told there was nothing special about her since her youth. Her powers hadn’t come. Tasked with overseeing a project with the dangerous changeling Alpha, Lucas; Sascha finds her feeling things she shouldn’t – Psy don’t feel. The mystery of changeling women being murdered, put Sascha’s loyalty and whole life in question in her search to help find the truth.
Analysis & Application:
What caught me off guard about Slave to Sensation was that Singh changes points of view without any defining warning. Two paragraphs on one page, could be written from two points of view – Sascha Duncan, and Lucas. In the first chapter, it made me stop reading the book because I found the jumping from one character to the next hard to follow. I put the book down and waited a few days before returning to try again. Once I read more, I got the feel for how Singh’s writes, and was able to settle into the story.
I found this particularly interesting because I have three points of view but have found it easier to separate them with a new chapter when switching. However, in chapter twenty-six, I switch mid-chapter, then switch back. I wasn’t sure how to make that transition smooth, and easy to read. Watching as Singh breaks from one point of view to the next, with ease, it has made me want to approach my manuscript with not such rigid definition of point of view; that it is acceptable to have more than one point of view in any given chapter; and it has to be done without a break in the story flow. She does it without using characters name as the first word, but by use of language and by showing us what that character is doing, seeing and feeling, as a reader I learnt to pick it up the more I read.