Writers of Color 50 Books Challenge

Another two Nalini Singh reviews. As a note, I'm wondering if multiple books in a series count as individual books for the '50 books in a year' challenge, or if they should just count as one? I'm feeling slightly guilty, as I'm working my way through this series quite quickly and it sort of feels like cheating.

If anyone wants to let me know, that would be lovely.

Anyway, on to the reviews!

( Reviews lie beneath, with many spoilers )

Whilst I'm posting - I'm looking for new cook books. Ideally not curries, or similar, as my partner is Sri Lankan and so we probably are fairly good for curry type recipes. Other than that, I'm totally open minded. Obviously, written by PoC, if possible. I only mention this as the userinfo actually states that cookery books are valid books to add to the 50 book challenge.

First of all, this is the first book I've read which I got from recs here. Everything I've reviewed or read before has been picked up randomly in bookshelves. I can't remember who recommended 'Slave to Sensation', I'm afraid, but I would like to thank them very much.

So, on with the review! I have to say when 'Slave to Sensation' arrived from Amazon I have to admit I did briefly panic. The title, the half naked man on the cover and the very purple blurb on the back briefly had me convinced that I'd bought a bad Laurell K Hamilton rip off, at best, and soft p0rn at worst. I wasn't much soothed by my flatmate, who wandered in, picked it up, coughed, apologized and put it down again as if she'd found me reading Penthouse.

However, for anyone who might have the same response, don't! I won't lie - 'Slave to Sensation' is at least 50% romance, and there is a good dollop of dubious hormonal activity between the two leads, but that doesn't stop it from being a good story, with some really strong characters, and a really interesting world/plot which is really what kept me engaged.

As a note, Nalini Singh also fills her world with a really diverse mix of people - a lot of the characters are very clearly marked as PoC. Sascha, who is the lead character, for example, looks Anglo-Indian (her father is Anglo-Indian, I believe), but also has Japanese heritage. I can't remember if Lucas (the hero) is white or not, but I know several members of his pack are marked as dark skinned, and the heroine's mother is of mixed European-Japanese heritage. Race is also brought up a couple of times as an issue characters face, although it's not hugely relevent to the plot.

( Plot summary with some spoilage )

I really enjoyed this. It wasn't deep reading, but it did cheer me up hugely, and I have to say I found both leads really strong, very sexy, but still real and three dimensional enough to keep me engaged. The world is an interesting one, and whilst the plot was kinda a backdrop to the romance, it was actually nicely thought out and had me hooked. I wish Nalini Singh had done a little more with the villain - he was fantastic, but rather underused.

I've already ordered the next in the series from amazon, and suspect that Nalini Singh is going straight to the top of my 'comfort reading' pile for some time.