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I think the Mating BOND is what can only happen once, be forge once in a lifetime. Now, eligible mates is another thing. There aren't many, possibly one or two, maybe more if you travelled a lot. ALso, it doesn't 'call' to them right away, Mercy & Riley, Indigo & Drew, for example. They made it to the Bond, but it wasn't obvious in the beginning that they had that possibility. Judd & Brenna, too. It sort of evolved, their love, relationship. Right?

I have no doubt that Hawke was right about his mate as a child. But she died. Maybe Fate gave him another chance. Sent him Sienna, and that explains the age difference.

Also, I have a feeling this will go down like Tammy & Nathan. Sienna will be needed in this holocaust coming, and --- bah, you know where I'm getting at. I just hope that Hawke can see right away that Sienna is most definitely not a juvenile anymore, and not make her wait as much as Nathan did, and made them both utterly miserable in the process.

Madhura wrote:

Katherine wrote:Thing is, I don't believe that there is just one somebody for someone. There may not be very many, but if there was just *one* person then matings would be vanishingly rare.

Case in point: Sienna and Hawke.

I don't know about that. I still think these two are mates. The mate Hawke lost in childhood might not have been his true mate. I think we need more backstory on this. Also remember, in the last Q/A Nalini hosted, when asked if we will see couples without a mating bond. She said, sort of or something like that, but never said yes or no to that.

Rageane wrote:

Katherine wrote:I've long thought that Nikita has some E in her skill set but if that is the case, how would she be able to come off as being so cold? Every character that has met her has described her as being extremely cold. Colder than stone, even.

Remember what she told Sascha is the first book "Don't be anything but perfect....", she is practicing what she preaches. And she also stated that the E skill has skipped generations too...

I think Nikita telling Sascha to be perfect is her way of protecting Sascha from rehabilitation, stressing to her that people in the PsyNet are constantly being watched for any flaws. I think Nikita has some E power herself. When talking to Anthony, in response to his question about whether or not the E designation is present in every generation of her family, she said, "It tends to skip a generation." Immediately after she thinks, "Not quite the truth, but close enough that it would pass."

IIRC, Nikita is the only child of an only child. I think the whole truth is that the E designation as a primary power skips generations, but as a secondary power is always manifested in the Duncan family. Therefore, she probably has secondary E powers.

Also, Nikita thinks, "In truth, there were very, very few "perfect" Psy in the Net...". Meaning, that most of them are actually flawed. We already saw with Ashaya, that unSilent Psy are constantly having to tell themselves they're Silent and cold, so that they don't give themselves away.

Drew was so incredibly delicious in this book, possibly the best male character so far. It was great to see the wolves in their den, and the way they interacted with each other. Ben was such a sweet boy...giving Drew his action figures to make Drew happy.

And the interactions between Hawke and Sienna....awesome! It seems clear that they're mates. I kept hoping that when the Psy attempted an assassination attempt against Hawke that Sienna would help him defeat the attack by using her mysterious X powers. Another great entry to a fabulous series.

I'm not sure if I want Nikita to be totally good, but I'd like to see her be not *completely evil, either. And about the E designation, in MtP where Talin and Clay are looking through the files (Chapter 30 in the ebook) and realize that maybe some the kids have Psy ancestors, Sascha takes a look to see if she can help. She finds her great-great-grandmother in there, she thinks, and her daughter, Sascha's great-grandmother, Ai, was an E. This Sascha knows from the files about her family she managed to steal from the PsyNet before she left it. So if the E skips a generation, Ai the great-grandmother was one, the grandmother was *not, and then mother Nikita would be an E and Sascha would not!?! I checked the place where she talks to Anthony about it (Chapter 10, PoP), and I'll quote from the book here:

"It tends to skip a generation." Not quite the truth, but close enough that it would pass.

So, who knows! Since it also refers to the "flaw" as being a weakness, I'm pretty sure she would not be revealing it or any other weakness to Anthony, unless absolutely necessary. And at that point it isn't necessary.

And am I the only one who yelled "No! You can't stop here!!" at the end of the book? LOL! Summer cannot get here fast enough!

Maybe is a sister, and Nikita being a counsel is her way of protecting her E-psy sister, or something. That way it way it would be her generation, but not her specifically.

Ok, I'm going to be the devil's advocate here! I enjoyed Drew and Indigo's book, but I was kind of disappointed with the Sienna and Hawke interaction - to the point where it has dulled my anticipation for the June release of Hawke's book(which is kind of a good thing since I was going CRAZY anticipating that book!)

Indigo and Drew's book was a good story - I loved the scene in the beginning where all the lieutenants were gathered for the meeting. I would love to see a novella about Jem and Kenji. HILARIOUS! Still, the story seemed like....what's the word...a filler of sorts. Like a stepping stone to something bigger. Interestingly for me, the Hawke and Sienna interactions portrayed Sienna as a young girl, instead of a woman - which is diametrically opposed to how I saw her based on all the previous books. Sienna for me has always been a strong, fiery person. In PoP, I didn't really see that. She seemed so...young and uncertain...fragile. I wanted her to continue to be fiery and obstinate. That, to me, is the essence of Sienna. In this book, Sienna seemed to lack that awareness that a woman would have if a man was into her. It was this book that gave me pause about a Hawke and Sienna relationship. The fact that I said that considering I've been a die hard fan since the VERY BEGINNING says a lot, I think. I love Sienna; I want her to grow into a strong, powerful, fiery dominant that can take on everything that is Hawke. In Indigo's book, I saw a really young, fragile Sienna that was in no way Hawke's match - I saw a child, not a woman. Am I alone in this? I WANT Sienna portrayed more as a strong, fiery woman - the person she has been in the previous books. In PoP she seemed so fragile...submissive. Not dominant at all. I really, truly hope that KoS will show a much stronger, powerful side of her. She really does need to be Hawke's match - and I think that given her powers, she most definitely can be Hawke's match in every way!!

I love Hawke and Sienna. She needs to show Hawke who's in charge!! ;p

Oh and I also wanted to add:

Has PoP reinforced your hope that Kaleb is in fact the Ghost? I'm curious to see if Kaleb will be "redeemed"!!!

aquarianjewel wrote:Ok, I'm going to be the devil's advocate here! I enjoyed Drew and Indigo's book, but I was kind of disappointed with the Sienna and Hawke interaction - to the point where it has dulled my anticipation for the June release of Hawke's book(which is kind of a good thing since I was going CRAZY anticipating that book!)

Indigo and Drew's book was a good story - I loved the scene in the beginning where all the lieutenants were gathered for the meeting. I would love to see a novella about Jem and Kenji. HILARIOUS! Still, the story seemed like....what's the word...a filler of sorts. Like a stepping stone to something bigger. Interestingly for me, the Hawke and Sienna interactions portrayed Sienna as a young girl, instead of a woman - which is diametrically opposed to how I saw her based on all the previous books. Sienna for me has always been a strong, fiery person. In PoP, I didn't really see that. She seemed so...young and uncertain...fragile. I wanted her to continue to be fiery and obstinate. That, to me, is the essence of Sienna. In this book, Sienna seemed to lack that awareness that a woman would have if a man was into her. It was this book that gave me pause about a Hawke and Sienna relationship. The fact that I said that considering I've been a die hard fan since the VERY BEGINNING says a lot, I think. I love Sienna; I want her to grow into a strong, powerful, fiery dominant that can take on everything that is Hawke. In Indigo's book, I saw a really young, fragile Sienna that was in no way Hawke's match - I saw a child, not a woman. Am I alone in this? I WANT Sienna portrayed more as a strong, fiery woman - the person she has been in the previous books. In PoP she seemed so fragile...submissive. Not dominant at all. I really, truly hope that KoS will show a much stronger, powerful side of her. She really does need to be Hawke's match - and I think that given her powers, she most definitely can be Hawke's match in every way!!

I love Hawke and Sienna. She needs to show Hawke who's in charge!! ;p

I had the opposite reaction actually. I think we saw a young woman who is trying to get over her crush because she has been told time and again, that it is not reciprocated. She doesn't spend much time in the SD territory and with Hawke. And when she does, her control over her powers is not where it typically is. Considering how distant, brusque he is with her, her thinking that he is not into her is logical.

To me, the defining moment was Hawke choosing to walk with Sienna when he sees her that one morning. I felt that gave her the confidence to actually touch him at the end. She might have finally understood that he may not be all that immune to her. Because in the beginning, she was the one who asked him to not touch her. But now, she felt comfortable enough to do so.

I was actually glad that she was trying hard to 'forget' about him. Somehow, pinning after a man that doesn't hesitate to harshly tell you to stay out of his way is more childish than what Sienna did, (which in my opinion was close to a "fuck you, boss"). =D
I say Sienna's grown up considerably from the petulant teenage "I'm not doing it because you say so, mr alpha" that we met in book 1.

And yes, PoP felt like an interlude. I kept waiting for something to happen, every scene, I imagined evil psys hiding in the woods, waiting for them to be distracted and spring to attack. Or something. ANYTHING. Somehow, even though the looming holocaust has me holding my paperbacks and crying "I dont want any of you to die!", it still felt like nothing of importance really happened throughout the book. Nothing that actually included Drew and Indigo in the evil plot. The LEAST I expected was having Drew hunt down a seriously messed up changeling for some pack (not necessarily a SnowDancer). Why make Drew such a powerful tracker and do nothing with it? Why reveal it now then? No reason no to have told us back in book 3.

Okay, i'm ranting now. I still loved the book. Loved the couple. ADORE DREW. But me loves my Psy arc too much, and Kaleb didn't get a POV, so I'm allowed to be cranky.

=p[i]

I think this book represented the "calm before the storm" where everything that needed to be put into place got put into place.

That said, a lot of small stuff did happen. Dev and SD forged a connection. An alliance was created between the Psy and Changlings. We got a look at just how tight SD's security is and how determined the Psy are to breach that security. Oh yeah and the Ghost went from being a bad-in-a-good-way to being just plain bad.

Okay, I admit, I was more than a little harsh, but still... it also felt like a goodbye, what with so many couples given a spotlight big or tiny,
[brenna&Judd with a chapter, mercy&Riley mentioned continiuosly and then the talk, hugely-pregnant-Sascha&Lucas (less than previous books though), Faith presented only by his father, Dorian and Ashaya helped and mentioned, we know a new bit about Clay&Tally, Max&Sophia, Dev...]
Really, the suspense was killing me. XD

I like this like line "calm before the storm" ,

Well, part of the evil plot was to assassinate Hawke, and Drew very literally stopped that (he just can NOT get shot any more!). But yeah, I had a "calm before the storm" feeling, too. I almost hated getting to know the new characters, because some of them I think will die, and I don't want anyone to die. However, I would especially like to see Tanique get a book and not get killed though because Psychometry is a cool ability, I think.

I'm also not sure the Ghost is completely bad, yet. Maybe really close, though. And it sounds like he and Sophia both are literally part of the PsyNet, which is really interesting. We know how it works for her, but it sounds like it may work differently for him.

Madhura wrote:

I had the opposite reaction actually. I think we saw a young woman who is trying to get over her crush because she has been told time and again, that it is not reciprocated. She doesn't spend much time in the SD territory and with Hawke. And when she does, her control over her powers is not where it typically is. Considering how distant, brusque he is with her, her thinking that he is not into her is logical.

To me, the defining moment was Hawke choosing to walk with Sienna when he sees her that one morning. I felt that gave her the confidence to actually touch him at the end. She might have finally understood that he may not be all that immune to her. Because in the beginning, she was the one who asked him to not touch her. But now, she felt comfortable enough to do so.

Good point. I did love that part when he walked her to her car....never made the connection to when she touched him in the hospital. Put in that light, that makes the interaction between them much sweeter. Hmm...

Thanks for the food for thought!!