JOINT REVIEW: Ocean Light by Nalini Singh
Jennie: There have been 16 books in the Psy/Changeling series and now two in the Psy/Changeling Trinity series. This is the sixth book of those 18 that Janine and I have reviewed together. I know this because when I searched for our last review, from June of 2017, I noted that *that* one was our fifth review together. I graded that book, Silver Silence, a B+, while Janine gave it a C. This interested me because my perception has long been that Janine has been a bigger fan of these two series than I am.
Janine: I think that might be true, generally speaking.
Jennie: On to Ocean Light: late in Silver Silence, Bowen “Bo” Knight, security chief of the Human Alliance, is shot on a bridge in Venice. The assassin is presumably working for the Consortium, the villainous organization out to smash the Trinity Accord. When Ocean Light opens, Bo is in a coma, watched over by Kaia Luna, an ex-scientist turned cook who is checking on Bo at the request of her very pregnant cousin Attie, who is Bo’s doctor. Before the first chapter ends, Bo has awakened, understandably confused – not only does he not know where he is, he doesn’t know how he’s alive. He felt the bullet that hit him explode his heart before he fell off the bridge and into the canal. He should be dead.
It turns out that Bo’s been in a coma for two months, and the world, absent a few key people, think he’s dead. He discovers that he’s being treated on an underwater station run by BlackSea, the collective of water changelings, and that he’s alive thanks to a new mechanical heart. But Bo’s not out of the woods, health-wise, for an entirely different reason.
In a previous book, Bo and several other members of the Human Alliance were implanted with a brain chip meant to protect them from being mentally invaded by the Psy. Scientists Ashaya and Amara Aleine developed the chip and implanted it at the humans’ insistence when it hadn’t been fully tested, and now those implanted chips are degrading. Death waits if the degradation of the chips can’t be stopped (apparently while Bo was in his coma, the Aleines did come up with a solution that slowed the degradation process somewhat).
Bo finds out that Attie has developed a compound that, *if* it works, would save him and the other humans from death. However, it has a high probably of turning him into a vegetable. So his immediate future either holds death, a fate he considers worse than death, or possibly a normal life with a brain free from the threat of psychic rape by the Psy. In summary, things are kind of intense for Bo at the moment.
Bo and Kaia have an instant connection, but it’s one that Kaia resists. For one thing, her best friend Hugo has gone missing, the latest in a string of BlackSea members who have been kidnapped by a mysterious enemy. There’s reason to suspect humans may be involved, making Kaia extremely wary of humans in general and the face of the Human Alliance in particular.
Even without that complication, Kaia has a childhood trauma that causes her to fear and distrust humans (much like Bo has a past that makes him fear and distrust the Psy). But Bo almost immediately sees in Kaia the possibility of a different life, one that is not so consumed with saving his fellow humans from the Psy menace.
Between the missing BlackSea members and Bo’s concerns that the Human Alliance could harbor a traitor, as well as the very real possibility that Bo could be facing annihilation one way or another in a matter of weeks, one would think that Ocean Light would be fast-paced and full of drama. But one thing I liked about it was that a fair amount of the middle of the book is focused on Bo and Kaia’s developing relationship. We (and Bo) spend a lot of time with Kaia in the station’s kitchen, meeting its residents and getting a feel for the BlackSea community. An underwater station could feel claustrophobic, but somehow it didn’t. Singh made it so appealing I almost wanted to visit (in reality I would be terrified to be that deeply submerged).
Janine: I thought that Singh did a stellar job of capturing the ocean’s vastness, its immense mystery, through Bo’s sense of wonder. I truly felt like I was entering a different, and magical world than that of the other novels in the series. This was what I had hoped for when I heard that there would be a second series, and what I wanted but didn’t get from Silver Silence.
Jennie: The book worked better for me when it focused on the romance, or the missing BlackSea members mystery, than when it dealt with Bo’s maybe-impending-death. I looked back at our joint review of Silver Silence and we complained about the many times in the series that variations on this storyline have been used, only to have it crop up in this, the very next book. Sigh.
Besides the repetitiveness of the recycled storyline, I just find that that having such a dramatic threat to the HEA in a romance somehow paradoxically serves to remind me that it *is* a romance, and of course there will be an HEA, and of course the hero/heroine won’t die. So that part of the story mostly just irritated me.
Janine: While I’m in sympathy with you regarding just how well-worn the impending death trope is in this series, I was still able to enjoy it this time, because what felt new to me was that Kaia resisted falling for Bo partly because she knew that this fate could await him. I especially loved the moment when her defenses crumbled and their bond kicked in. It comes late in the book, so I won’t spoil it, but it had me crying.
Jennie: The idea that Bo and the other humans would have an untested chip implanted in their brains stretches my credulity. I understand that humans, particularly Bo and his compatriots, are desperate for a solution that protects them from the Psy mentally. But going forward with an implantation that quickly fails makes them seem heedless and even foolish. (To be fair, I think part of the reason that Bo and the other humans are portrayed as insisting on the chip being implanted without further testing is because otherwise Ashaya Aleine, heroine of book five, Hostage to Pleasure, would kind of be on the hook for endangering all their lives.)
Janine: Right with you there, and I felt similarly about Vasic and his experimental gauntlet. Characters in this series can be reckless with their health and well-being, and I don’t entirely understand why the scientists involved in these decisions go along with them.
In the case of Bo and his friends who were implanted with this chip, it was made clear that they thought death preferable to mind rape. But there was a moment when Bo was facing the possibility of death in this book, and had so much to live for, that I thought, Really? You’d honestly prefer to die?
Jennie:
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Jennie: Janine, how did you feel about Bo and Kaia’s insta-attraction? I was annoyed when he was enraptured over her scent moments after awakening from his coma, but as the story went on my feelings about it started to change.
Janine: I had a very similar reaction to yours. It happened so fast that for a moment I was irritated, but then as the novel progressed it became more and more convincing, and I almost forgot my initial response.
Jennie: Bo and Kaia really got to know and understand each other in the course of their courtship, and I felt like the internal obstacles to an HEA (mostly on Kaia’s side) were a lot more real and compelling than the “will Bo survive?” storyline.
Janine: As I said earlier, I thought that “Will Bo survive?” question impacted Kaia’s resistance in an interesting way, so I had more interest in it for that reason. I never truly doubted his survival, but Kaia’s reaction made me care.
I want to take a moment here and say a word or two about Kaia. I thought she was a wonderful character, one of my favorite heroines in the series thus far. In fact, she might even give Mercy (my favorite up until now) a run for her money, although their personalities are very different. Whereas Mercy is bold and unafraid, Kaia was the one I saw as more courageous, because she had so much fear and trauma to overcome. And yet she never let it rob her of her joy in life. There was something I found heroic about that.
Bo, for me, was less compelling, but I found I liked him better in the station setting. Out of his depths and recovering from injury, as well as allowing himself to experience the wonder of where he was, he became more approachable than he had been in prior books. And he also developed some playfulness with Kaia, as well as curiosity about her (just what she changes into remains a mystery for much of the book, although I guessed it). All of that made him likeable.
Jennie: Totally agree on both Kaia and Bo. I wasn’t thrilled with Bo as a hero going in, but I thought we got to see another side of him, one that Kaia uniquely brought out.
Janine: There were also some interesting secondary characters introduced here, as well as a few old favorites who returned. I don’t want to spoil a tiny cameo that thrilled me in the middle of the book, so I’ll say no more on that topic.
All in all, I loved this book until the last bad thing that befell Kaia happened. Up until that moment I was enthralled and then… Kaia had been through so much in this novel that the last thing she needed was one more trauma, so it felt like overkill. Even though what happened turned out to have a silver lining, it punctured my bubble of enjoyment to have her go through more.
Jennie: Agreed. There was a point to it, but it still felt like too much, especially coming so late in the book.
After struggling with elements of the series for so long (the overwrought writing, the idealization of the “animal” changelings over the “rational” Psy, some yucky gender stuff) I feel like I’m coming to peace with these “flaws.” For whatever reason, I like the series enough to continue, so it’s pointless to get worked up about phrases like “…drenched the world in changeling blood” on the first page. Focusing on the positive (except for grumble..stupid chip…grumble), my grade for Ocean Light is a high B.
Janine: I made my (sometimes uneasy) peace with that long ago, but I am grateful to see Singh taking the series in a new direction with the introduction of books about the ocean changelings. I look forward to books about Miane, Malachai, and other ocean changelings, as well as Bo’s sister, Lily, and I’m hoping for one about at least one of his people, too. The last scene, though I saw what happened there coming from miles away, was delightful too.
You’d have to go back to Kaleb and Sahara’s book, Heart of Obsidian, published in 2013, to find a novel in the Psy/Changeling series that I’ve enjoyed this much. My grade is a B+.
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Just FYI, though Ashaya developed the original chip, the Human Alliance scientists were the ones who further developed it and then implanted them in Bo, Lily, etc. Bo and the HA did give Ashaya a stake in the patent, but never filed it. (per [em]Tangle of Need[/em]). The Alienes only worked on the chips again afterwards. They thought they were fine up until the previous book.
Bo and many of the soldiers had previous chips implanted that they were told would prevent Psy interference but in reality were trackers/kill switches for the previous Chairman of the Board (the one who was controlled by Tatiana), so I guess it didn’t bother them to have this type of procedure. I could see why they would want to have a safeguard, so it worked for me in terms of the world they live in.
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I didn’t mind the will Bo survive storyline since the problem was set up in Silver Silence, so this plotline was more of an answer to that pre-existing condition. I never once thought Silver’s survival was in question in her book, so for me the issue of will she be able to feel was an interesting twist. The only book where ‘will the character survive’ made me doubtful was Blaze of Memory (and the set-up there still makes me doubt, even after multiple rereads. It is one of my favorite books.)
If the last bad thing that happened to Kaia was
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it irked me for an entirely different reason. It was in the blurb, yet happened so late in the book. Since it was in the blurb, I spent the first two-thirds of the story waiting for it to happen.
I really enjoyed Kaia and Bo’s romance. Even though there was a short time frame, it felt more like a slow-burn romance to me. I am also hoping to get a novella or short story about Attie and Dex. I loved them.
I figured the main baddie due to the aforementioned waiting for the thing in the blurb. Something began to seem off about that particular character to me. I was actually surprised by the reveal
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I loved that a character we start out liking ended up being one of the bad guys. I agree the Changelings aren’t portrayed on page enough as having a range of good to bad. I think Nalini is making progress on that front though. I am still holding on to the obviously false hope that The Architect will somehow be a Changeling.
I appreciated that the cameos from past characters were limited in this book (though a few were still unnecessary IMO). I loved the ending! It didn’t quite give me the chills that the last page of Heart of Obsidian does, but it is right up there.
(sorry for taking so many comment spaces. The coding confuzzled me).
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@library addict: Thanks for reminding us of that! It’s hard to keep track of all the details in such a long-running series.
@library addict: That’s a great point about the blurb. I glanced at the blurb when it first posted online, but by the time I had gotten the e-ARC, I’d forgotten all about that part of it. So that really didn’t bother me. Maybe if I had been anticipating it, it wouldn’t have felt like piling too much on Kaia, who had suffered enough.
I agree with you about Kaia / Bo having a slow burn feel. I think that may have been due to Kaia’s reluctance to fall for him, first because she suspected him, and later because she believed he might not survive.
Attie and Dex were really cute.
The reveal that surprised you was actually one that I guessed in advance, but:
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Yes, you’re right, some progress is being made on the whole good-to-bad range with the changelings.
Which cameos did you think were unnecessary?
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The ending was really strong, I agree, although:
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Don’t worry about the extra comment, I’ll delete the test one.
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For villain one
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For the other “villain”
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I had more empathy for the third bad guy
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as it felt like his part wasn’t as directly related to the disappearance of the missing BlackSea members. I guess I just think of the pain that Olivia is in over the death of her mate, Cary. And the fact that she’s only hanging on until Persephone is grown and then may just not wake up one day (but the whole Changeling parents leaving their kids when their mate dies is a big pet peeve of mine).
I just thought
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As for the cameos
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@library addict: I didn’t expect the third villain at all, but I had easily figured out that the first villain (the most obvious one) had a double identity, and what it was was. It’s weird what seems “obvious” to one person will totally go over another’s head, and vice versa!
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Jennie, is the villain you refer to as the first villain is the one Library Addict references in her second hidden comment?
Library Addict,
Regarding that villain,
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Re. the cameos,
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@Janine:
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I have mixed fillings about this book. I like the series overall, but it’s starting to be boring. For me it does not move along very fast. No one that we know and care about ever dies, and emotionally at least I was not very invested. Yes Bo was shot, had a chip in his brain but I had no doubt that he will not die and the chip will be neutralized. I remember reading one author thoughts about a good book and she stated that in order for readers to be involved and invested some characters have to evolve, have bad things happen to them that are irrevocable, and I agree with her. It was a nice book , the ocean people where nice but that was it! Literally nothing else happened at least for me. People who committed crimes did not get punished on the page , everything was glossed over. I loved her previous worked much better , but it gets repetitive.
I am curious about Mal and Melaine (sorry bad spelling here ). I know he said he is not mated but do you think they are a couple ?
@Nat: I agree with you that there’s a lot of repetition in these series. I guess it’s understandable when there are so many books, but I’ve definitely been exasperated by it at times.
That said, I think what you disliked about this book – the lack of action and seeming slowness of the plot – was actually a strength for me. I felt like I got immersed in a new world at the underwater station and I kind of liked watching Bo and Kaia fall in love in a way that felt both slow and fast (fast because it’s a short time in the story, but slow because there wasn’t a whole lot of other plot, at least comparatively).
@Nat: I liked this one much better than Silver Silence, but in the review for that book, I said I’d love to see some tropes that haven’t appeared yet in this series. In particular, the impending death thing seems to happen in a lot of the books. I also said that no character that we care about has ever been killed (unless you count Dorian’s sister, but we never knew about her until she was already dead), which is odd given all the violent conflicts that have cropped up over the years, and the various dangerous villains that have tried. The longer the series go on the less plausible this starts to feel. One reason I did like this one better than many of the books is that the immersion in the underwater world made it feel really different to me. But obviously, not everyone is going to feel the same.
This book was just OK for me . It was interesting to gain an insight into Black Sea, but there was no world building. I did have a problem with a few things. The first one was how big a deal Bowen made out of Kaia’s talents (due to her ancestry), when the book starts with her using her abilities while he is waking up. Did he forget? I don’t think her career switch was explained very well (or I didn’t catch it; I listened to audiobook so I guess it’s possible I got distracted). I guessed two of the villains and was surprised at how the first was dealt with and disappointed that one is still at large. As for cameos, I agree with library addict – a few of them were unnecessary and thus annoying. I am still very much invested in the series and looking forward to future books, but this one was just… meh. I enjoyed Silver Silence much more than Ocean light. (I know many people probably asked this many times, but…can someone tell me how to do “buried comments”? Thanks.)
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I can do without the phrase “Predatory Changeling male” for sure (when rereading the series back-to-back, by the time I reach book 11 or 12 that phrase gets on my last nerve – lol).
I love the daily life/routine aspect of this series, but I can see why some don’t.
One thing I am questioning while rereading this book is the way they kept lying to Attie for her own good. I get the why, but in the scene where they find their side experiment has been destroyed she certainly stepped up. And I do understand why they wouldn’t tell her
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I really want a Attie & Dex novella.
T, you use square brackets so [ shush hidden comment [ / shush
but without the spaces and with the closing bracket ] after the h in shush.
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@Nat: Miane and Malachi aren’t a couple yet, that we know of, but maybe they will be?
@T: I actually liked that the one villain got away. In the last book, I felt like the Consortium were the underdogs and the Trinity Accord heroes and heroines were more Goliath than David. After all Trinity has a lot of people with superpowers — Kaleb, Nikita, Sienna, Judd, Aden, to name some of those with the scariest powers, as well as Lucas, Minane and Hawke, who bring with them three packs, and the entire Arrow squad. In comparison, the Consortium seemed weaker. But now that the villain got away and
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they’re starting to seem like more of a threat.
For buried comments, use this code but omit the spaces inside the brackets:
[ shush ]Put whatever spoilers you want to hide in here[ /shush ]
But be sure to use square brackets, and also, a lowercase “s” at the beginning of “shush.” Otherwise it may not work.
@library addict: God, I so agree on “predatory changeling male.”
I too like seeing what daily life is like inside a changeling pack, especially when it’s a pack we haven’t seen up close before.
I mostly saw the lying to Attie as a device and I’m sure they’ll come clean after the birth.
@T
I thought Bowen was talking out loud in the beginning and didn’t realize it as he truly thought he was a brain in a jar at the time. I didn’t get the impression that Kaia was talking to him telepathically at all.
There didn’t seem to be any one incident that caused Kaia to stop being a scientist to become a chef. She’d gone into the family business (both of Attie’s parents are doctors), but wasn’t happy. So her paternal grandparents paid for her to go to culinary school as she’d always loved cooking. Her aunt and uncle weren’t unsupportive of the career change, they just didn’t understand it. At least that’s the impression I have.
@library addict: I didn’t really question the lying to Attie because of what she’d been through previously. It probably wasn’t necessary, but it didn’t seem over the top, particularly in the perpetually OTT world Singh has created.
I kinda wish Bo had been paired with a Psy. But maybe that would’ve been too obvious?
@CW: I think Heenali might be paired with a Psy, and I’d like to read that.
@CW: I feel like pairing Bo with a Psy would have been a little too obvious but also, kind of a bridge too far? Given his feeling about the Psy. I kind of liked that the tables were turned with Kaia having a distrust/dislike of humans because of personal experience.
@library addict:
Thank you!
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@library addict:
See how we are all different? :) I first read that excerpt in Nalini Singh’s newsletter, and I remember thinking – cool, he will have a Psy girlfriend! How interesting and what a conflict for him, with his history. When I read it the second time in the book, i still felt that she was in his head. It seems implausible to me that a person waking up from comma would 1) start speaking right away, and 2) say things like “My brain is in the jar!” and “You’re experimenting on my brain!” out loud. These expressions are more suited to thoughts, in my opinion. I do recognize that this is a book of fiction, though, and so anything and everything the author wishes can happen. LOL
As to Kaia’s career change, it bothered me only because I perceived it as a (much too obvious) plot device – it was done so she could have medical skills to help care for Bo AND have a handy dandy way to show people she cares for them (making their favorite food).
I am even more interested in Miene and Mal now, after reading Ocean Light. I can still hardly wait for the next book in the series, no matter who the protagonists are.
Let’s see now if I can manage to not mess up hiding a spoiler ;)
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@T:
Rereading the scene I can see now why you thought that.
FWIW, Bo doesn’t realize he’s talking out loud in the scene as is he rather out of it (though I loved him thinking about lecturing Lily for putting his brain in a jar without verifying he was really dead…as if! lol). Since Kaia’s dialogue includes quotation marks we know she’s talking out loud since when the books have people talking telepathically it is usually just italicized.
Since the magic compound had already started to repair Bo’s brain while he was in the coma I didn’t take him talking from the moment he woke up as any more fanciful than the fact the bug things allowed him to walk after being in bed for over 8 weeks. I thought the point of the scene was that Bo doesn’t realize what he is saying. His expressions are more suited to thoughts as he’s simply rambling. But that’s the point. We get his parts as thoughts and not dialogue since the scene is from his POV and he doesn’t realize he is talking out loud, first in English then in Italian. That’s uncharacteristic for him and illustrates that he isn’t in control.
I wasn’t 100% sure if Miane would be paired with Malachai before this book, but I think their scenes in this book make that pretty obvious now. If that’s the case I won’t be surprised if Selenka is then NOT paired with Gregori as having both of the series main female alphas/first paired with one of their lieutenants would seem redundant.
I am looking forward to their stories. But I think from what Nalini said in her Entertainment Weekly interview, the next book may be about Adam or one of the falcons. I’m not good at guessing though. When she said after Heart of Obsidian that the next hero would be obvious, I thought it would be Xavier & Nina’s book. Vasic was my second guess, but I didn’t think he was the only “obvious” choice.
@Janine: Oooh maybe. Or Bo’s BFF?
@CW: i doubt it will be Bo’s BFF who is paired with Heenali since he’s human and so is she. The series is paranormal, after all, so at least one main character as to have some unusual abilities, whether Psy or changeling.
@T: I agree. The opening scene was a touch odd to me too, and Kaia’s two careers a bit convenient. Miane and Malachi could make a great pairing. Re the spoiler in your comment — no, I don’t think you are one of only 3 people. He’s really annoying in some regards.
@library addict: Thanks for the heads up on the Entertainment Weekly interview. I just read it, and it sounds like it could be the falcons or the bears. Of these, the falcons are much more engaging to me.