Nalini Singh simply never takes a step wrong. Her Psy-Changeling books form one of the most extraordinary series I’ve read. No matter what is going on in my life I can always rely on picking up any one of her books and being immediately drawn into a fascinating world of danger, suspense, passion, romance ... a world that is so clearly drawn and compelling that everything else fades away. And at the end of the story there is a sense of a journey well made and the happiest of happy sighs!

Even though we’re up to book 8, each one has a freshness and originality with its storyline in this complicated alternative America. In Bonds of Justice we have a clearer intersection of humans with the Psy and Changelings as well as a wonderful police thriller, so that the characters and motivations are broadened and the mystery overlays the personal challenges facing the characters.

Max is a cop with impenetrable mental shields that mean that he is able to investigate Psy without their mental manipulation. For the past years he has worked towards the capture of the sociopath named the Butcher of Park Avenue. Sophia Kane is a Justice Psy who works with law enforcement to read the memories of sick perverted criminals and solve the most heinous of crimes. With her constant exposure to the twisted minds and the evil they commit her mental shields are disintegrating and she is facing complete rehabilitation. Max and Sophia have both worked on the Butcher of Park Avenue case, but they are now partnered together to find out who is killing Nikita Duncan's advisers.

There’s a greater darkness in this story than in prior books, largely because Sophia is an anchor to the Psy net and cannot leave it and therefore cannot hide her disintegration. In past books the bonds between mates have provided enough psychic feedback to enable Psy to drop out of the Psynet, but Nalini Singh ups the ante here by taking this option away from Sophia. But beyond this is a great detective thriller as Max and Sophia trace down leads and try to stop more murders.

We can always rely on Nalini Singh’s amazing skills as a writer. She’s able to weave a depth of emotion, complex world-building and suspenseful plots – all while writing extremely well. Never more has this been more evident that when she provides us with the entire theme of this book in Chapter one:

The otherness in her stirred, wanting to give him the unvarnished, deadly truth, but that was something she couldn’t ever share with a man who’d made Justice his life. “I’ll do my job.” Then she said something a perfect Psy never would have said. “We’ll bring them home. No one should have to spend eternity in the cold dark.”

With this one short sentence we have the missing graves of the murder victims, a hint into Sophia’s torturous history and a metaphor for the Psy. Throughout the book we are reminded of this overarching theme in very clever ways.

There is a wonderful romance between Max and Sophia. There is an early attraction between them, but because any touch is incredibly painful for Sophia, it takes time for their relationship to develop. We have rising emotional and sexual tension while they get to know each other and fall in love – before falling into bed. While I really like the whole mating heat thing with the changelings I thought that, as we were dealing with a human and Psy, making Max and Sophia work for their relationship was a very wise choice from Nalini. There’s really never any question between them about their feelings so the problems in their relationship really centre around if Sophia is going to die and if they’ll ever get to ‘do it’. And yes, I did wish they get to the down and dirty earlier!

One niggling disappointment was that there could have been more hints throughout the book about the solution to Sophia’s not being able to leave the Psynet (No, this isn’t a spoiler – this is a romance so of course she doesn’t die!), but as it was the solution was presented a little too neatly towards the end.

However in terms of the continuation of this wonderfully conceived and developed world, Bonds of Justice is a real winner. Expect more Psy council politics, romance and drama, appearances from characters from past books, a solid mystery as well as indications of some future plot threads.

Now of course, I’m off to read some of the past books in this series and to wish again that I was there!