Cassandra Palmer can see the future and communicate with spirits—talents that make her attractive to the dead and the undead. The ghosts of the dead aren’t usually dangerous; they just like to talk…a lot.The undead are another matter.Like any sensible girl, Cassie tries to avoid vampires. But when the bloodsucking mafioso she escaped three years ago finds Cassie again with vengeance on his mind, she’s forced to turn to the vampire Senate for protection.The undead senators won’t help her for nothing, and Cassie finds herself working with one of their most powerful members, a dangerously seductive master vampire—and the price he demands may be more than Cassie is willing to pay....
Customer Reviews
Rating Breakdown
★★★★★
30%
(458)
★★★★
25%
(382)
★★★
15%
(229)
★★
7%
(107)
★
23%
(352)
Most Helpful Reviews
★★★★★
5.0
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loved it!
I was lucky enough to pick this up a few days before it was released, and after I'd read it, I wasn't sure if I should be glad of the early pickup or not! I'll tell you why. I'm glad of it because I really loved the book. On the other hand, now I have a long time to wait before her second installment of Cassie's story is released! But there is good news--Karen Chance will be publishing the sequel through Roc and it's entitled Claimed by Shadows; look for it in June of 2007. After you read Touch the Dark, I can almost promise you that you'll be equally as eager as I am to preorder a copy.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me tell you what Touch the Dark is about.
Cassie Palmer is being hunted by assassins out to kill her. Why? Well, she suspects it may have something to do with her hated Mafioso ex-mentor, whom she ran away from. Her only chance to survive is to run for her life. Her sexy roommate Thomas won't have any of that though--if Cassie's leaving, he wants to go with her. In the process of trying to escape from said assasins, there is a bloody battle, and when it's over, nothing in Cassie's life will be the same again.
She is taken to the vampire Senate, and surprisingly, they are willing to help protect her. But Cassie's not sure she's willing to bargain with a bunch of untrustworthy vampires. What do they want from her? And will she be able to afford the price?
I had a few minor gripes with Touch the Dark. There was a lot of backstory to wade through, and a lot of history and introduction to the world of vampires and ghosts, etc. that Cassie lives in. However, I enjoyed finding out more about her world and her powers (she can communicate with ghosts). There were also tantalizing bits about her past and her parents which remained unresolved. That's okay, because I feel pretty confident that Karen Chance will take care of these things in the next book. I think the worst part for me was the ending, because it was kind of sudden and left things very unsettled. But please keep in mind these are minor problems I had with the book.
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed reading about Cassie and her adventures. I don't want to say too much, but there is also a very seductive and delicious character with a strong interest in Cassie. I had to keep a supply of tissues on hand to wipe away the drool that appeared every page he was in.
I highly recommend this book. I hope you pick up your copy soon, because I know this is one you won't want to miss. Karen Chance has a very promising future in this genre.
97 people found this helpful
★★★★★
2.0
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Doesn't live up to the raves
I really wanted to like this...I wish I could give 2-1/2 stars because I sort of liked it, but meh, not enough to stand up and say, "I like it." The worldbuilding was quite intriguing--a modern day sybil trying to stay out of the clutches of the vampires, fey, werewolves, and war mages engaged in an otherworldly power struggle. I swore I'd never read another vampire book, but this premise drew me in. Ms. Chance's story "Buying Trouble" in the On the Prowl anthology was also charming, convincing me that she knew how to tell an entertaining action story. Ms. Chance does know how to write, but there are big problems here that kept throwing me out of the story, making me feel like I was wading through soup.
Her characters, even her heroine, read rather generic to me, despite the clever premise. And she has an annoying (really really really annoying) tendency to stop in the middle of action and sex scenes, and dialogue exchanges, to go off on explaining and description tangents. Sometimes these information dumps last a couple of paragraphs, sometimes a couple of pages or more. There were times that somebody would ask a question and Ms. Chance would take off into the scenery or worldbuilding for so long that when the question was answered I had to page back to see what the question had been. This wasn't something that just happened occasionally, but recurred throughout the book. I was skim reading these passages by the end.
Then there's that ending...no spoilers, but let's just say that although she did arrive at a kind of resolution to the present story, there was so much left unresolved that it felt more like a chapter ending than a book ending. This kind of "leave 'em hanging" ending always makes me feel cheated. I know it's supposed to make me run right out and buy the next book, but I'm not sure I'll be doing that in this case. I'm right on the fence about it at the moment. It's a first novel, so I feel I should cut her some slack, but the hanging ending and the annoying writing technique have not left me a happy reader. If I do read the next one, I will do a considerable amount in-bookstore reading before buying just to see if she's improved her bad habits at all.
56 people found this helpful
★★★★★
2.0
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I wasn't going to go negative, but maybe I should
I expected more from this book considering how much it was well reviewed before it came out and was linked with so many other authors I enjoy reading. But after the book actually came out and I read it I felt that I could not get into the story and I felt it was very cliche and I had to put too much effort to get through the backstory to find out what was going on with this person that the book was about.
We start with the title character on the run and then suddenly in the midst of all of this mayhem and destruction but it is too much too fast with a character I have no sympathy for beyond the fact that her parents were killed when she was young (so very un-original). She has people chasing her but they are so heavy handed and unprofessional that I was just reading it to get to the next part and the next part which was just as thick and wordy. I felt that the author was trying to jump into the middle of the story of the main character too quickly. So many of the Authors that this book tries to emulate take two to three books before the character and storyline are fully realized and I felt that this author wanted to get to that point with the first book.
I will not be buying any more books by this author. I would be too upset with myself for having to read another one of these books on the way to work on the subway. Time better spent sleeping. (Now Doppelganger by Marie Brennan, that was a good book that I am looking forward to the sequel - Warrior and Witch)
50 people found this helpful
★★★★★
1.0
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Weak lead, no plot, laughable villains, terrible dialogue
All this book has brought me are headdesks and shouts of, "Why!? WHY!?"
The main character is ridiculously dense and unlikeable. Through the whole book, Cassie is either freaking out unnecessarily, or getting angry over benign situations. I'm honestly surprised this character can even figure out how to put on her hooker-wear in the morning; she's brainless and I spent most of the book slapping my forehead at the stupid decisions she made.
The writing is terrible, mainly because the author can't even stand to stay in her own scenes long enough for them to go anywhere. Chance does not know how to incorporate her characters' backgrounds (or even useless facts) gracefully. Instead of making it a smooth transition, or just *gasp* leaving out things that will never matter ever again, she steps out of the story, takes two (or more!) full pages to explain it and then comes back to the scene. The problem with this is that, by the time you get back to the actual story, you're left feeling bewildered and wondering what end of the rabbit hole you just tumbled out of.
The characterisation is laughable at best, with all the vampires being nothing more than one-note rip-offs of characters /other authors/ previously made up. The story clunks along, often making no sense, which is unfortunate. I could handle a stump-brained lead character if the the story going on around her made any sense and/or was at all interesting. This book did not engross me at all, past making me laugh at how inconsistant and bad it was. Edited: I previously had a bit here that incorrectly suggested that Chance had not researched the history she put into the book. I have taken this out, as it was explained to me, kindly, that I was wrong.
Overall I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone unless they were asking me for examples of unlikeable Mary-Sues surrounded by uninteresting hijinks caused by brainless vampires.
If you like good writing, don't buy this book. If you like Laurell K. Hamilton, you will probably love this book.
47 people found this helpful
★★★★★
1.0
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Three hours of my life I'll never get back
I was looking forward to this book and was tragically disappointed. The heroine, Cassie, is vapid and boring. Fifty pages in I was hoping for someone, anyone, to kill her. The backstory was delivered at such an awkward pace that I couldn't figure out why I was supposed to be rooting for her. There were too many characters and zero character development. If one more historical personage turned out to be a vampire I think I would have thrown the book at the wall and screamed. The scenes were choppy and went nowhere. It felt like the author was trying to throw in every paranormal contrivance possible. I wouldn't suggest this book to anyone I liked.
35 people found this helpful
★★★★★
5.0
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WARNING! This book may leave you out of breath and dizzy due to non stop action and far too sexy vampires
Cassie Palmer has a problem. In fact Cassie has quite a few, a psycho mobster vampire who also happens to be her former guardian has found her after 3 years of being on the run; her clarvoiyant abilities seems to be getting more vivid and disturbing; her Billy Joe, her ghostly sidekick keeps disappearing at most inconvenient times and her former roommate isn't quite what he seems. But this is just the start for Cassie things have started to shift in the supernatural ability and it seems that several factions want a piece of her and she is never quite sure who to trust.
What I love about this series is that it grabs you as soon as you start reading and drags you straight into the action. There is almost no let up; hence the warning at the top of the review. Cassie is flung from one dire situation to another. This book also gives you alot of information all at once and on top of everything else going on it can make it an intense read.
The world the Karen Chance has created though is really interesting, full of vampires, weres and mages all kind of living in harmony. And once you have gotten past the intial information overload you can appriciate the complex world the Ms Chance has wrought. Another great thing about this book is the characters. It is told from first person POV and I know this can put some readers off, but I find that I quite like this in UF, especially if I like the person whose head I am inside, like I do with Cassie. Cassie was a great character, she wasn't your usual tough chick who makes pithy sarcastic comments as she kicks the crap out of people, instead she makes pithy sarcastic comments as she runs away or as she is being almost beaten by the enemy.
As for the sexy-dangerous vampires, there are a few to pick from, there is Mircea, brother to Dracula, the seemingly urbane and calm master vampire, so long as you don't piss him off; Louis Cesar (my personal fave) with the long auburn hair and the lethal fencing skills and Tomas hot, sexy and likes to ripe people hearts out with his bare hands. Choices, choices!
This is definately a series I would recommend to those who love Urban Fantasy, it was funny, interesting and action packed and I can't wait to get to the next one
25 people found this helpful
★★★★★
1.0
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Very disppointed
I bought this after reading Kelley Armstrong's series and while in the middle of Laurell K. Hamilton's series of novels. I found myself wanting to get to the end of the book, only so that it would be over. I was bored reading it and found myself even drifting at times. I even found myself rooting for something to happen to Cassie. I couldn't feel anything for the character. And it jumped around so much, I was like 'huh'? When I started to read it, I thought, ooh, vampire gangsters, that's cool. But there were no gangsters in the story, but for a few minutes. And I don't want to spoil anything but the cheese factor with the choice of well-known villains turned vampires, like Jack the Ripper, was ridiculous. Most of the story actually took place in a hotel room where everything was explained to the main character. I was very disappointed with this read. Not worth continuing with this series.
23 people found this helpful
★★★★★
1.0
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MENTAL TORTURE . . . Too much going on with no meaning or understanding.
HAVE YOU EVER READ A BOOK THEN WENT TO SEE THE MOVIE VERSION OF THE BOOK? YOU KNOW THAT FEELING OF DISAPPOINTMENT YOU GET WHEN IMPORTANT PARTS OF THE BOOK ARE LEFT OUT OF THE MOVIE? I UNDERSTAND WHEN PEOPLE SAY THE BOOK WAS BETTER THAN THE MOVIE. WHAT DO YOU SAY WHEN THE BOOK LEAVES OUT THE IMPORTANT PARTS? LIKE WHAT IN THE WORLD IS GOING ON?
I consider myself a pretty decently seasoned reader. I've read Great, Good, Bad, and Throw in the trash after attempting to read. This book received poor reviews, but the other books in this series received Great Reviews. I prepared myself (I guess I should say I thought I prepared myself) to suffer through a not so good beginning to a Great series overall.
Nothing I could have done in "Preparing" myself could have helped to prevent the mental stress I endured while reading this book.
I have an 11 year old daughter (who laughed at my mental meltdown while reading this book)with an awesome imagingation. She loves to write. Sometimes when I read her writings, I have to tell her "Baby I think your brain was going faster than your hand."
She starts off with a thought then jumps to another, then another, which she elaborates on. Never completing her first thought. I eventually get where she is trying to go with the story or what she is trying to say but I have to fill in so many of the blanks myself.
This is the only way I can explain how I felt when reading this book, thus far. I'm only on page 113, AND SO FAR WAY WORSE THAN NOT GOOD. I understand this book is being told in First Person form but Cassie is just thinking the whole story. Very little dialouge. Not even any monolouge. JUST A LOT OF HER THINKING TOO MUCH.
19 people found this helpful
★★★★★
1.0
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omg shut up already
So I read through the first book, well sort of. After the second chapter I realized she writes a lot about crap that does not pertain to anything she has to describe every little thing she runs into and then she goes into the history of it. At first I thought she was putting so much description into this person or thing she runs into because they will later become a main character but no she sees them then moves on to the next thing. This book could have easily been 200 pages.
So Cassie is she suppose to be a strong bad ass girl? Because anytime there's action she's squished under some guy protecting her which gets really annoying.
The second book YES she wrote a second book! and YES I was dumb enough to buy it. First let me say my fiance is deployed and all my favorite authors dont have anything new coming out until next year so I was desperate. I made it to the third chapter before finally deleting it from my kindle. I found myself saying omg shut up already over and over. The story would be really good if she would just stop going on and on about nothing. DONT WASTE YOUR MONEY!
16 people found this helpful
★★★★★
2.0
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Boring book porn
I really wanted to like this series! It starts out not so bad, but the "heroine" of the story, Cassandra gets more annoying after every chapter. She doesn't think, she just does things and waits to see how it will turn out. Worse, is the creepy relationship with master vamp Mircea. He knew Cassandra when she was a little girl and now his intentions have changed. He is deceitful throughout the book after putting a spell on her preventing her from being with other men, and she confuses the feelings of the spell with real ones although growing up in a vampire's court, she should have more common sense. It seems like every mission Cassie goes on, she takes the hard way just because she doesn't like people telling her what to do. This causes her to make a mess of most situations. The most unbearable parts of the book are the book porn that you have to skim past to get back to the story, and she has three love interests insteads of just one. I read the two books after this becuase I already had them from the library and honestly, I had extra time and nothing else to read, and they just get worse until you wish Cassie really would die.
