Customer Reviews

Touch the Dark (Cassandra Palmer, Book 1)

5 star:		(69)
4 star:		(42)
3 star:		(38)
2 star:		(30)
1 star:		(25)

 

 

Courtesy of CK2S Kwips and Kritiques

Touch the Dark by Karen Chance is a stunning adventure that speeds along to the thrilling conclusion... which is really just another new beginning.

Cassandra "Cassie" Palmer has a gift. She is a Seer, capable of seeing future actions and able to see and communicate with ghosts. Unfortunately for her, these gifts are coveted by many, especially vampires. For years she had been a prized captive of the vampire mafia, until she managed to escape.

For three years she's been on the run but even Cassie knew this "freedom" would likely be short lived. When the vampire don tracks her down, her only hope is to turn to the vampire Senate, who have their own plans for her, for assistance. This seems like the lesser of two evils... or is it?

Then there is the pesky problem of a surprising legacy Cassie doesn't want. With beings from every direction wanting to kill her it seems her only hope is one alluringly sexy vampire. But his price may be too high, costing Cassie her very soul.

Cassie has been on the run for so long that this is all she knows now. Her life was never really her own and as she discovers new levels to her abilities, her desperation to be in control of her own life grows. Determination to make it in a cut-throat world has made her into a strong willed individual with a more than healthy survival instinct. She's not afraid to do whatever it takes to protect herself.

One thing I love about Touch the Dark is the wide variety of supernatural beings found in the story from both the light and dark sides of magic... and the "dark" side is not always the more dangerous. We find vampires, ghosts, were-creatures of all kinds, elves, witches, mages, even satyrs and faeries. Don't forget the talking "shrunken heads." Every individual has its place in magical society and how they all interact makes for some fascinating reading.

Adventure is not at all lacking in this story as readers follow Cassie and company in its wake. Touch the Dark doesn't end, but stops after this leg of the journey. It is apparent Karen Chance still has a lot in store for Cassie and this reader is sure to keep going, looking forward to the next installment of this exciting world.

© Kelley A. Hartsell, May 2006. All rights reserved.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The storyline is a bit convoluted and unpaced. There are way too many jumps in logic and too many characters introduced without cause or reason. However, the overall plot is very good. The story is very interesting overall and the book would have been better had the author taken time to explore the notions of good pacing.

The book starts at a sprint and continues, weaving through so many characters and plotlines that by the end you're left wondering, "Is it over?" Pacing is a huge issue in this book. There's almost no sense of coherency in the storyline. If anything, it's like the author started writing this one day in a fanfiction-like manner and decided to publish without the aid of a really good editor.

It's fairly obvious from the writing-style to the range of characters and personas presented that this author is a HUGE fan of Laurell K. Hamilton. I am a fan myself, but what this author has done is but a shadow of what her predecessor has managed. There's personality and spark. There's wit and subtle splashes of comic relief. But, lost within all that is a decent good-paced plot without the presence of random tangents.

Overall, this is a decent first book, not the best I've read, not by a long shot. Give it a chance if you're looking to try for something new while your other authors are coming out with more works. But, be wary that disappointment may follow.

I thought it was a good start to a new author and series. She covers all the paranormal in this book, not just vampires and werewolves like most do. There are ghost (obviously--since the main character can see and speak to them), satyrs, etc. The vampire society forms this sort of mafia, in which Cassy was raised after her parents were murdered. She discovers they were murdered by the same people who were bringing her up and runs away. She thought she was getting by with her own life until they return to capture her. In the process of telling her roommate goodbye the muscle vampires break in and attack. She discovers her roommate was actually a powerful vampire himself (sexy, too, to boot) that was sent to watch and protect her. As a matter of fact, she finds most of her world completely turned upside down. There is simply too much going on in the story to explain here, and I wouldn't want to spoil it anyway. I suggest you don't read the blurb because it's misleading. There were a few parts in the story that caused snags and bumbs. Hopefully the author will reduce this with experience. I'll definitely read the next in the series.

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.

I was deeply disappointed with this book. After reading all the positive reviews I eagerly bought it and started reading. Now, I have always enjoyed fantasy and fantastical creatures, but having vampires, were-things (rats!), faeries, ghosts and witches/mages all rolled into one story was way too much. One huge pet peeve of mine from this book was that vampires were only referred to as "vamps", not to mention "who" the author throws in there as powerful vampires. Also, the scene in which the modern vampires "feed" was simply unnecessary and stupid.

I thought the plot was too messy, with too much information jumbled in together to form a cohesive storyline. There is too much happening at the same time, and instead of keeping you on the edge of your seat guessing, I found it to be confusing and disconnected.

Was there supposed to be romance in this book? There was no chemistry in the erotic moments as well as no comedy from the so-called "sassy heroine". I could not connect to the main character, and halfway through the book I could not care less what happened to her or what she was supposed to be.

Sequel for me? No, thanks.

Ok, there was a lot wrong with this. I read the whole thing, unlike many of the other low-star givers who reviewed this book. I found the book lacking in many ways. One was the glaring abuse of English in this book. There were a lot of elementary Grammar and idiomatic mistakes. Another was the kitchen-sink inclusion of every type of supernatural creature imaginable. The werewolf on the stairs was pointless, even though it looked like it might be important later. The inclusion of so many famous figures from history as vampires was ludicrous. Jack the Ripper, Rasputin, Cleopatra, I mean really! I found myself reading on just to find out what other travesties I could find. The 'love story' part of this book fell very flat. I was squicked out instead of enjoying the erotic scenes because they smacked of necrophilia, and were devoid of any arousing emotion. The ending wasn't an ending. The climax happens off-stage while the characters are getting it on, then it ends. The device of using the character's virginity as the key to the plot was just absurd. Very unsatisfying. The motivations of the villain were not believable, Cassie behaved foolishly, acting as a plot-puppet jumping through holes. Not recommended.