Karen Chance’s Touch the Dark is the first in her Cassandra Palmer Series. I thought this was an okay start for the series.
In Touch the Dark we meet Cassie Palmer. She is a clairvoyant that was raised by a vampire in a vampire court. When we meet her she has just received her own obituary giving the time and place of her death. From here on out we meet many more vampires, mages, fey and any other worldly creatures you can name while she is trying to dodge the people trying to kill her. It is the introduction of all these creatures and people who bring down the book a little. The book is inundated with a lot of detail and many different tangents. We meet two other main characters that become important throughout the series, Mircea and Pritkin. One is a level one vampire descending from a very prominent vampiric family and the other is a war mage that we later learn is prominent himself. The introduction of these two characters is important and detailed, but you don’t realize the usefulness of this information until you continue on through the series.
Overall, I think this book could have been cut down and been less wordy and less detailed. Such detail as that of all the Senators on the Counsel and the many different vampires she grew up around. But, once the details are thinned and the story really picks up you really get a good fluid story with some really unexpected twists and turns. I think as a first book in a series it wasn’t the best and could possibly turn readers off of a good series. I would say, in general the series is comparable to that of Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake series. I suggest that if you liked Cassie, Mircea and/or Pritkin to keep reading…it only gets better. And for those of you who haven’t read this yet I suggest giving it a chance but keep in mind it does get wordy and detailed in spots but if you tough it out you will enjoy the book and the series.
For more about Karen Chance and the Cassandra Palmer series go to www.karenchance.com. You can also purchase her books at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and any other book retailer.