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| Touch the Dark | 
 enlarge | Author: Karen Chance
Publisher: Michael Joseph
Category: Book
List Price: £6.99
Buy New: £1.64
You Save: £5.35 (77%)
New (27) from £1.64
Avg. Customer Rating:  24 reviews
Sales Rank: 1286
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 6.6 x 4.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 0451460936
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780451460936
ASIN: 0451460936
Publication Date: June 28, 2007
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand New Book direct from the publisher. Takes 7 business days to ship from New York. Usually delivered in 10 business days from despatch date.
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 21-24 of 24 | | « PREV | | |
 Better than Anita October 9, 2006
21 out of 27 found this review helpful
No, as another reviewer commented, this isn't an Anita Blake book. Thank God! It has an excellent plot, male characters who aren't mentally challenged doormats there to show off how smart the heroine is, and a heroine who doesn't think that killing things is the only way to solve a problem. It's an excellent dark fantasy, and I can't wait to read more from this author. And I really, really hope she never turns into a Laurell Hamilton!
Not a Laurell K Hamilton novel October 1, 2006
11 out of 17 found this review helpful
This book was obviously commissioned by some editor who wanted the writer to produce an 'Anita Blake' style novel. But Cassandra Palmer is no Anita, and Karen Chance is not Laurell K Hamilton. I won't go into the story as the other reviewers have already done so. We get metaphysical sex, French Vampires with a double barrelled first name, a heroine with growing powers, etc. Sound familiar?
Definitely a readable book, but it doesn't have the strong characterisation of Hamilton's novels, nor a heroine who knows how to kick ass. Compared to Anita, Cassandra is very young and clueless. Despite the lack of good characterisation, it was an enjoyable book.
 Psychics, Mage and Vampires- Promising Debut September 8, 2006
33 out of 37 found this review helpful
Coming from the Roc Fantasy stable gives this debut an air of establishment given that stablemates include the best selling Harry Dresden series by Jim Butcher, as well as Rachel Caine's Weather Warden series among many others. Chance almost measures up to these stablemates; she creates a unique world in terms of urban fantasy with enough twists and quirks to make the story unpredictable.
The novel's protagonist is Cassie, a young woman who happens to have psychic powers, whose parents were killed when she was 5 years old. Cassie grew up in a mansion, under the rule of Tony a vampire from the age of Henry the 8th, who uses her precognitive abilities for his own gain. The novel begins in media res after Cassie has been on the run from Tony's goons for nearly 3 years; one night she receives her own obituary via her computer, believing it to be a threat from Tony she goes on the run once again. Her major flaw is her basic good heart and she is loathe to leave her roommate Tomas possibly vulnerable to Tony's vampires but when she goes to warn him, she is kidnapped by the Vampire Senate.
Cassie discovers that the vampire senate want to protect her, for their own ends, a chilling thought in itself given that the senate defines the word ruthless. She feels utterly betrayed when it's revealed that Thomas was sent by the senate to keep her safe and report on her powers. The senate is locked in a power struggle with a renegade vampire who has challenged and killed several key members of the council, in the hopes of gaining ultimate power for himself. If that wasn't bad enough, the mage circles want to claim Cassie as one of their own; the ones who control her also control the new powers that she has manifested which include an ability to shift through time.
Good points in this novel's favour include that Chance's world building is perhaps one of the most detailed and well thought out political and social structures for supernatural beings that I've come across in a modern urban fantasy. Her characters, in particular Cassie, are likeable enough. Cassie is accepting of her faults and vulnerable enough to have the reader rooting for her; the other secondary characters are for the most part nicely crafted, but the novel has a few very distracting flaws. The main flaw is that Chance doesn't handle the pacing of the novel well, which leads to the exposition seeming more heavy handed than it is, as the bulk of the backstory takes over huge chunks of the plot which would have been better used building the tension. Other minor flaws include;
The action scenes are initially well paced and packed with tension, but once Cassie is ensconced in the senate the narrative flow is frequently disturbed to accommodate entire pages of backstory. Whilst interesting and well thought out the backstory threatens to overwhelm the main plot.
The romance angle is awkwardly handled; Tomas seems to reciprocate Cassie's feelings for him, but there is an abrupt and confusing switch as Mircea, a vampire that Cassie once looked upon as a fond uncle, is suddenly promoted to romantic lead.
It may be a fault in me as a reader, but the time shifting powers and the plot arc that Cassie might be the chosen psychic to become Pythia, a position that dates back to the oracle of Delphi, really threw me out of the story and confused the hell out of me.
The main cast of the novel is largely formed of real historical figures; Mircea is the second son of Vlad the impaler, Cleopatra is the senate's head, Jack the Ripper is the Senates' personal torturer, the man in the iron mask, Raphael, Christopher Marlowe is the senate's spy master and Rasputin, the vicious challenger to the senate's power. Some of these additions work and are handled quite well, but for many readers I suspect this historical cast list will wear thin.
This started out very promisingly but lost my interest midway. Stylistically, Chance is reminiscent of early Laurell K Hamilton and aside from a few flaws has real potential to create a solid urban fantasy with these characters, provided someone takes the time to encourage her to edit and drip in her backstory.
The second in the series is titled 'Claimed by Shadow'
Great Paranormal Thriller! July 18, 2006
71 out of 72 found this review helpful
Touch the Dark is a fast-paced dark fantasy with a wry sense of humor and great characterization. It opens with Cassandra Palmer, a clairvoyant on the run, finding her own obituary pasted onto her computer screen. The newspaper clipping informs her that she will die in a little over an hour. It's a warning, she assumes, from the vampire who had been chasing her for years. Cassie had been his personal clairvoyant until she found out that he had her parents killed in order to use her abilities for himself. She tried her best to destroy him three years ago, but failed, and now he wants revenge.
Cassie gets away, but to stay safe, she needs to cut a deal with the vampire Senate, a group who rules the other vampires with an iron fist. They are not known for being sympathetic, but they are willing to make an exception in her case in order to control her power. Cassie has to find a way to retain control over both her independance and her head, in the middle of a vampire war that threatens to destroy her world.
Touch the Dark manages to incorporate mystery, action-adventure and romance into the story-line, yet keeps the fantasy foremost. If you like modern fantasy with a bite to it, you'll love Touch the Dark!
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