Embrace the Night
Book 3 of the Cassandra Palmer Series
by Karen Chance
Published: ROC – April 2008
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Pages: 378
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Rating: ★★★½☆ (3.5 stars)
Summary
Recently named the world’s chief clairvoyant, Cassandra Palmer still has a thorn in her side. As long as Cassie and a certain master vampire – the dangerously sexy Mircea – are magically bound to each other, her life will never be her own…
The spell that binds them can only be broken with an incantation found in an ancient text, the Codex Merlini. The Codex’s location has been lost in the present day, so Cassie will have to seek it out in the only place it can still be found – the past.
But Cassie soon realizes the Codex has been lost for a reason. The book is rumoured to contain dangerous spells, and retrieving it may help Cassie to deal with Mircea, but it could also endanger the world…
The Good
Once again we get action from beginning to end. That’s what I love about this series so much. I am rarely ever bored.
Cassie is finally getting to know her power in this book. As Pythia, she has huge amounts of untapped power that she can only access right when she needs it most. She still needs training, but she simply has no time with the building geis that might kill Mircea.
The awesome revelations about Pritkin made this book. We are never sure if Prikin is really on Cassie’s side, and the spats of information and backstory we get on him throughout the book absolutely captivated me. The scenes with Prikin were dynamic and exciting.
We learn a lot in this book. More about the motives behind many of the characters actions, more on what being Pythia really means, and more on how Mircea and Cassie really feel for each other.
It was nice that Chance actually explained the time-traveling paradoxes that many authors ignore when writing on the subject. I like to know that the rule of every action has an equal and opposite reaction applies to this world even if it is fiction.
The Bad
I like a good time-travel book. But Chance overdid it with the whole Cassie time-shifting every minute thing. At times I was just confused.
The description can be a bit much and slows the action occasionally.
I wish it did not take the whole book to solve the geis problem. We were already introduced to that in book 2 and having to go over it again for a whole book was a little disappointing. Plus, the resolution was somewhat simple for all the drama Cassie went through.
The Snuggly
Cassie and Mircea definitely go through their sexual escapades, but there is only one and a half sex scenes. But boy do they make the pages steam.
Overall
I find that this series is one of the hardest series for me to rate. I am always on the fence because I enjoy reading the stories but I always have little annoyances that stick with me after. I think it might be Chance’s writing style, it’s a little disjointed. But I can’t help but buy every book right when it hits the shelves and soak up every word once I open it. I would for sure suggest reading Embrace the Night.
