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Liked It “When I read the first book in this series, I couldn't get past the first 5 chapters. There seemed to be way too much description and it just made me bored. |
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“it was really good. i especially liked the part at the end when Pritkin storms in about her shaving his legs. i also thought it was funny when she woke up in Pritkin's body and found out that almost everything she did seemed to excite Pritkin's body and that he somehow knew that she was having a problem with it”
abby wrote this review Monday, October 26 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No“When I read the first book in this series, I couldn't get past the first 5 chapters. There seemed to be way too much description and it just made me bored.
Steph wrote this review Sunday, October 4 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
I ended up buying the 2nd, 3rd & 4th books later, after hearing how good they were.
I of course fell in love automatically. Without reading the first book, you feel a bit lost in the beginning of the 2nd book but things pick up good. The story then carries on throughout books 3 and 4 with a variety of characters.
Book 4 starts with Cassie trying to figure out her powers. She has no one to train her and has no idea what skills she is capable of. She's kind of in a relationship with Mircea but at the same time not. Chaos ensues involving the circle and the senate.
This book has a ton of action and a bit of romance. The ending is a bit anti-climatic but you're still shocked when you find out who the traitor is. That's the good thing about these books; they keep you guessing constantly.
Pritkin & Cassie's relationship is humorous while still having a bit of sexual frustration mixed in there.
Mircea and Cassie's relationship is a constant battle of two stubborn people. It's not that bad though because you can tell he genuinely does care for her. He's proven to be a sweet person throughout the books.
I'm really looking forward to the next book. They seriously need to get rid of Tony already.”
“OK, this series is good when u can get passed some of the authors annoying habits of going off on a detail tangent or character background description you've already had like 6 times in the other books. Other than that I really like this series and am now quite disturbed that I have to wait until next summer to get number 5...that's just too long!! I really want more Mircea!! Not to mention Tomas has been absent for quite some time now and Pritkin (spoiler alert!!) aka Merlin is totally more interesting than he started out to be in the first book.”
Janai H wrote this review Thursday, September 24 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“Really like this series. Science fantasy romance, with a lot of action and a heroine that kicks but. Not too much smut either, just enough for me. ”
Shanna S wrote this review Wednesday, September 2 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“Wow everything is crashing down, the Lay lines the Circle and the Senate, and on top of that demons attack ! Action so intense it is hard to keep up with all that is going on. Cassie and Pritkin get to know each other in a really funny way. Control is be fought for everywhere and they are the force to save them all. The story ends with us left hanging on the future for the three main characters. The story reall reminds me of the fever series, just not as well written, but worth the read.”
Debbie P ..aka Yodamom wrote this review Saturday, August 29 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“This installment in the Cassandra Palmer series was a fraught and frenetic as ever.
Anna C wrote this review Thursday, August 20 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
It's hard to believe that it is only 1 month in Cassie's world since she became Pythia. Cassie continues to struggle with her powers, and find her place in a world where she can trust few.
Chance fills her plots to bursting, sometimes to her detriment, as it becomes a struggle to keep up with her twists and turns through time. Cassie is developing nicely as a character, becoming stronger, preventing her from becoming lost in a sea of alpha males.
For Mircea fans, he is sadly scarce in appearance, but it should be noted that Chance has obviously chosed to interweave the Cassie Palmer and Dorina Basarab series'
Curse the Dawn is a book for Pritkin fans. Pritkin must be one of the best creations in paranormal fiction. He is so unlike the suave, lusty males we normally see in this genre. His lack of control and comfort with his incubus powers make him endearing, and the sexual tension and blossoming romance between him and Cassie left me breathless.
Curse the Dawn also had one of the funniet scenes I've read in a long time, when Cassandra gains a whole new understanding of morning glory, after beoming trapped in a mans body.”
“What a great series, I think this book was even better then the previous ones. What an imagination this author had!”
candace_redinger wrote this review Thursday, August 13 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“I really love her romantic interest in this book and this one seems to be funnier than some of the previous ones.”
Krista wrote this review Tuesday, August 11 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“I can't get enough of the interaction between Cassie and Pritkin. I really loved seeing more of a connection between them build in this book!”
Rhonda V aka VKD wrote this review Saturday, August 8 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
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Tracy wrote this review Monday, August 3 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
"I Took the Road Less Traveled. Now Where the Heck Am I?"
I've just got to get a bumper sticker with that saying on it!
Karen Chance's latest Cassandra Palmer book, Curse the Dawn, quite literally slams you into action from page one, grabs you by the hair and throat, and half drags, half shoves you along with the story at rocket speeds while you cling desperately to the Kindle (or the pages) and pray you can keep up. At turns hilarious and hair-raising, I found myself laughing out loud and then cringing in sympathy as Cassie hurtled towards disaster and destruction at an alarming and often self-inflicted rate of speed.
If you're looking for a book with thoughtful and careful character development (or...well...any at all), a calm and measured pacing, and a satisfying conclusion that leaves you feeling like something significant was accomplished in furthering the overall arc of the series...this is neither the book nor the series for you. And usually that's a big part of what I look for, but I have to admit, the Cassie Palmer series is sort of a guilty pleasure for me, because sometimes, I just like my action to be mindless, fast, and fun.
The Cassie Palmer series is exactly that.
If I look at this book critically, though, there are some problems.
Cassie is brave, loyal, head-strong, and stubborn as the day is long. She has a legion of peccadillos that I find both endearing and agonizingly annoying depending on the situation. What truly frustrates me about her, though, is that sometimes she's an astute and capable heroine (though, admittedly not too often in this particular book) and sometimes she's absurdly stupid. I'm not entirely sure if this is an intended character trait or an author's device.
Stupidity shouldn't be a plot device. If Chance is swinging that pendulum so far into idiocy just to get the story to the next stage of everyone's-out-to-kill-Cassie, it's a lazy way to do so. And if not...why have a character search out guidance and training for the Pythia job if you're just going to beat us to death with scene after scene of Cassie never listening to advice, warnings, hints, or suggestions from those in the know to begin with?
Curse the Dawn in particular seemed too weighted down with scenes of Cassie stumbling around trying not to die while nothing else of any worth to the arc of the series was explained or described or fleshed out at all - and there were TONS of opportunities to do so! More than in ANY of the previous books. Chance gave us nothing more than snapshots of Important Events (what happened at MAGIC, the gathering of the consuls, the issues with the White Circle's leadership, the gathering war, betrayal and corruption, and whatever Mercea was so busy with that he was in so little of the book). I would've liked to have seen more than the slide show.
By the end, Curse the Dawn seems to be an entire book focused on the one character LEAST connected to the Important Events going on around her.
Another issue is one I've had for the whole series, the never-ending plot detours. Some of them are truly hilarious in this book, but they're often so plentiful in the series as a whole that I'd be left wondering if Chance is a caffeinated sugar addict with ADD if I hadn't also read (and THOROUGHLY enjoyed), the Dorina Basarab series opener, Midnight's Daughter. This particular aspect of Chance's storytelling was notably (and what a relief) absent in that book, so now I don't know what to think. All I know is that there're just too many ancillary things that go on in each book in this series and when combined with the relentless action, makes the read sometimes a little garbled.
But still - really really fun!
Until, actually, the end.
It doesn't matter whether I look at it through my adrenaline junkie, guilty pleasure glasses or my more critical ones, there wasn't anything at all I liked about the last two chapters of the book. Bare-bones in the extreme (would've made fashion models look hefty), the conclusion was a major let down. In fact, given the build up from the previous book and the ominous portent of Cassie's clairvoyance in this one, the final chapter in particular was jarring and abrupt. Very disappointing.
Up until that point, I would've rated Curse the Dawn a 4.5 (despite the flaws, I really did enjoy the first part that much) but the last two chapters knocked it down to a 3.5 for me.
"I took the road less travelled. Now where the heck am I?"
Somebody get that girl a GPS.”
