Touch the Dark

Cassandra Palmer, Book 1

By: Karen Chance

Narrated by: Cynthia Holloway

Length: 12 hrs and 5 mins

Publisher's summary

Cassandra Palmer can see the future and communicate with spirits - talents that make her attractive to the dead and the undead alike. The ghosts of the dead aren't usually dangerous; they just like to talk...a lot.

The undead are another matter.

Like any sensible girl, Cassie tries to avoid vampires, but when the bloodsucking mafioso she escaped three years ago finds her again with vengeance on his mind, she's forced to turn to the vampire Senate for protection.

The undead senators won't help her for anything, and Cassie finds herself working with one of their most powerful members, a dangerously seductive master vampire - and the price he demands may be more than Cassie is willing to pay.

©2006 Karen Chance (P)2008 Tantor

My Ears are Burning

This book is great if you like horror, fantasy, thrillers, history, and erotica all rolled into one. I think the only genre this book wouldn't fit in is mythology. The narrator is perfect, her male characters sound a little wimpy/girly but the main character sounds just as I imagined. If your one to blush I do not recommend listening to this book in public. Worth a credit anyway, hope audible gets the rest of the series soon.

Speed it up! It improves the narration.

I haven't read the Karen Chance novels so this narration was my first exposure to her work. At the regular speed for the recording, I was getting frustrated with the storyline and the characters, especially Cassie, because of the slow-mo narration. As the main character, Cassie just seemed off kilter and not very appealing when I listened at the normal paint-drying speed for this narration. After I sped up the recording (using the Audible App.) to 1-1/2 or 2 times the normal speed, the narration seemed to fit the text much better and the characters came to life. I had to do the same with another narration by Cynthia Holloway. So using deliberate speed might be the trick to cure the monotonous quality of the recording and to get a better sense of the book's story and characters.

doubly good

excellent book. excellent narration. very enjoyable. I have listened to the entire series at least twice.

Excellent Book - Can't wait for more

Loved the book - narrator was very good and easy to listen to. Could not wait to listen to more.

I will listen or read all Karen Chance's books

Love her

Decent story, but with weirdness

I mostly enjoyed the story of _Touch the Dark_. Cassi is a sympathetic heroine with an interesting ability in a world where she is usually weaker than everyone else around her. Running from those who wish to control (or kill) her and maintaining her independence is a realistic concern, even when she gets all bone-headed about accepting a position of responsibility (and power). And kudos for an atypical relationship/sex/love plotline.

It pulled me out of the story, though, any time she talked about "X level vampire" or such. Who thinks in those terms in the real world? It made the setup seem more like the result of a game designer than anything spontaneous or natural. That's a shame because it seems like there's a lot of background to explore. I really hope it isn't as... contrived as this leads me to suspect.

Good start to a series

An entertaining story that is definitely a start to a new series with plenty of background information to help the storyline progress. I thought the story was very good but man are there a lot of characters introduced early on, so much so that I had to stop & grab a piece of paper and write down names and a few words of what they were & their role. Some of my fellow reviewers compared the story to Laurell K Hamilton’s Anita Blake story...I call BS. I don’t see any similarities other than vampires. Cassie is not a monster hunter nor a necromancer and ghosts are not the same as zombies. Nor does she have the abrasive attitude that Anita does. Great story and I’m looking forward to book 2.

A great series that only gets better as it goes along.

I own this book in paperback form and read it several years ago. Bought it from audible to listen to the series again. Fast paced and funny too. This first book sets up the characters. I love when characters grow and change throughout the series. Going through this again really showed me how much they changed and reminded me of thing I had forgotten. A much different experience when listening to a series all at once.

Like the series, narrator is okay

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Probably not. The first book gets you hooked, but the series eventually changes narrators and it's too distracting.

What aspect of Cynthia Holloway’s performance would you have changed?

I can't recall if it was this book or one of the later books, but it took me way to long to realize she wasn't saying "spear" she was saying "sphere".

Any additional comments?

Although I am not a huge fan of the narrator, I thought she was doing a better job in this series than the other one I had been listening to. I'm glad I only purchased the first book and got the rest from the library. The original narrator was replaced later in the series and it's too distracting to continue with audiobooks. I'm going back to my eBooks.

Ugh! Hate the Narration!

I need to preface my review by saying that I've read most of Karen Chance's books, and am a big fan! I hate to make one of her books with only two stars.

However, the narrator has completely killed this story. She must not know the difference between 'telling' a story and just reading one. If I want to hear lifeless droning I can get my kindle or mac can do that for me for free.

The opening paragraphs, in which the heroine receives a death-threat and has to flee for her life are read with less emotion than than Ben Stein's economics lecture in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Sarcasm must completely fly over the narrator's head, as the lines are read with no change in pitch. There is some inflection, but no change in tone, voice, or emotion!!!

Kind of Boring....

I really thought I would like this book, but it was reeeaallly s-l-o-w. It felt like there was a lot of repetition. I just didn't care about the characters.