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

An Incomplete Story

Touch the Dark is an OK start in the crowded genre of Paranormal Romance. There's some real interesting elements with her circles of magi and vampires, were's, and Ms. Palmer the clairvoyant. She does a great job of building the world and some of the characters, but the plotting of the story needs some work. She tells the story well enough, but the story doesn't end with the book. The book ends like it's the end of a chapter. It's not that it's a cliffhanger, it's an incomplete story and the editors didn't make her finish the story. That's just unacceptable. There's some good romance and the author starts turning the heat up and teases the audience throughout.

From a narration standpoint, Ms. Holloway is pretty good in the Chicagoland Vampires series, but she is very hit or miss in this book. Her accents for the European characters are bad, and Cassandra's voice goes from OK to what happened throughout the story. I think she does the best with Billy's voice, but that's not saying much in this case.

Overall, it's got some good hooks, and if you can get past M.s Holloway's performance, there's enough meat in the story for us to want book 2, it's just a shame that she didn't tell a complete story in this book.

great book

I own both physical and digital of this book. great reads keeps you hooked. great detail with out over doing it. the narrator is fantastic great voice, great character change and great at giving the right emotional tones. so hard to put down even harder haveing it read by this narrator.

decent story but does have a few flaws..

Ok first off one thing i realize looking back after listening to the WHOLE audio book is the narrator does have more variation in her tone of voice the further you get into the book. I didnt like that the story seems to start off in the middle of things and takes AGES to get around to explaining even the tiniest bit of the main characters background and why she is in the middle of running from assassins when the book opens. from there it does turn into a pretty good story apart from the fact that it is VERY choppy. I hope that this author learned how to write things more smoothly in the following books... ( for instance an "intimate" scene in the book where the characters are in bed in the middle of arousing each other and then she throws in a LONG discussion between them that really wouldnt be conducive to that kind of mood... and then after a talk that would have taken quite a while they suddenly remember what they were doing and resume? or out takes in the middle of fights too.. .. the other BIG thing that kept me from giving it a higher rating is the narrator has a problem with mispronunciation. Especially with words like werewolves or wererats she pronounces it weerwolves.

Great series

This is the first in the series and it is AWESOME! I happened to really like the narrator, unlike some of the other reviews that I read. I really liked some of the voices done like Pritkins. I bought the entire series and really liked everyone I listened to. If you liked this book, just wait, the series keeps getting better. I can't wait for the next one to be released!

Just WOW!

I have the feeling this book is the start of something big. Great characters with such a depth and complexity of plot that I see the potential for a long running obsession if the literary gods are with me!

Faint Praise

I read the early books of this series years ago and am “re-reading” them now on audio to save time. The way I remember it, the first three books kept going over the same events from different angles, so you don’t get the whole picture unless you read them all. But I have to admit, I’m not loving it. I LOVE the spin-off series (Dorina Basarab), but they are mixing now to the point that you can’t read just those books and get the whole picture.
Also, I don’t like this narrator. I guess she’s trying to make Cassie come across as sassy, but she’s just annoying. Although, her other voices are fine, so I should say that I don’t like Cassie’s voice, rather than the narrator.

Interesting story line.

Look forward to the next one in the series. Liked all the references to historical figures that ended up being vampire. It was fun.

Chaotic, torture, racial and gender slurs, weird narration, sex shaming

The book uses a racial slur for Romani over and over (g*psy, g*pped). There's a lot of sex shaming - virginity as purity, referring to women by sexist terms that degrade them based on sexual experience. Very very detailed torture scenes.

The plot is chaotic, the world building done by explaining rather than showing. The writing has promise but falls short - I'm wondering if later books might be better, as she develops her craft.

The narrator doesn't know how to pronounce a wide variety of words, and adds emotions unevenly - for example, in a detailed torture scene she sounds amused and seductive (!).

The main character is annoying. She's on the run from a vampire mob boss, and gets a gun but doesn't bother to get competent with it. She makes bizarre choices that risk others. She can't control her temper despite growing up in a vampire court. She hides behind a vampire bodyguard who she constantly negs. She goes from helpless incompetent to all-powerful. She's so immature.

Just can't do the narration

I read and re-read these books from the beginning when they first came out, but this audio? I can't.
The narrator does NOT match the witty, snarky, fast paced Cassie in the book. She talks like she's TRYING to be sultry and smooth and only comes off as unintelligent and her voice cadence throws off the whole plot and background of the story.
PLEASE, PLEASE REDO THIS AUDIOBOOK with a way better voice character.
This book is good, but so very hard to listen to and get into the character.

Not a dull moment

This book started out fast paced and didn't stop. There really wasn't a dull moment. It has a good narrator and was just a lot of fun. This was my first Karen Chance book and I was so impressed I ordered the following books.