Reviews

La damnation de l'aube by Karen Chance

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kathydavie's review against another edition

3.0

For person who grew up at a manipulative, evil, violent vampire court, Cassie Palmer is amazingly naive and childish. I'm not sure I'd keep reading this series if not for Pritkin and Mircea. Well, it's also a fascinating world in which she lives.

Admittedly, Cassie's life has been rather topsy-turvy to put it mildly. Protected by a renegade war mage who is never quite sure if he wants to kill her or protect her. "Married" to a master vampire who is himself a target with plans for her future. Those are her allies. Then there's the Silver Circle with its thousands of war mages trying to capture or kill her, the Black Circle undecided if they should kill her or capture her, time travelers trying to kill her, an exiled God battering the walls between his world and ours threatening all magic, the Senate trying to control her, and a new job as Pythia for which she has no training but, it seems, all the skills.

The Silver Circle and the Senate each want to control her for their own ends. Unfortunately for them, Cassie was never an apprentice to the Pythia and was never molded by either side. Cassie has her own agenda and I don't think either side is going to be happy...if she ever manages to be proclaimed the Pythia officially.

laureenreads's review against another edition

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3.0

I enjoyed the book, and it had some really fun parts but Cassie spends a lot of time shouting (exclamation point overload...) and freaks out over odd things like leg hair because apparently women in this world just don't have any? I don't know but its definitely odd. The romantic relationships seem strange and forced with Cassie being married to Mircea and yet has the hots for Pritkin without really being in a solid relationship with either of them and its just frustrating and not in a good way.

My review is now available!

nicolerene's review against another edition

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4.0

What can I say about the 4th book in this series other than it was really good. Four books into the series, Chance’s world has developed to a point that it no longer leaves me feeling confused about what I have just read. I can read and enjoy each crazy, plot-bending page.
***SPOILERS***
The relationships between Cassie and Prikin, and the relationship between Mircea and Cassie, have developed at very believable pace. I love that Chance does not feel it is necessary to force a sexual encounter between two characters of the opposite sex, although I don’t think her readers would mind. I do think it demonstrates restraint and maturity to allow the characters’ sexual relations to develop at a natural pace.
At one point in the story, Cassie and Pritkin switch bodies and the results had me laughing my butt off. There is also a very memorable scene involving Pritkin, Cassie and a very large, black cross dresser….and that’s all I’m going to say about that. The sexual tension between these two is killing me! At the same time, I find myself rooting for Mircea and Cassie’s relationship as well.
My favorite aspect of Chance’s writing is her outrageous sense of humor. She is completely unpredictable from one moment to the next, which makes her books very exciting.
I will be anxiously awaiting the next installment in the series.

aliceboule's review against another edition

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4.0

This is one of those series that demanded to be read completely before I could review - and so this goes for the whole Cassandra Palmer series (up to book 4).

I was pleasantly suprised with Touch the Dark and Karen Chance's series. The summary sounded very similar to the hordes of vampire fiction existing in the bookstores, and I was a bit dubious at how it would turn out.

Well, turns out that I don't know what I am talking about because OBIVOUSLY the topic has not been overused -- Chance tweezed something out and it was, jaw stopping awesome.

Cassandra knows what she wants, how to get it, and will not stop until she has it -- freedom.

She never lets herself be walked all over by the reigning vampires and manages to buckle down and actually accomplish things. And within her jam packed schedule she still has time to laugh.

There was some over-crowding of history and names. And a little too much happened a way too small frame of time. At one point I thought the series was going to evolve into an anita blake book, but we were saved from that - barely. Don't get me wrong, I love me some anita blake, but one is enough.

Bref. I enjoyed reading this series. Will most definitely be reading the rest!

patchworkbunny's review against another edition

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4.0

I'm really getting into this series, shame I have to wait til June for the next instalment. Gets an extra star cos I have a little fictional crush on Pritkin!

amym84's review against another edition

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5.0

This series keeps getting better with each installment and I would have to say that Curse the Dawn, at this point, is the best. I don't know if Chance's vision of the world is clearer than when the series started or if I'm just used to the time traveling, magic weilding people now.

Curse the Dawn picks up not long after the end of Embrace the Night when we learned that Apollo is not as good and helpful as we thought he was. I would have liked to have seen more attention paid to that conflict personally. In this book Apollo is kind of the bad guy looming in the background and Cassie has too many other things (and people) trying to kill her to pay attention to Apollo until the very, very end of the book. I just think he was set up, but maybe not used to his full potential.

This book closes out a lot of storylines that have been in the works since the beginning. Apollo was pulling the strings on Myra, the Pythia heir, in the beginning and ultimately behind a lot of the attacks on Cassie. The animosity from the Silver Circle will hopefully be under control with the next book after events in this book. So really this book is like the end of one arc.

Don't get me wrong though, there are plenty of new things discovered which I hope will be figured out in books to come. Probably the most notable being the information we learn about Cassie's parents. Of course they were killed when she was four. Since the book ois told from Cassie's POV there's not much we, the readers, know about little about them because Cassie herslef knows little about them, until this book that is. We learn some questionable things and I'm really interested to see where this information takes us as far as how it may effect Cassie's powers.

I will say that one thing I hope that Chance does get around to is for Cassie to actually figure out how she feels. And I'm talking about the men in her life. Basically Pritkin and Mircea. While I know who I personally prefer for Cassie, when I read the book it seems like whenever her thoughts stray to how seh feels for each of them she pushes it away for a later that never comes. She has all these reservations about Mircea yet she doesn't every speak them to him. She does come close in the end of this book, but no where near where I want her to be. Same thing on the other hand with Pritkin. Their scenes together are my favorite. They play off of each other very well, and Chance writes the chemistry between them very well. But neither Cassie nor Pritkin will acknowledge it. Again, hopefully something that will be taken care of soon instead of just sitting there until the readers are tired of it.

Overall, this is a series that I would highly recommend. If you are having problems with the first couple, keep going. They get so much better. I'm really looking forward to finding out what happens next. Unitl Then!