Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.79 AVERAGE
3.79 AVERAGE
Yeah, just to great to read this series in the order it's supposed to be in! So great! I'd forgotten stuff, but things came back and it was just so good!
*Second Read March 20th 2013*
Oh, man, rereading this book after reading the Cassie series, well, yeah, so freaking good! Must reread the next 2 books!!!
*First Read October 26th 2012*
Wonderful book, very complex, and funny, and lots of fights, and twists, and yeah, I can't wait to read the 2nd book!
*Second Read March 20th 2013*
Oh, man, rereading this book after reading the Cassie series, well, yeah, so freaking good! Must reread the next 2 books!!!
*First Read October 26th 2012*
Wonderful book, very complex, and funny, and lots of fights, and twists, and yeah, I can't wait to read the 2nd book!
Basically, Dorina gets blackmailed by Daddy Dearest, aka Mircea (recognize him from the Cassie series?), into hunting her crazy uncle, Dracula. He sends Louis-Cesare, another familiar character, with her as a nice little sidekick, and everyone is pissed off.
To make things more fun, they blow stuff up. Yay. Trouble, blood, and guts ensue. Fae are encountered. Everyone is more pissed off, if that's possible. Less fun planning takes up more pages than statistically possible, leaving out anything that might be interesting.
People have sex, other people die, and the book ends. Blech.
I read this book fully expecting it to be fairly mediocre, and it lived up to my expectations. This being said, the first book in Karen Chance's Cassie Palmer series is probably one of the worst books I've ever read, but the series overall is in my top ten. At least the end of this left me wanting to read more, even if I the rest of the book didn't thrill me; Touch the Dark (Cassie, #1) almost made me give up on the series, but so many of my friends liked it, so I ordered the second book, which I loved. I'm sure that this series will be the same.
Obviously, I didn't like Midnight's Daughter very much, but I'm still going to pick up Death's Mistress when I go out to Barnes & Noble on Tuesday to pick up a copy of 13 To Life if I have any money left over. (This is why I get so excited when authors/publishers give me books for free! I'm BROKE!)
I'll just save my words for the second book, which I know I'll like, though I doubt anything can beat Cassie.
Review for my blog: LINK
To make things more fun, they blow stuff up. Yay. Trouble, blood, and guts ensue. Fae are encountered. Everyone is more pissed off, if that's possible. Less fun planning takes up more pages than statistically possible, leaving out anything that might be interesting.
People have sex, other people die, and the book ends. Blech.
I read this book fully expecting it to be fairly mediocre, and it lived up to my expectations. This being said, the first book in Karen Chance's Cassie Palmer series is probably one of the worst books I've ever read, but the series overall is in my top ten. At least the end of this left me wanting to read more, even if I the rest of the book didn't thrill me; Touch the Dark (Cassie, #1) almost made me give up on the series, but so many of my friends liked it, so I ordered the second book, which I loved. I'm sure that this series will be the same.
Obviously, I didn't like Midnight's Daughter very much, but I'm still going to pick up Death's Mistress when I go out to Barnes & Noble on Tuesday to pick up a copy of 13 To Life if I have any money left over. (This is why I get so excited when authors/publishers give me books for free! I'm BROKE!)
I'll just save my words for the second book, which I know I'll like, though I doubt anything can beat Cassie.
Review for my blog: LINK
Too much was happening at once. It was hard to follow, then chapter 20 tried to wrap the two running plots into a single plot for the final battle, but it was still too confusing and left me asking more questions. The last chapter was the clearest chapter by far. Though, to me, it wasn’t the light bulb moment that the author may have hoped for. The last chapter was more like a-glass-of-whiskey-to-salvage-a-rough-day kind of chapter.
I think the author prioritized the character build instead of the story. Not that there is anything wrong with this approach, but the problem was that it felt like she tried to do all the character build in a single book and lost the plot in the process.
Dory was too busy being snarky, fighting, flirting, getting hot and bothered, and losing herself in darkness. She was way too occupied with seeming complex and looking like a bad ass to actually tell the story. This is rather important because the story is being told from Dory’s POV. While all those scenes gave Dory some color, it ruined the book. Dory couldn’t properly interact with the world and unravel in a way to tell a coherent story, and especially not two adjacent stories.
That flaw in the POV made the book too busy. Cluttered by a lot of fillers and fighting scenes, without real context or ties.
That said, the main character was a huge brat, acting like a 15 years old at best, not someone over 400. Safe to say, I couldn’t get with Dory at all. Louis-Cesare was some sort of chauvinist-Golden retriever mix, who threw a fit every time he didn’t get his way. No real tactic there. Just brawn, sex, sit, roll over and fetch.
Radu was a moron, especially for one so old. How is all the security on one power line?! He was in danger of being attacked and killed and as a result was hiding behind wards. Somehow, the wards fell and this moron was casually walking around asking people who shut off the wards?! Like just wow! Do not even get me started on those animals Radu was breeding.
This book is a 2.5 star for me. It hurt a little to read because it was just too much. Too many unnecessary scenes, too many sudden shifts in scenes, too many things that were under-explained or overly drawn out. It was choppy.
The last chapter was nice for development of Mircea’s character and honestly felt like the first time the author actually told a story, but it couldn’t save the book. This is because the other problem with the book was that in the name of suspense, all the actual storytelling started perhaps in chapter 20.
I feel like there are so many misconceptions about suspense. Suspense isn’t waiting to tell the story. It is also not telling a choppy story. It is weaving. Learning how much to give to balance the story at every point. Suspense is so easily badly done, because at it’s core it demands you prolong and feed the answers in the end. This was the trap that cost the author the story in this book.
I doubt I’d be continuing this series.
I think the author prioritized the character build instead of the story. Not that there is anything wrong with this approach, but the problem was that it felt like she tried to do all the character build in a single book and lost the plot in the process.
Dory was too busy being snarky, fighting, flirting, getting hot and bothered, and losing herself in darkness. She was way too occupied with seeming complex and looking like a bad ass to actually tell the story. This is rather important because the story is being told from Dory’s POV. While all those scenes gave Dory some color, it ruined the book. Dory couldn’t properly interact with the world and unravel in a way to tell a coherent story, and especially not two adjacent stories.
That flaw in the POV made the book too busy. Cluttered by a lot of fillers and fighting scenes, without real context or ties.
That said, the main character was a huge brat, acting like a 15 years old at best, not someone over 400. Safe to say, I couldn’t get with Dory at all. Louis-Cesare was some sort of chauvinist-Golden retriever mix, who threw a fit every time he didn’t get his way. No real tactic there. Just brawn, sex, sit, roll over and fetch.
Radu was a moron, especially for one so old. How is all the security on one power line?! He was in danger of being attacked and killed and as a result was hiding behind wards. Somehow, the wards fell and this moron was casually walking around asking people who shut off the wards?! Like just wow! Do not even get me started on those animals Radu was breeding.
This book is a 2.5 star for me. It hurt a little to read because it was just too much. Too many unnecessary scenes, too many sudden shifts in scenes, too many things that were under-explained or overly drawn out. It was choppy.
The last chapter was nice for development of Mircea’s character and honestly felt like the first time the author actually told a story, but it couldn’t save the book. This is because the other problem with the book was that in the name of suspense, all the actual storytelling started perhaps in chapter 20.
I feel like there are so many misconceptions about suspense. Suspense isn’t waiting to tell the story. It is also not telling a choppy story. It is weaving. Learning how much to give to balance the story at every point. Suspense is so easily badly done, because at it’s core it demands you prolong and feed the answers in the end. This was the trap that cost the author the story in this book.
I doubt I’d be continuing this series.
I am a little bit torn on this book. I liked it, but I didn't love it. I liked the fast paced, sarcastic story line. It was also cool to see the characters from the Cassandra Palmer books through a different set of eyes. I think I might have found that the most interesting thing of all about this book. Overall it wasn't a bad book, but it wasn't my favorite Karen Chance book either.
I was struggling a bit to stay truly hooked. Just as well written as the Cassie Palmer series, lots of action and many familiar characters.
It lacked the humour of Cassie Palmer though and was a little to talky at times. And the final showdown seemed to be never ending. It just went on and on and on.
I liked the fey and loved Stinky. I want one!
It lacked the humour of Cassie Palmer though and was a little to talky at times. And the final showdown seemed to be never ending. It just went on and on and on.
I liked the fey and loved Stinky. I want one!
Such, such chaos. Well plotted enough to have everything come together with a nice bow at the end, but it’s mostly chaos. I think a good portion of it is relatively realistic, in terms of said chaos. Dory tend to fly by the seat of her pants from one crazy situation to another with little to no time to rest in between so the random and not-so-random stuff that keeps happening tends to bleed into the next thing. Kind of like actual life... only with vampires and trolls and magical food. This book is definitely not one that should be read — like I did this time around — peace-meal as it just keeps dragging you along from one thing to the next. There aren’t really any good stopping points along the way and so it’s just better read through all at once like binging a show on Netflix.
I loved it from start to finish.
https://books-in-a-storm.tumblr.com/post/624144958655512576/snowflake-book-reviews-title-midnights
https://books-in-a-storm.tumblr.com/post/624144958655512576/snowflake-book-reviews-title-midnights
I honestly did not think I would finish this book because at one point it was reading like a very bad fanfiction attempt. It got better towards the end, although I'm still not too fond of the main character. I would prefer a story written around the secondary characters as they are much more likable and more interesting!
Warning! There are spoilers in this review of the Cassie Palmer series. Don't read any further if you haven't read at least up to Claimed by Shadows, the second in the series, and don't want to be spoiled.
Dorina Basarab is a dhampir, the daughter of a vampire and a human woman. Subject to uncontrollable rages, most dhampirs are born barking mad and live very short, very violent lives. So for five hundred years, Dory has been fighting to maintain her sanity by unleashing her homicidal tendencies on those demons and vampires who deserve killing. But now Dory’s vampire father has come back into her life. Her uncle Dracula, notorious even among vampires for his cruelty and murderous ways, has escaped from prison, and her father wants Dory to work with the gorgeous vampire dueling champion Louis-Cesare to put him back there. Vampires and dhampirs are mortal enemies, and Dory prefers to work alone. But Dracula is the only thing on earth that truly scares her, and when Dory has to go up against him, she’ll take all the help she can get... From Amazon UK
Most of my regular readers will know by now just how much of a fan I am of Karen Chance’s Cassandra Palmer series. For those of you who don’t, a hell of a lot. So when I assumed recently, from a comment someone left on my review of Curse the Dawn – the fourth in the Cassie Palmer series – that the Dorina Basarab series is set in the same world, but following a different character, I was eager to get reading. I’ve just finished it, and I cannot begin to tell you just how incredibly amazing this book was!
Midnight’s Daughter has everything you would expect from a Karen Chance novel; action at every turn, mythical creatures by the bucket load, and some characters that you can’t help but love. The action in the book isn’t necessarily always fighting. Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of that going on, but some of the events, the tasks I consider to be part of the action to; some things have to be done, and if they’re not done quick, there could be a lot of trouble. Some of these tasks are great for the plot of the story and learning about Dory as we go along, as well as keeping us keen to reading. As with all of Karen’s books, there’s action a plenty, and it keeps the book extremely fast paced.
Dory was a superb protagonist, though very different from Cassie; though Cassie is independant, like Dory, she has the misfortune of being the cause – or her station being the cause – of a lot of the trouble that comes her way, and she struggles, but Dory is one tough cookie, having skills of a warrior and the knowledge of, and sometimes use of, a magical arsenal that had be grinning like the cat had got the cream. She’s angry, she’s spunky, she’s funny, and she’s just amazing! I may just prefer her as a protagonist to Cassie, though I feel like I’m cheating to admit that.
We also come across some other characters we’ve come to know and love, and revisit some we haven’t met properly yet! Midnight’s Daughter can be read without having read the Cassie Palmer series, but I feel that having read them all I’m at a bit of an advantage as I know the world, and some of the characters, pretty well. So having read all of the books currently available in the Cassie Palmer series, I believe this book is set between Claimed by Shadows, book two, and Embrace the Night, book three. I have often wondered about two characters from the first two novels; in the first book, Touch the Dark, we meet Louis-Cesare, French senate member, master vampire, and duelling champion, and after that book, we hear nothing more of him. In Claimed by Shadow, towards the end of the book, we find out Cassie accidentally helped a very famous, very evil vampire escape from imprisonment, and then hear nothing more of it. Well, in this book, Louis-Cesare is back, and we get to actually meet Dracula! Oh, I can’t tell you just how awesome it was to have Louis-Cesare back, and get to know him better! Once he gets over his prejudices, he is just the most charming and gentlemanly guy ever, and I could quite easily fall in love with him. He is just one of the coolest male characters I have ever read! And Dracula – or Vlad – is just crazy scary. Midnight’s Daughter isn’t a horror, it’s still urban fantasy, but Drac is just terrifying in that what we learn about him through actual history.
One thing I love about Karen’s novels is how she is able to take people from history or legend and slip them into a novel and make it seamless! We’ve come across Jack the Ripper, Kit Marlow, Cleopatra, and the artist Raphael in the first series, and now we have Dracula. Of course, there have been a lot of books and films released about the legendary vampire, but there is so much history in this book, it’s hard to believe Vlad Tepes, or Vlad the Impaler as he’s more famously known, wasn’t actually a vampire. Mircea, Drac’s brother and Dory’s “Daddy”, is back in this book too, as well as Radu the Handsome, their youngest brother. We get in depth history about all these characters that, when I had a little bit of a look online myself for my own interest, seems pretty close to the truth. All these guys actually existed, the history of these guys told in this book is pretty close to the truth if not spot on – I’m no expert so I can’t say. Vlad the Impaler was an incredibly scary and disturbing person, and brought to life as Drac in this book, it’s just phenomenal.
Not only do we get a great amount of history, but we get into the head of the Mircea we know from the first series a whole lot more, and get to see him from a completely different perspective. He’s just fantastic! And Radu is just adorable! I know that may sound odd considering he’s Drac’s brother and all, but he is! There was talk about him in the Touch the Dark, but we actually get to meet him in this book, and he reminds me a bit of Myrnin from Rachel Caine’s Morganville Vampire series, but not as freaky. The things that bother him at the worst times, and the way he expresses it, he’s just hilarious! I love him!
Finally, I want to talk about Fey; we’ve never really got much of a look in when it came to the Fey in the previous books, we had some in Claimed by Shadows, but not a huge deal. However, in Midnight’s Daughter, we get up close and personal with them, and the mythology for them is just brilliant! It comes very close to what I’ve read in various other faerie novels, but without bogging you down on info that’s going to make the book overly long, when they don’t play a massive part in the book in the great scheme of things. But you’ve got to love Olga, one of the trolls in the novel, she’s seriously funny with her abrupt ways. And Stinky is just adorable!
I really can’t tell you how amazing this book is! I think I much just prefer this one book to the whole of the Cassie Palmer series – though of course, I will continue to read them. If desire to read another book could be felt as something physical, it’s clawing through my veins right now for Death’s Mistress, the next in the series, which came out this January. I so can’t wait to read it! You really need to read this book, it’s brilliant!
From Ink and Paper - Fantasy book review blog
Dorina Basarab is a dhampir, the daughter of a vampire and a human woman. Subject to uncontrollable rages, most dhampirs are born barking mad and live very short, very violent lives. So for five hundred years, Dory has been fighting to maintain her sanity by unleashing her homicidal tendencies on those demons and vampires who deserve killing. But now Dory’s vampire father has come back into her life. Her uncle Dracula, notorious even among vampires for his cruelty and murderous ways, has escaped from prison, and her father wants Dory to work with the gorgeous vampire dueling champion Louis-Cesare to put him back there. Vampires and dhampirs are mortal enemies, and Dory prefers to work alone. But Dracula is the only thing on earth that truly scares her, and when Dory has to go up against him, she’ll take all the help she can get... From Amazon UK
Most of my regular readers will know by now just how much of a fan I am of Karen Chance’s Cassandra Palmer series. For those of you who don’t, a hell of a lot. So when I assumed recently, from a comment someone left on my review of Curse the Dawn – the fourth in the Cassie Palmer series – that the Dorina Basarab series is set in the same world, but following a different character, I was eager to get reading. I’ve just finished it, and I cannot begin to tell you just how incredibly amazing this book was!
Midnight’s Daughter has everything you would expect from a Karen Chance novel; action at every turn, mythical creatures by the bucket load, and some characters that you can’t help but love. The action in the book isn’t necessarily always fighting. Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of that going on, but some of the events, the tasks I consider to be part of the action to; some things have to be done, and if they’re not done quick, there could be a lot of trouble. Some of these tasks are great for the plot of the story and learning about Dory as we go along, as well as keeping us keen to reading. As with all of Karen’s books, there’s action a plenty, and it keeps the book extremely fast paced.
Dory was a superb protagonist, though very different from Cassie; though Cassie is independant, like Dory, she has the misfortune of being the cause – or her station being the cause – of a lot of the trouble that comes her way, and she struggles, but Dory is one tough cookie, having skills of a warrior and the knowledge of, and sometimes use of, a magical arsenal that had be grinning like the cat had got the cream. She’s angry, she’s spunky, she’s funny, and she’s just amazing! I may just prefer her as a protagonist to Cassie, though I feel like I’m cheating to admit that.
We also come across some other characters we’ve come to know and love, and revisit some we haven’t met properly yet! Midnight’s Daughter can be read without having read the Cassie Palmer series, but I feel that having read them all I’m at a bit of an advantage as I know the world, and some of the characters, pretty well. So having read all of the books currently available in the Cassie Palmer series, I believe this book is set between Claimed by Shadows, book two, and Embrace the Night, book three. I have often wondered about two characters from the first two novels; in the first book, Touch the Dark, we meet Louis-Cesare, French senate member, master vampire, and duelling champion, and after that book, we hear nothing more of him. In Claimed by Shadow, towards the end of the book, we find out Cassie accidentally helped a very famous, very evil vampire escape from imprisonment, and then hear nothing more of it. Well, in this book, Louis-Cesare is back, and we get to actually meet Dracula! Oh, I can’t tell you just how awesome it was to have Louis-Cesare back, and get to know him better! Once he gets over his prejudices, he is just the most charming and gentlemanly guy ever, and I could quite easily fall in love with him. He is just one of the coolest male characters I have ever read! And Dracula – or Vlad – is just crazy scary. Midnight’s Daughter isn’t a horror, it’s still urban fantasy, but Drac is just terrifying in that what we learn about him through actual history.
One thing I love about Karen’s novels is how she is able to take people from history or legend and slip them into a novel and make it seamless! We’ve come across Jack the Ripper, Kit Marlow, Cleopatra, and the artist Raphael in the first series, and now we have Dracula. Of course, there have been a lot of books and films released about the legendary vampire, but there is so much history in this book, it’s hard to believe Vlad Tepes, or Vlad the Impaler as he’s more famously known, wasn’t actually a vampire. Mircea, Drac’s brother and Dory’s “Daddy”, is back in this book too, as well as Radu the Handsome, their youngest brother. We get in depth history about all these characters that, when I had a little bit of a look online myself for my own interest, seems pretty close to the truth. All these guys actually existed, the history of these guys told in this book is pretty close to the truth if not spot on – I’m no expert so I can’t say. Vlad the Impaler was an incredibly scary and disturbing person, and brought to life as Drac in this book, it’s just phenomenal.
Not only do we get a great amount of history, but we get into the head of the Mircea we know from the first series a whole lot more, and get to see him from a completely different perspective. He’s just fantastic! And Radu is just adorable! I know that may sound odd considering he’s Drac’s brother and all, but he is! There was talk about him in the Touch the Dark, but we actually get to meet him in this book, and he reminds me a bit of Myrnin from Rachel Caine’s Morganville Vampire series, but not as freaky. The things that bother him at the worst times, and the way he expresses it, he’s just hilarious! I love him!
Finally, I want to talk about Fey; we’ve never really got much of a look in when it came to the Fey in the previous books, we had some in Claimed by Shadows, but not a huge deal. However, in Midnight’s Daughter, we get up close and personal with them, and the mythology for them is just brilliant! It comes very close to what I’ve read in various other faerie novels, but without bogging you down on info that’s going to make the book overly long, when they don’t play a massive part in the book in the great scheme of things. But you’ve got to love Olga, one of the trolls in the novel, she’s seriously funny with her abrupt ways. And Stinky is just adorable!
I really can’t tell you how amazing this book is! I think I much just prefer this one book to the whole of the Cassie Palmer series – though of course, I will continue to read them. If desire to read another book could be felt as something physical, it’s clawing through my veins right now for Death’s Mistress, the next in the series, which came out this January. I so can’t wait to read it! You really need to read this book, it’s brilliant!
From Ink and Paper - Fantasy book review blog