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Book Review of Touch the Dark (Cassandra Palmer, Bk 1)

Touch the Dark (Cassandra Palmer, Bk 1)
LaurieS avatar reviewed on + 504 more book reviews


Listening to this on the Ipod so I may spell character names and places incorrectly.

Cassie Palmer was raised by the vampire mafia but as she grew she realized they had murdered her parents in order to keep her all to themselves because she is a powerful clairvoyant. When the book begins she has escaped them and has been successfully hiding for 3 years or so. Because she is clairvoyant and also has two helpful ghosts hanging around she has managed to stay out of danger but her luck has run out. As she's trying to make a run for it and warning her roomie Tomas of danger they meet up with the vamps. It's here that Cassie discovers her friend Tomas is much more than he pretends to be and breaks her heart a little.

This book starts off with a bang and a great leading character but there are a few info dumps that are hurting my brain. I don't like info dumps and I especially dislike them when the book is first in a series. Start at the beginning or leave all of the useless crap out. Don't stop the action to explain a whole lot of stuff that happened previously, leaving me a bit confused and frustrated.

Once the action starts it doesn't really let up. Okay, that's not exactly true because it does get stalled for the many info dumps and flashbacks in time and the author seems to lose her focus quite a bit. I'm not a big fan of all action, all the time and this is where I usually start to fade but the characters and storyline are engaging enough that I am still interested in seeing where this will go. The author also uses the heroine's talent to the best advantage for some creative voyeuristic sex scenes without tainting her heroine. LKH needs to take note here. Just saying.

Later I'm at the halfway point and must admit my attention has started to flitter off. There is a lot going on here, too much for my pea brain to keep straight, and the author's writing is a bit scattered. There are time flips and body hopping and lots of characters and I'm having a difficult time staying focused enough to figure things out. Darn, that's disappointing. Still, the heroine and storyline are strong, the world-building pretty good and because this is a first book I'll try #2 and see if she's improved on the focusing and info dump issues. As of now, my head hurts a little.

Even Later:The last 1/4 of the book picks up and gets extremely interesting as some major plot twists are revealed and the author focuses a bit more on the sensuality of her characters. I'm hoping the next book slows down a wee bit and focuses more on the tangled relationships between the characters. All in all I thought this was a promising start to a new series.