Product Description

Can you ever really trust a vampire? Cassandra Palmer can see the future and communicate with spirits - talents that make her attractive to the dead and the undead. 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 Cassie 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 nothing, 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...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1647 in Books
• Published on: 2007-06-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 320 pages

Synopsis
Can you ever really trust a vampire? Cassandra Palmer can see the future and communicate with spirits - talents that make her attractive to the dead and the undead. 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 Cassie 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 nothing, 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...

Customer Reviews

Great Start to a Wonderful Series
Loved it! Wonderful characters, a swift moving plot, a deft sense of humour and a surprising ending--this book had it all. And unlike many series I've read, this one keeps getting better with each book. Claimed by Shadow, the sequel, is also a very strong title, and Embrace the Night, the third book in the series, is simply brilliant. The three work together to tell one complex and fascinating tale. Curse the Dawn, the fourth book, is out in April and I can't wait! If you're looking for something a bit different with a stronger plotline and better characterization than normal for genre fiction, this is it!

I really wanted to say I liked this book
This is the sort of book that anyone who reads Laurel K. Hamilton or Kim Harrison will probably end up reading.

It's set in an underground of vampires and werewolves that exists in parralel to the human world, and sees a female heroine do battle against the powers that be in that world.

One of my biggest grumbles about Hamilton and Harrison is the fact that there's too much 'love interest' and too little story in their books. That's why I turned to this book. I hoped that I'd get more story. I can't work out quite how wrong I was yet.

Don't get me wrong, the lead protagonist isn't jumping into bed with people, but the story (which sees her try and work out who's killing the Vampire Council in America and how to stop him) feels a little clunky all the same.

I don't know about you, but when I tell a story I try to weave the back story into the main text fairly seamlessly. I don't want people getting confused about what's going on, but I don't want the back story to get in the way of the story's flow either.

That didn't happen here. Every so often she'd stop to lay this whole exposition about the past on you.

This was ok at first, but it got on my nerves after a while. If you can get your head round that irritating tendency the author has, you might enjoy this book. If you can't you should go elsewhere.

I would read the sequel
Deliciously gory and sexy. I liked the well-established supernatural world that Chance created and her exploration of ideas. The magic involved was unusual (in that I hadn't come across it quite like that in a novel before) and the plot was interesting enough to keep me reading until the end, though I don't think I would read it again. The story is a series of detailed, lengthy scenes that takes place over a fairly short space of time and I did find the sometimes slow pace of events irritating at times, but I would buy and read the sequel for more.