Book Log 29/2009 - Touch the Dark

Karen Chance: Touch the Dark

I don’t read much vampire fiction (not my favourite sub-genre) so I have little to compare this to. Cassie is a streetwise, sassy clairvoyant brought up by the vampire equivalent of a powerful local mobster. As the story begins she’s on the run from him and he’s catching up fast. Her escape drops her right into the hands of the Vampire Senate who also want to make use of her powers. As well as being a clairvoyant, Cassie sees ghosts and – it turns out – may well have other hidden talents courtesy of her parents, killed when she was four.

The vamps in this book aren’t necessarily all bad guys or stone cold killers, though they are manipulative, amoral and sneaky and there are other human magic users who are just as dangerous if not more so. Cassie’s relationship with the beautiful Tomas and the seductive master-vamp, Mircea, is complex and interesting. Cassie wants something from the vamps, too, besides security. She wants information about her parents.

I have a few technical issues with this book. There are times when the over-punctuation made me want to scream, though I realise that (especially for American tastes)  I underpunctuate - which was what I was always taught (when in doubt, leave it out!). It was a fast, light read. There was a bit of muddlement in the plot - nothing drastic just a slight lack of clarity - towards the end when much hinged on spirit-travelling through time. There was also the longest sex-foreplay scene in the history of the universe with unbelievable pauses between strokes for huge chunks of infodump/exposition in question and answer format - and then they got interrupted before the final moment so it was a let down in all senses. The Q & A conversation was not quite ‘as you know bob’ (because Cassie didn’t know) but it's not my favourite device for slipping essential information into a plot.

Will I read the next one? Probably but I’m not rushing screaming to the nearest bookseller to read it NOW.

Book Log 29/2009 - Touch the Dark

Karen Chance: Touch the Dark

I don’t read much vampire fiction (not my favourite sub-genre) so I have little to compare this to. Cassie is a streetwise, sassy clairvoyant brought up by the vampire equivalent of a powerful local mobster. As the story begins she’s on the run from him and he’s catching up fast. Her escape drops her right into the hands of the Vampire Senate who also want to make use of her powers. As well as being a clairvoyant, Cassie sees ghosts and – it turns out – may well have other hidden talents courtesy of her parents, killed when she was four.

The vamps in this book aren’t necessarily all bad guys or stone cold killers, though they are manipulative, amoral and sneaky and there are other human magic users who are just as dangerous if not more so. Cassie’s relationship with the beautiful Tomas and the seductive master-vamp, Mircea, is complex and interesting. Cassie wants something from the vamps, too, besides security. She wants information about her parents.

I have a few technical issues with this book. There are times when the over-punctuation made me want to scream, though I realise that (especially for American tastes)  I underpunctuate - which was what I was always taught (when in doubt, leave it out!). It was a fast, light read. There was a bit of muddlement in the plot - nothing drastic just a slight lack of clarity - towards the end when much hinged on spirit-travelling through time. There was also the longest sex-foreplay scene in the history of the universe with unbelievable pauses between strokes for huge chunks of infodump/exposition in question and answer format - and then they got interrupted before the final moment so it was a let down in all senses. The Q & A conversation was not quite ‘as you know bob’ (because Cassie didn’t know) but it's not my favourite device for slipping essential information into a plot.

Will I read the next one? Probably but I’m not rushing screaming to the nearest bookseller to read it NOW.

Happy Birthday to Karen

Happy bitthday klwilliams  and may you have many more of them.

For your birthday - the Welsh Dragon that Jaine and I found sleeping in a wood in the Glaslyn Valley on the Friday of Milford 2007.

Happy Birthday to Karen

Happy bitthday klwilliams  and may you have many more of them.

For your birthday - the Welsh Dragon that Jaine and I found sleeping in a wood in the Glaslyn Valley on the Friday of Milford 2007.

Spring is sprung - the grass is riz.

It's mild and sunny up here. BB and I spent a couple of hours in the garden today (sans coats) with dadgaderie  waging war on a dreadful ivy-like creeper that's been threatening to choke the big ash tree at the top corner of the garden. BB's pet robin has come back again this year and he came to join us as we exposed potential bug-hideouts under the mass of old growth.

My tomato (2 varieties), lettuce and broccoli seeds are sprouting beautifully on the bedroom windowsill, the first early potatoes are almost well enough sprouted to commit to the growing-bags (bastardised Tesco shopping bags at 39p each rather than garden centre ones for six quid!) and the four plug-plant strawberries are healthy and growing nicely in their new pots. My fuschia cuttings have all potted on well and there's another set rooting in water. At the beginning of the winter I brought in the huge triple-plant fuschia basket that hung by the front door door last year and it has already flowered once and is getting its second wind for another burst of bloom. Sadly the second hanging fuschia got left outside and I think that may be done for, but time will tell.

Spring is sprung - the grass is riz.

It's mild and sunny up here. BB and I spent a couple of hours in the garden today (sans coats) with dadgaderie  waging war on a dreadful ivy-like creeper that's been threatening to choke the big ash tree at the top corner of the garden. BB's pet robin has come back again this year and he came to join us as we exposed potential bug-hideouts under the mass of old growth.

My tomato (2 varieties), lettuce and broccoli seeds are sprouting beautifully on the bedroom windowsill, the first early potatoes are almost well enough sprouted to commit to the growing-bags (bastardised Tesco shopping bags at 39p each rather than garden centre ones for six quid!) and the four plug-plant strawberries are healthy and growing nicely in their new pots. My fuschia cuttings have all potted on well and there's another set rooting in water. At the beginning of the winter I brought in the huge triple-plant fuschia basket that hung by the front door door last year and it has already flowered once and is getting its second wind for another burst of bloom. Sadly the second hanging fuschia got left outside and I think that may be done for, but time will tell.