The Book Nook

[cathepsut]

Embrace the Night by Karen Chance

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


In another review I read, the main complaint was that this is chicklit. It made me laugh, because I consider a large amount of Urban Fantasy books to be chicklit with fangs. I am often conflicted if I should class them as fantasy or as romance. Just the fact that the main characters are mostly female and have issues with dark, mysterious strangers that they first hate, but then fall madly in love with should be a major tip-off!

Coming across Urban Fantasy with a good, solid plot and a heroine with brains can sometimes be a bit of a challenge. Very often the plot takes a backseat to romance and steamy sex. Not that I mind the steamy sex, it's a nice bonus. But I prefer my books plot driven with some suspense, lots of action and well fleshed out characters.



I still haven't made up my mind, if I really like the Cassie Palmer books. I like the idea of her being a seer and travelling through history. I also like that the vamps are organised like the Mafia. I keep picturing Tony as Tony from the Sopranos.

But the blossoming romance with Mircea leaves me large uninterested and especially in this third offering the plot was allover the place. It took me forever to make it halfway through. I kept loosing interest and constantly picked up other things to read in between. Once I hit the halfway mark, the plot got more concentrated and the suspense finally grabbed me. I read the second half of the book very quickly, in almost one sitting and I enjoyed it. But the first 200 pages or so were a drag.

And the solution in the end of how to resolve the geis made no sense whatsoever. Or is it just me? They can't have sex, because the geis would kick in full force and enslave one of them. So they have sex to avoid that from happening. What? I even reread some passages to see if I had missed something. Nope, still didn't make sense the second time around.

So, I am not sure if I will continue with this series. For all three books my initial reaction was that I liked it, but in every book something bothered me.

I also can't shake the feeling that Mircea reminds me too strongly of Jean Claude (Anita Blake), he's just more one-dimensional and less interesting.