Karen Chance has Released a few more Q & A to go with the release of Ride the Storm
http://www.karenchance.com/news/2144-2/
http://www.karenchance.com/news/q-and-a-61/
http://www.karenchance.com/news/q-and-a-63/
http://www.karenchance.com/news/q-and-a-63-2/
http://www.karenchance.com/news/qa-64/
Fiction
Penguin
2017-08
608
Cassie Palmer can see the future, talk to ghosts, and travel through time--but nothing's prepared her for this. Ever since being stuck with the job of pythia, the chief seer of the supernatural world, Cassie Palmer has been playing catch up. Catch up to the lifetime's worth of training she missed being raised by a psychotic vampire instead of at the fabled pythian court. Catch up to the powerful, and sometimes seductive, forces trying to mold her to their will. It's been a trial by fire that has left her more than a little burned. But now she realizes that all that was the just the warm up for the real race. Ancient forces that once terrorized the world are trying to return, and Cassie is the only one who can stop them...
Review Of Karen Chance’s Ride the Storm
I have long been a fan of Karen Chance’s body of work. I am a loyal fan and have remained undaunted in the face of all the machinations of the publisher and publishing machine. Karen Chance has long kept the faith with her readers. She often offers free stories that add to her published works to create a more complex, multifaceted and fulfilling world in which all her novels take place. Readers who only read the novels from the publishing house lose a lot of the details and the joy of seeing the characters in multiple lights. All that being said, Karen Chance’s Cassandra Palmer novel Ride the Storm has been one of the most anticipated novels in my memory. This is not the fault of Karen Chance and that cannot be said firmly enough. The publishing house has been moving dates on this novel for over a year with little to no explanation.
The previous book, Reap the Wind was judged too long by the publisher when submitted by the author. This led to a quick rewrite and the split of the book almost in half. This also left an unfulfilled feeling at the end of Reap the Wind. Many plotlines were left hanging, which left some readers unhappy and the continuous manipulation by the publishers with moving dates and little communication lost even more of the fan base. Ride the Storm is the second half of the previous book with a little bit of newer information which furthers the plot of the Cassandra Palmer novels.
I was recently asked by a friend to explain the Cassie Palmer novels and I drew a bit of a blank—how do you explain such a complicated and multifaceted storyline as the one Karen Chance has created? I told her she just needs to read it and we will talk about it once she has. To say that all of the Cassie Palmer novels are fast paced is kind of like saying a quadruple shot espresso is a little bit energizing. These books move along at a frenetic pace and always have plot twists that are unexpected to say the least. It is impossible to have predicted where the main characters end up at the beginning of this book, let alone at the end of the book.
So much happens in this book to move the plot along that after reading it 3 times, I am still finding new details to enjoy. This is not a book to start when you have a deadline coming up or really anything planned. Depending on your reading speed and availability, you should plan to be unavailable until you can finish the book. This is not one you are going to want to put down as there are no really good stopping places. My recommendation is to start it on a Friday so you can have the weekend to take a break from reality and a trip into the Cassandra Palmer universe.
This book brings resolution to a lot of the ongoing plot lines that readers have been gnashing their teeth to know. We find out why MIrcea is so interested in Pythias. We get to see Pritkin rescued. We get to see Cassie find her feet and establish her own space independent of all the forces tearing at her. We learn more about Cassie’s parents. Dorina and Cassie finally meet. We go careening through the story and learn so much along the way that it’s hard to even begin to summarize it so I am not going to even try. Despite this, there is a seeming resolution to the love triangle between Cassie, Mircea and Pritkin but it is open ended enough that I see it more as an affirmation of the fact that Cassie has complicated emotions and feelings for both men.
This book is a solid addition to the Cassandra Palmer world and yet leaves a lot of storylines open for more exploration. It is my sincere hope that Karen Chance continues to publish Cassandra Palmer books for a very long time. In order for that to happen, fans have to not only buy this book, but review it. Talk about it with friends and build it up so that the publishers contract with Karen Chance for more Cassie Palmer books.
I look forward to discussing all of this with fellow fans at my site bestbooklover.net and at the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/BestBooklovernet-336745780072074/
In the interest of full disclosure, I received an ARC ebook in return for this review.
Ride the Storm
Cassandra Palmer
Paranormal
Berkeley
August 1, 2017
606
The New York Times bestselling author of Reap the Wind returns to the “fascinating world”* of Cassie Palmer. Ever since being stuck with the job of pythia, the chief seer of the supernatural world, Cassie Palmer has been playing catch up. Catch up to the lifetime's worth of training she missed being raised by a psychotic vampire instead of at the fabled pythian court. Catch up to the powerful, and sometimes seductive, forces trying to mold her to their will. It's been a trial by fire that has left her more than a little burned. But now she realizes that all that was the just the warm up for the real race. Ancient forces that once terrorized the world are trying to return, and Cassie is the only one who can stop them...
CtD ch26
Uhhhh i’m not sure I can talk about this in a coherent fashion but wth I’ll give it a shot. Everything, EVERY SINGLE THING from the second Cassie and Pritkin end up in that security booth is pure pain. Like when he made the decision to switch back, did he know his body wouldn’t have the energy to heal the wound? Probably. He just looks at the injury for a second and decides in that split second to die for Cassie. I mean, damn, Pritkin’s not perfect by any stretch of the imagination but his commitment to Cassie is INSANE. And then, then, he’s dying and he’s still trying to keep her safe?? He knows that if he admits that he can’t heal she won’t leave him, and he can’t look at her and I think it’s partly guilt, because she’s so upset, he didn’t think she’d be so upset, and partly that it hurts way more than he was expecting? Like not the physical pain, but the separation from her, he’s faced with saying goodbye to her and I don’t think he can do it. And don’t even get me started on Cassie’s reaction, the panic, the pleading, the disbelief: “I stared at him, unable to believe this was happening. That he could just disappear, along with everything rich and strange he’d brought into my life. Vanished, like magic.” Listen, I’m not crying, you’re crying. I’m not saying Cassie was in love with Pritkin at that point, because I don’t think she 100% was. But he’s already more than just a friend to her.
The pain continues. I’m honestly surprised Pritkin doesn’t get slapped more often, he’s dying and he tries to use it as a freaking ‘teachable moment,’ like what is wrong with you??? Okay, I know what’s wrong with him, he’s horrendously bad at comforting people because he’s spent the last hundred years actively repressing his own feelings and has such low self-worth that I don’t think he actually realises how badly his death would affect her. “One person is not so important in the scheme of things.” GOOD FUCKING BYE TO MY HEART. And then he’s so gentle with her? He cups her face and wipes away her tears and runs his fingers through her hair??? I love how he seems to like rediscover this forgotten capacity for tenderness with her, I love how when she kisses him to get him to feed, he just kisses her back, he kisses her goodbye, you can’t tell me that he didn’t feel something like love for the first time in decades at that moment. That he didn’t have a bittersweet revelation that he repressed as hard as he could after but never quite managed it. And Cassie’s “I can’t lose you,” that’s a ‘more than friends’ line if ever there was one. UGH what did I do to deserve being battered with these FEELINGS.
The actual sexy stuff is somehow WORSE bcs you’ve got all this reigned-in need and passion on Pritkin’s side and Cassie’s trying so hard to get him to let loose. Her reaction when he says please?? There’s a little streak of dom in our girl. And don’t even get me started on Pritkin calling her ‘Miss Palmer’ during sex (WHY IS THAT SO HOT?? – that’s pretty much my motto for this whole book) and just, the slow, deliberate way he teases her – ugggggh PLEASE. Anyway, this chapter ruined my life, I’m emigrating to the sun.
OK, So I have been a little silent for a while but figured I’d do my somewhat usual call and response to a post. I’m planning to do another reread soon, and I am sure I will have way more to say, but as we know these post and responses keep me a little on track…
There’s a great deal of angst and so much has changed between Cassie and Pritkin, but I view this a little differently. I think that both Cassie and Pritkin slip under each others defenses. Cassie is growing up and collecting friends, lovers and family left and right. Pritkin is trying to protect an unprotectable Pythia from everyone and anyone. Between body swaps and time jumps, its all too damn much. Pritkin is being Pritkin and for him its better to die in service to Cassie than to take a chance with emotions and feelings. Far easier to die than to live.
As for how he restrains himself and that Cassie isn’t letting him go without a fight, well they are both playing to their strengths. Would Cassie’s life be easier if one war mage was interchangeable with another-sure. But Cassie has never taken the easy road. Of course the craziness has gone to another level, but really even the body swap was going above the previous level of craziness!
All right so there’s my opinion, take it leave it argue about it -thats the point of the reread right!
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[Top]The front counter of the little booth was lined with cobweb doilies on
which sat the usual diabetic-coma-inducing pyramids of doughnuts and pastries.
And something new. Something awful.“What is that?” he demanded,
transferring his glare from the case to the Goth girl standing behind it.She looked like an extra from Beetlejuice, all wild black hair and dead
white makeup except for raccoon-dark circles around her eyes. But her
expression indicated that he was the one being scary. Her gaze dropped to the
item in question, which was wedged between a tower of zombie cake pops and a
bunch of “fruit cups” laced with custard and cream.“M-muffin?” she asked, as if she wasn’t sure.
He couldn’t blame her. The monstrosity spilling over the edge of a
shiny gold baking cup was big as a couple of clenched fists, a bloated alien of
a sweet menacing the other nearby treats. And then he noticed the little
heart-shaped sticker that someone—some fiend—had
attached to the front of the foil.“Heart healthy?” he asked,
outraged.↳ Karen Chance – Shadowland
Just some quality art posting of a perfect, angry mage
And these burned pure, cold silver. Of course, I thought dully. Because a raging river, a bunch of rock-wielding savages, and a nonexistent power stream weren’t enough. That would be easy mode. And somewhere along the line I’d transitioned over to expert. Which would have been fine if I had as many lives as a video game character. But I had only one. Which I was about to lose. “—then again,” Pritkin shouted, because he was still talking , “there’s a slight chance they may not have had time to absorb my particular brand of charm on my last visit—” “You don’t have any charm,” I snarled, and shoved him off the rock.
Karen Chance,
Reap the Wind Cassie and pritkin
Midnight’s Daughter
So, I am skipping around a bit and I know it all to well…but here’s the thing. I am trying really hard to do reviews of all the Karen Chance books but there is just too much. Each book is a gazillion things and I’m working hard to try and list them all,but my reviews end up being books themselves, even if I only write one sentence per event and I end up writing way more than 1 sentence. So, while I am struggling through page by page to make sure you get everything I’m also reading on my own time. So I’m about 2/3 through Midnight’s Daughter and only 1/3 through the review of Touch the Dark…
But I just can’t keep my mouth shut. I’m giggling over Dory. Shaking my head at Louis-Cesar. Totally enchanted by Radu. Laughing at Radu telling Dory he had to stay way from Louis-Cesar because of the “timeline thing” which is a summary of Cassie book 1. Dory says that thing I’d know about if I knew what was going on in the family? and Radu just keeps right on going like she know what in the sam hill he is talking about. Imagining a dinner with Radu dressed flamboyantly and miniature cows herding around on the table then falling in the lap of the guests. The King and the Troll Widow and stinky all trying to eat the cows. Radu’s dismay at the chef being upset. The Sheer absurdity of it all! Then, Dory turning down sex with the king of the fae-only to bite him and have it be the opposite of what she wanted to happen! And the hilarity of her and Radu talking in the parlor as the chandelier swings from the fight between Louis-Cesar and Caedmon over Dory’s honor…Its just too much to stay quiet. I have to share it, but I don’t know how!
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