Cassandra Palmer series
The New York Times and USA Today best-selling Cassandra Palmer series is a set of fantasy novels written by Karen Chance. The series tells the story of a young woman named Cassie Palmer, a powerful clairvoyant who has the ability to communicate with the spirit realm.
 First novel in the series | |
Touch the Dark - Cassandra Palmer #1 Claimed by Shadow - Cassandra Palmer#2 Embrace the Night - Cassandra Palmer#3 Curse the Dawn - Cassandra Palmer#4 Hunt the Moon - Cassandra Palmer#5 Tempt the Stars- Cassandra Palmer#6 Reap the Wind- Cassandra Palmer#7 | |
| Author | Karen Chance |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English, Chinese, Czech, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Thai, Turkish |
| Genre | Fantasy, urban fantasy (Vampires, Supernatural) |
| Publisher | Penguin Books |
| Published | June 2006 - Present |
| Media type | Print (paperback) |
Novels
- Touch the Dark, June 2006, ISBN 978-0-451-46093-6
- Claimed by Shadow, April 2007, ISBN 978-0-451-46152-0
- Embrace the Night, April 2008, ISBN 978-0-451-46199-5
- Curse the Dawn, April 2009, ISBN 978-0-451-41270-6
- Hunt the Moon, June 2011, ISBN 978-0-451-41307-9
- Tempt the Stars, October 2013, ISBN 978-0-451-41905-7
- Masks, March 2014, ASIN B00J0H0NQK
- Reap the Wind, November 2015, ISBN 978-0-451-41907-1
- Ride the Storm, August 2017, ISBN 978-1-101-98998-2
- Brave the Tempest, 2019
- Shatter the earth, February 2020
Short stories
- The Day of the Dead - currently available on Karen Chances website and also in anthology The Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance.
- The Gauntlet - a Kit Marlowe short, currently available on Karen Chance's website.
- The Queens Witch - a Kit Marlowe short, currently available on Karen Chance's website.
- A Family Affair - a John Pritkin novella, currently available on Karen Chance's website.
- Shadowland - a John Pritkin short, currently available on Karen Chance's website.
Critical Reception
The Cassandra Palmer series is a popular fantasy series, repeatedly placing on the New York Times and USA Today Best Seller lists, with Embrace the Night reaching #6* on the New York Times Best Seller list (Paperback Fiction - Mass-Market, April 20, 2008). Publisher's Weekly wrote, "Cassie - in her struggles between her passionate need for independence, her burgeoning feelings for Mircea and her conflicts with her new role as Pythia - is a well-rounded character, and the intensity and complexity of the plot puts her through her paces physically, emotionally and psychically." Each book in the series has received highly favorable reviews, with the most recent release, Hunt the Moon, receiving 4.5 stars from Romantic Times Book Reviews, which is yet to award a 5 to any book.
"... There is never a dull moment in a Chance novel, as the action speeds from high-stakes action to death-defying exploits guaranteed to keep readers breathless. The evolution reluctant heroine Cassie undertakes as she begins to embrace her powers has been a roller-coaster ride. Here’s to plenty more adventures!"[1]
See Also: Dorina Basarab Series
Synopsis
Touch the Dark
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.
Claimed by Shadow
A recent legacy made Cassandra Palmer heir to the title of Pythia, the world's chief clairvoyant. It's a position that usually comes with years of training, but Cassie's circumstances are a little...unusual. Now she's stuck with a whopping amount of power that every vamp, fey, and mage in town wants to either monopolize or eradicate-and that she herself doesn't dare use.
What's more, she's just discovered that a certain arrogant master vampire has a geis on her-a magical claim that warns off any would-be suitors, and might also explain the rather ... intense attraction between them. But Cassie's had it with being jerked around, and anyone who tries it from now on is going to find out that she makes a very bad enemy.
Embrace the Night
Recently named the world's chief clairvoyant, Cassandra Palmer still has a thorn in her side. As long as Cassie and a certain master vampire—the sizzling-hot Mircea—are magically bound to each other, her life will never be her own ...
The spell that binds them can only be broken with an incantation found in the Codex Merlini, an ancient grimoire. The Codex's location has been lost in the present day, so Cassie will have to seek it out in the only place it can still be found—the past.
But Cassie soon realizes the Codex has been lost for a reason. The book is rumored to contain some seriously dangerous spells, and retrieving it may help Cassie to deal with Mircea, but it could also endanger the world.
Curse the Dawn
Cassandra Palmer may be the all-powerful Pythia now, but that doesn't mean people have stopped trying to kill her. Most of the supernatural power players don't want the independent minded Cassie as chief clairvoyant—and they'll stop at nothing to see her six feet under.
The Vampire Senate does support Cassie in her position, but their protection comes with a price: an alliance with the sexy master vampire Mircea, who has claimed Cassie as his own.
But even the vampires will have trouble keeping Cassie alive now that the self-styled god Apollo, the source of the Pythia's power, has it in for her in a big way. To save her life—and the world—Cassie's going to have to face down her creator once and for all.
Hunt the Moon
Cassandra Palmer recently defeated a god, which you'd think would buy a girl a little time off. But it doesn't work that way when your job description is Pythia-the world's chief clairvoyant. Cassie is busier than ever, trying to learn about her power, preparing for her upcoming coronation, and figuring out her relationship with the enigmatic sexy master vampire, Mircea.
But someone doesn't want Cassie to become Pythia, and is willing to go to any lengths to make sure the coronation ceremony never happens-including attacking her mother before Cassie is even born.
Tempt the Stars
Being a goddess is a lot less fun than you might think. Especially when you're only a half goddess, and you only found out about it recently, and you still don't know what you're doing half the time. And when you've just used your not-so-reliable powers to burglarize the booby-trapped office of a vampire mob boss.
Yeah, that part sucks.
But that's just the tip of the iceberg for Cassandra Palmer, aka the Pythia, the freshly minted chief seer of the supernatural world. After all, Cassie still has to save a friend from a fate worse than death, deal with an increasingly possessive master vampire, and prevent a party of her own acolytes from unleashing a storm of fury upon the world. Totally just your average day at the office, right?
Reap the Wind
You'd think that being Chief Seer for the supernatural world would come with a few perks. But as Cassie Palmer has learned, being Pythia doesn't mean you don't have to do things the hard way. That's why she finds herself on a rescue mission skipping through time—even though she doesn't entirely understand her dimension-bending new power.
Rescuing her friend John Pritkin should have been an in and out kind of deal, but with the near-immortal mage's soul lost in time, Cassie has to hunt for it through the ages—with Pritkin's demon dad in tow. He's the only one who can reverse Pritkin's curse, but with the guardians of the time-line dead set on stopping anyone from mucking about, Cassie will have to figure out how to get her friend back without ruffling too many feathers—or causing a world-ending paradox or two...
Ride the Storm
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...
Masks
Fifteenth century Venice is the only open port where the masterless dregs of the vampire world can live without fear of attack for violating another's territory. But there are plenty of other ways for a young vampire to die in the most glittering city of the age, as former prince and current pauper Mircea Basarab quickly learns. But there are opportunities, too—in the service of a secretive courtesan, in the bed of a beautiful senator, and in the hunt for an ancient assassin.
A vendetta older than Venice itself comes to a climax as Mircea struggles to evade the dangers of his current life, to come to terms with his past, and to uncover the truth hidden behind a city of masks.
Characters
Cassandra Palmer
Cassandra "Cassie" Palmer is the lead character in seven novels: Touch the Dark, Claimed by Shadow, Embrace the Night, Curse the Dawn, Hunt the Moon, Tempt the Stars and Reap the Wind. A powerful seer, she was brought up by a vampire who wanted to monopolize her gift. She escaped him, but soon her past caught up with her, although not in the way she'd feared. The Pythia, the supernatural community's chief seer, was dying and she tapped Cassie to replace her.
That stuck Cassie with a lot of power she doesn't know how to use and a metric ton of new enemies. To make matters worse, a war has broken out in the supernatural community and everyone is choosing sides. Now Cassie is trying to stay alive long enough to figure out how to use the power of her office, and to determine what to do with it when she does.
Mircea Basarab
Mircea Basarab is a bridge character, playing an important role in both the Cassandra Palmer and Dorina Basarab novels. He also has his own book, Masks, describing some of his history as a five-hundred-year-old master vampire and a member of the Vampire Senate.
John Pritkin
John Pritkin is from the Cassandra Palmer series. He was a war mage—a member of the supernatural community's police force—with a specialization in demon killing. But then his bosses sent him on a new mission—to kill the upstart pretender to the pythia's throne, one Cassie Palmer. They didn't want an unknown taking such a powerful position and possibly interfering in their affairs. And they didn't think a demon-hunting assassin would have a problem with a spot of political murder.
They thought wrong.
Now Pritkin is a former war mage and the pythia's new bodyguard. So far, the move has brought him no pay, long hours, constant stress and has almost gotten him killed at least a dozen times.
Francoise
Francoise, from the Cassandra Palmer series, doesn't have a last name because she was born a poor village girl in seventeenth century France. She doesn't have much of anything else, either, after getting transported to the 21st century through an alarming series of events. Well, that's not entirely true. She still has her magic, and although it's seriously outdated, at least the Inquisition isn't after her anymore. And she has a new boyfriend who would be perfect if he wasn't possessed by an ancient demon. But Francoise has learned the hard way—you have to take what you can get out of life. And she's busy taking everything she can.
Tomas
Tomas, from the Cassandra Palmer series, also doesn't have a last name. He was born the bastard son of a Spanish conquistador who didn't stay around long enough to impart his surname—or much of anything else. Tomas could have taken on his master's name, once a life-challenged Spanish nobleman took a liking to him. But after being forcibly changed into a vampire and treated as a slave for four hundred years, he wasn't feeling too chummy. Now, all he wants is his hated master dead—permanently. He'll figure out the rest later.
Kit Marlowe
Kit Marlowe is a crossover character, appearing in both the Cassandra Palmer and Dorina Basarab series. A spy since Elizabethan times, he currently employs his abilities on behalf of the vampire senate. Of course, Marlowe isn't just any old spy; these days, he runs the senate's spy network and he does it very well. He's best known for being handsome, charming, and knowledgeable...and cunning, sneaky and utterly ruthless.
Billy-Joe
When she was 17, Cassie bought an "ugly old necklace" from a pawn shop and discovered that it was haunted by a ghost named Billy Joe. Billy had cheated at a card game and was subsequently shoved into a sack and tossed into the Mississippi River at the age of 29. Cassie and Billy are good friends and Billy often works as a good spy because practically none of the supernatural community can see him. He helps Cassie escape from a few scrapes throughout the novels.
Louis-César
Louis-César, a master-level vampire and duelling champion of the European Senate.
Notes
- Romantic Times Book Reviews