2008-04-20 Embrace the night - book three in the Cassandra Palmer series

This is the third book in the Cassandra Palmer series, it continues with a similar format to the pervious books; set within a few days span and about a week and a half after the last book. You can therefore expect like the others to be taken straight into the action and to have the pace mantained thoughout the book. The opening chapters are very good; thrilling and interesting.

The book begins where the last left off with Cassie searching for a counter spell to the evermore troublesome geis - the spell that Mircea placed upon Cassie when she was very young that binds her too him. To finally have control over her life she must be rid of it and the only way to do that seems to be to find a very complecated spell, in a very dangerous spell book, writen by Merlin himself - the codex Merlini. Enlisted to help her is the unpredictable John Pritkin, mysterious as he is deadly.

Cassie has more allies in this book, one of its roles seems to be setting up the sides for the impending interspecies war and through it we learn that she has even more enemies...gods, demons, mages, the fey, Rasputin and her old master Tony, throw in an uneasy alliance with the vampires, fun, fun, fun. Chance really isn't picky about the paranormal and mythical creatures she writes about, these books have pretty much everything magical, mythical and paranormal in, but I in no way see this as a bad thing, it puts me in mind of the convoluted, combustible Roman and Greek myths she draws heavily from; with the love triangles, betrayals and her huge panthenon of characters. In fact much of her research is very true to the original myths she palys with; Apollo leading the war and her touch of using Merlin's original name, nice.


There are some good suprises and developments with the characters as well as there being quite a few references to the first book, that didn't much much sense at the time as Cassie jumps all over the place through time, making all sorts of new problems (as is her way) but righting some others as well. Prikin's story is verrry good, the scenes which are about him or have him in become the more interesting and unexpected ones (though this I have come to expect). His scenes with Cassie are therefore a nice contrast to hers with Mircea as they have become monotonous; you always know how they're going to end. I've never been a fan of Mircea, he just seems vaguely slimey, he's got a lot going against him. But this is I think deliberate; what I love about these books is the characterisation given to the non-humans, particually the vampire's, its very clear that they are a different race with different motivations, it's handled very well.

This isn't a straight cut love story, the three characters emotions, motivations, desisions and reactions are incredibly complex and nothing is really concluded, this gives it a sense of realism, but at the same time there are some really touching and tense scenes between Cassie and Pritkin that are scrumptuously good. But I've got to say I do like Cassie's narrative when she's alone, this is often when she's at her most fresh and funniest. Especially in her scenes with Mirea I find her reactions are rather repetitive and because of this I much prefer Pritkin, theirs is the partnership i like to see.

Cassie is a more enjoyable character in this book; one of its key roles is bringing to a conclusion her journey in accepting her powers as pythia and the ending really has this sense of starting something new. What i've always liked about her character is how she picks her moments, she doesn't fight everything and everyone but is really interesting in her actions.

Embrace the night is thrilling with a few good quirks and often rather funny. I recommend all three books, and am looking forward to the next one entitled Curse the Dawn (April 2009), which it has been mentioned by the author will form another trilogy, focusing on the war and Cassie as the accepted and reigning pythia. Also look out for Midnights Daughter, Dory's book (who is Mircea's daughter) which starts a new series set in the same world.