Karen Chance’s website is entitled “Take a Chance.” I don’t know if that’s her real name or not, but if it is, she has a great name for someone writing either romance novels or urban-fantasy-paranormal-spec-fic-crossover type books. (Or perhaps gaming guides.) Her name isn’t quite as great as Lilith Saintcrow’s, but I don’t suspect anyone’s will be. I reviewed her novel Touch the Dark last week; I ended the review by indicating that I’d certainly read on in the Cassandra Palmer series. Fortunately, I had the second volume within reach, so I could make good on my offer.

Since this follows pretty hard on the heels of the last volume, I’ll cut all plot discussion. Cassandra Palmer, after inheriting the power of the Pythia (the head clairvoyant in the world), has not quite taken up the position yet. She’s afraid that she will spend the rest of her life under the control of either the vampires or the council of mages, both of whom are searching for her after she escaped, again. This time she has a handful of the vampire’s magical weapons (like null bombs) in her possession. Unfortunately, in addition to this, she’s got the old Pythia’s disinherited heir, trying to kill her in the past (the Pythia can travel in time, and Myra retained the power even though she turned evil), and a geis, tying her to Mircea, and vice versa. Can she deal with Myra before Myra rewrites history so that Cassie doesn’t become the Pythia?

I thought the pacing of this volume was much superior to the previous. There wasn’t so much backstory to learn, and jumps to the past were generally full of action. Of course, some of the information garnered in Claimed by Shadow explains a lot of the happenings in Touch the Dark, so reading both of them before reviewing either might have changed my opinion on the first volume slightly. While these books aren’t quite as hectic as Rachel Caine’s Weather Warden series, there’s still (so far) a lot of movement, a lot of changes of locations, and not a lot of moments of repose.

I also found the settings and characters more interesting in this volume. We actually drop into Faerie for a while, and there’s a particularly interesting tattoo parlor floating around. Cassandra has a slightly more fixed character this time around; she’s frightened of being the Pythia, but definitely doesn’t want Myra (or, particularly, anyone else) to have the job. In the first book, I found her attraction to and relationship with Mircea (Dracula’s older brother, by the way) a bit difficult. Although I could blame a lot of it on the geis, some of it seemed to be out of character. She resisted him on one hand, but invited him to feed from her (in a non-biting, but definitely not non-sexual way) in practically the next scene. If, of course, her emotions are being manipulated by a spell, then that’s fine, I suppose, but it didn’t always follow such a neat pattern. In the second book, it was obvious what was manipulation by the spell and what was her actual feelings. It worked much better for me.

Ms. Chance has created a very interesting world here. There are vampires and were-rats and succubi/incubi (depending on the body) and time travel and weird hybrids (an incubus possessing a vampire) all over the place. I like the inclusion of clairvoyance and time travel into the story, although I do find it just on the edge of too much. Sometimes it feels as if Ms. Chance has thrown together as many paranormal elements as she can and stirred it into a good yarn. The books are definitely a bit dark; at times I was absolutely sure that there was no way out of Cassie’s current situation. This book also has a good deal of sexual content; although there’s not much actual sex itself, there’s a good deal of sexual situations due to the nature of the geis and another situation I won’t discuss. Overall, though, I’m actually enjoying the series quite a bit, and I hope I can find the third volume before too long. 3.5/5 stars (I think).