Karen Chance: Curse the Dawn

• ISBN-13: 9780451412706
• Publisher: Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
• Publication date: 4/7/2009
• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Pages: 400

 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 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...  

 This is going to sound absolutely horrible, but it took me to the end of the second chapter to be 100% certain that I hadn't read that book before. I'm going to attribute that to having flipped through at another point in time to find certain plot points so my mind could be at peace. Yes, I do that. I frequently read the end of novels just to make sure that I'm not going to be throwing it at a wall later.
 Cassie's in a pickle. Isn't she always? She really doesn't want to kill anyone from the Silver Circle, since those lives are the ones preventing Apollo from entering this world. On the other hand, those crazy bastards are out to get her, and 90% of them don't care if she's dead or alive, and would, in fact, prefer her dead. So there's a paradox for you. Also, Mircea is being hyper-protective, as usual, and that is growing increasingly frustrating for the new Pythia. To top off all of her other problems, she accidentally manages to swap bodies with her erstwhile companion Pritkin, causing strife and confusion for all.
 All's well that ends well, however, and I'm terribly interested to see where Chance will take Cassie in the next book. I won't tell you why, because that would spoil everything, but I'm pumped.
 I felt that, once again, Chance managed to jam pack her novel full of action. She's really not a fan of letting her heroines rest, but that's more of a symptom of the genre, I think. It certainly makes the novel fly by faster when you don't have time to get bored. I'm also on tenterhooks to see how she's going to deal with the tension between Mircea, Cassie, and Pritkin. I'm Team Mircea all the way, and I can't say I'll be terribly pleased if that relationship goes sour, but I'm willing to ride wherever Chance takes me. Especially with all of the juicy Mircea-Cassie emotional goodness going on. Mm, mm, good.
 The other downside to her fast paced plot is the whiplash-inducing wrap-up. Within two chapters we fight the big bad, solve the world's problems (for the time being), and return life to fairly-normal with some improvements. Because there's so much going on, when we finally confront the major problem, you kind of get a "oh, we're doing this now?" feeling. It's a little disorienting.
 Overall: A-
 I enjoyed it, as I always do, although the ending was a little too speedy for my taste.