Karen Chance – Embrace the Night

The third book in the Cassie Palmer series, published April 1, 2008.
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Cover: Love it.



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 dangerously sexy 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 an ancient text, the Codex Merlini. 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 rumoured to contain dangerous spells, and retrieving it may help Cassie to deal with Mircea, but it could also endanger the world…


In the previous book, Cassie made a deal with the Dark Fey King to bring him the Codex Merlini. But first she will use one spell herself, to break the double geis between herself and Mircea, as it is slowly killing him. The clues to the whereabouts of the Codex are lost in the past, and many other people would happily kill to get their hands on it.
Together with Pritkin and Nick, one of his magefriends, they are searching for clues, and in the meantime, Cassie is helping out in Dante’s Casino, wherever Casanova wants her to help out. She sure doesn’t like those odd jobs, and the costumes she has to wear, but staying in hiding is the smartest thing to do, since so many people want her dead.
When Cassie ran away from Tony at age 14, she ended up with Tamika Hodges, who ran a sort of halfway house for magical kids. If the mages got hold of them, they would end up in facilities until they got control of their powers, and would be safe to get out again. In other words: never. And now a bunch a very small kids show up at Dante’s casino, asking her to help hide them. Tami has been captured by the mages, and they were the only ones who escaped. Cassie is afraid, she can barely keep herself alive, how is she to care for 9 little kids? All with out of control magical powers? She sees no other solution but to take them to the kitchens. After all, all Fae love children. And she is right, Miranda, the head chef gargoyle, tells her they will protect a crèche with their lives. The other staff helps her in finding some rooms for the children to stay in, without Casanova knowing about it.

Pritkin knows about a Djinn who might help them, but he will ask for much more than just money in return, and he doesn’t want Cassie to go there. But Cassie is the Pythia, and she has to take charge of things, or she will be under his thumb for ever. But when they get to Saleh’s house they find him and his household staff murdered.

In exchange of showing his Djinn spirit who his killer was, Saleh tells her the last known location of the Codex, in 1793, Paris. Cassie cannot believe her eyes though, when she sees a coldblooded Pritkin killing the Djinn. Why doesn’t he want her to find the Codex? And where did he find those clothes? The Pritkin she knows, doesn’t where stuff that stylish.

The only answers lie in the past, and Cassie and Mircea have to go on a dangerous journey to finally break the geis. And Cassie sure is in for a few surprises along the way, and finally the truth about who Pritkin is, or was…


I very much enjoyed this third book in the series, and I would love to learn more about the other magical children and their powers. Especially Jesse came in handy in the big fight in the end of the book. But I would love for Cassie to be safe of the mages for once, and get the chance to take up her role of Pythia and learn more about her past and her powers.
I still love Cassie as a character, she doesn’t give up, and she knows how to handle the vampires and even the Consul. And Pritkin, well he is growing on me. I still love Mircea though, he does care for Cassie, and it shows. Cassie’s ghostly helper Billy Joe is still an invaluable aid to her, and I do like his antics.

I am looking forward to reading the fourth book in this series soon.

9 stars

© 2012 Reviews by Aurian