Ride the Storm: A Cassie Palmer Novel (Cassandra Palmer, #8)

by Karen Chance

Cassie Palmer can see the future, talk to ghosts, and travel through time—but nothing’s prepared her for this.
 
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...

• ISBN10: 110198998X
• ISBN13: 9781101989982
• Publish Date: 1 August 2017
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Penguin Putnam Inc
• Imprint: Berkley Publishing Corporation,U.S.
• Format: Paperback (US Mass Market)
• Pages: 608
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9781101989982

Reviews

[Melanie]

My review and an extended sample of the audiobook are posted at Hotlistens.com.

When I first started reading Cassie Palmer back in 2009, I love the series. I loved spending time with Cassie, Rafe, Mercia, Pritkin, Casanova, Billy Joe and the rest of the gang. There is a great mix of mythologies and historical characters including bring Bram Stoker, Kit Marlone, Rasputin, Vlad Dracula, Apollo, Ares and more.

So, if you’re not familiar with this series, you don’t want to start here. You will be completely lost. You need to start with book one. Cassie starts off as a girl running from the vampire family who raised her. She is a seer, but as the series goes on, she learns that she isn’t just any ole’ seer, she has much more than reading fortunes for tourist in her future.

As per normal for a Cassie Palmer book, there is a lot going on in this book. Cassie is working with Rosier, king of the Incubus, to try to save Pritkin. They are traveling way back in time to do this. Cassie is really upsetting the Pythias of the past. There is also some stuff that Cassie learns about Mircea. She also learns more about her own past, as in her parents who died when she was very young.

There are some things that are finally wrapped up in this story. I was glad to see that story arc finally come to an end. Another things about Cassie Palmer books, they give new meaning to fast paced. I get exhausted by the end of the story. I can’t imagine how Cassie does it. One thing that surprises me every time I read it, it has only been a few months since this story started. Because the books are long and I’ve been reading them for years, I forget that it has only been months for Cassie. Part of that is all the time she spends in the past. Oh, last, if you’re fans of the Dorina Basarab series. She makes an appearance at the end of this book.

Narration
Jorjeana Marie has narrated the last two books in this series. While, I’m not happy with the number of narrators that have read for this series (Jorjeana Marie is the third). I do enjoy her narration. I’m glad that they stuck with her. I hope she continues to narrate this series. I like her better than the second narrator. There is a large cast of characters and she does a great job. She does well with this very fast paced book.

**I like to thank the publisher for providing me with a copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

[Quirky Cat]

Up front notice: I won an ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) of Ride the Storm through the Cassandra Palmer fanpage on facebook. There is no obligation for me to leave a review, but I am choosing to do so.
Ride the Storm is a fast paced fantasy novel with wit and peril strewn liberally throughout. Cassie is thrown from one problem or fight to the next, frequently with no time to rest. It creates a fast paced and somewhat chaotic feel, but Karen Chance throws enough silliness and insanity into the works that it somehow all makes sense and feels right. This type of writing style may be too busy for some readers, so be aware of it.
Cassie is running on fumes trying to juggle everything at once. She is still desperately trying to save Pritkin, along with the help of his less than ideal father. The Silver and Black Mage Courts are useless at best, an active threat at worst. The vampires on the whole are still recovering from the battle in Reap the Wind. The threat of Ares still looms in the air, as well as a handful of other threats I’ve failed to recall or mention. Normally I find a novel that has that many plots and subplots overwhelming, but it mostly works here. I think because Cassie needs constant reminds about what is going on, which in turn gives us constant reminders about what is going on.

This way lay spoilers:

I’m going to cover the warnings first, and then move on to the rest of my comments. One thing I would like to warn the readers about is a scene that occurs between Cassie and Pritkin. I’m not really sure how to feel about it or explain it. They’re put in a sexual situation, which isn’t exactly consensual? I guess that’s as close as I can get. I ended up putting the novel down for a few days to sort out my feelings before I continued. So this is something to be aware of, if this sort of thing is triggering to you. Additionally there are a few other scenes that either imply a rape could happen (Cassie seeing into the future) or show an unnamed character being raped. They’re relatively quick, but they are still there and there isn’t a ton of warning before they happen.
Okay, now on to talking about the rest of the book! One of the first really concentrated fights occurs between a metric ton of war mages (is that the appropriate way to measure mages? It feels like it should be) a couple shopkeepers, Cassie, and a dozen irritated reporters. I learned a couple of VERY important things from this fight: 1.) don’t tick off reporters and 2.) it really isn’t; smart to get yourself stuck to a hellhound. Despite the dangers against all the side characters, I was howling with laughter reading this scene. I wish I could say I wasn’t literally howling, but I’ve been told there may be a recording of it. So threatens my husband.
There were some massively satisfying points in this novel, if I may say so. First, we finally, FINALLY get to see what Mircea was up to. Since book one I was absolutely convinced he had another motive (besides the obvious) for wanting Cassie in his good graces. Now I finally have my answers, and while I feel bad for Cassie I’m also feeling very vindicated about my theory about him. Speaking of vindication, all the courts (vampire and mage alike) totally get called out by basically every news agency out there about not backing the Pythia. This is something that was bothering from the beginning (how could they justify not supporting her, especially when they knew it was the right thing to do?) so it was a breath of fresh air to see them having to face the truth on that one.
Another thing fans will be happy to hear: there was no cliffhanger this time! I repeat; no cliffhanger! I was worried there would be, considering the last couple kept leaving us in limbo (or more accurately, leaving Pritkin in limbo).
There were also some confusing points, going a bit beyond the normal chaos that surrounds Cassie’s life. I had to read the final battle twice to understand everything that was happening (admittedly, there was A LOT going on). Once I got a grasp of what was going on though, it was a pretty decent ending. One part I didn’t end up loving is because of my preferences, and I know it. I personally am not a fan of using other literary figures from other series (so needless to say I don’t love the series use of Vlad) so I wasn’t too psyched about the whole Arthur spin on this, but it wasn’t the worst I’ve seen.
Finally, there are some relationship developments in this series (finally) but I’ll leave the details for the novel.
I am a huge fan of the Cassie Palmer series, so when I say I was conflicted about what to rate this novel as, I want you to understand what I mean. Part of me reflexively wanted to give it a four start rating, but if I’m being honest with myself it was really more of a three and a half star rating. It’s still really good, I just have some complaints about it.


For more reviews, check out Quirky Cat's Fat Stacks