A powerful clairvoyant, Cassandra "Cassie" Palmer has had her fill of being used by the magical community. After she runs away from the vampire Mafioso, who's controlled her from childhood, Cassie exacts her revenge by setting him up in an entirely human and red tape kind of way. She alerts the Feds. Embarrassed, her former captor, Tony, decides to get a little revenge of his own by having her killed. Vampire justice.

On the run, depending a little on the kindness of strangers, a little on her phantom friends but mostly trusting her own instincts and living by her wits, Cassie learns how to survive on the streets. When she finds her own obituary posted on her office computer, Cassie knows that Tony has tracked her down and it's time to run again. Calling for spirit backup, Cassie goes to warn her roommate Tomas to stay away from their apartment for awhile. While she's explaining things to Tomas, they're attacked by Tony's vampire goons.

Cassie and Tomas manage to survive the attack and inflict heavy casualties on the attackers with the help of some ghostly allies that Cassie manages to conjure up. Cassie realizes during the fight that far from being a helpless human Cassie is bound to protect, Tomas is in fact a vampire with formidable fighting skills and has been fooling her by appearing to be human. Not an easy feat, since Cassie was raised in a vamp stronghold. In short, Cassie is again under the control of a master vampire. A really hot master vampire this time, but she realizes she's still being controlled.

Tomas "escorts" her to the headquarters of the "Senate," a powerful group of vampires who also have a decidedly fixed interest in Cassie and her powers. It's the why of all this that puzzles her. Clairvoyants are regarded as the lowest of the low by the rest of the "magics." Cassie doesn't have a lot of free time to ponder her importance to the vampires and their various allies and enemies. With the help of her ghost servant, Billy, Cassie escapes the vampires' headquarters, which are located outside of Vegas, and heads to the big city where more than slots and neon signs await her. Dark mages, white knights, witches, a lone pixie, satyrs, vampires, weres and even a shrunken head are lying in wait -- some to help, some to hinder and some just want to eat her. Who's a girl going to trust? All she wants are some straight answers to 10 or 20 questions and to be left alone. Fat chance. What happens in Vegas is supposed to stay in Vegas, but in Cassie's case, it doesn't only follow her around the world but through time itself.

Fast paced and heavy on the action, TOUCH THE DARK packs a huge story into its 320 pages, with lots of mythology and character backstory to absorb. I thought at first that there might have been another book in the series that I had missed, but this is Chance's debut novel. A blend of fantasy and romance, it will satisfy readers of both genres. The story isn't completely tied up at the end and leaves everything open for a sequel (or series) leaving good guys and baddies both in the mix to meet and battle another day. Cassie's destiny is far from settled and her troubles are far from being over.

Book Summary

Like any sensible girl, Cassie tries to avoid vampires. But when the bloodsucking Mafioso she escaped three years ago finds Cassie again with revenge in mind, she's forced to turn to the vampire Senate for protection.The undead senators won't help her for nothing, and Cassie finds herself working with one of their most powerful members, a dangerously seductive master vampire- and the price he demands may be more than Cassie is willing to pay.