July 1, 2006

Book of the Week: Touch th Dark by Karen Chance

Yes, I know, I missed a week. But I do have a great book to recommend to make up for it: “Touch the Dark” by Karen Chance. There are a lot of familiar touches in this book, but it adds up to a very dark, promising, exciting read. Clairvoyant Cassandra Palmer has been living on the run for years; brought up in the crime family of Antonio, a vampire, she had worked for him until she discovered he had her parents killed. Cassie is discovered, of course, and the action of the book starts and never stops. Cassie is “wanted” by more supernatural groups than you can shake a stick at, for a variety of reasons. If they can’t get her by force, they’ll get her by seduction.

Throughout Cassie’s incredible run for freedom, it seems inevitable to the reader (and to Cassie) that sooner or later she’ll be forced to ally herself with one group or another. It’s the terms that matter.

“Touch the Dark” is a really exciting book with great pace and a huge cast of vivid characters. Chance does try to pack in more mythology than we can absorb in one swallow, but she does it such a way that we’re definitely wanting more. This is one of my favorite reads of the year, right after Sarah Monette’s “The Virtu.”

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I spent the past two days in the sweltering sun to watch another child in another endeavor. This time, I wasn’t watching my daughter play softball. My middle son graduated from boot camp at Fort Benning, Georgia. I never thought I’d be on an Army base, and I never imagined seeing Middle firing a mortor, his face painted green.

Though his reasons for doing this were clear only to himself, Middle decided that joining the Army and going through boot camp was a process that would make him a man. And by those terms, he’s succeeded. He has a new confidence to go along with his fifteen pounds of new muscles. For one heart-stopping week we thought he was going to Iraq in October. But a clarification of his orders has let us know that he will be in Alaska for a long time . . . at least, as of the moment. You will understand that last week was one of the most challenging weeks of my life.

Mothers have sent sons off to war since the world began. But it’s the most horrible feeling. I was anticipating the day-to-day dread that my son would on the news, that it would be his boots standing in the middle of a sandy piece of ground. (I know, I know; that’s a lot of drama I created for myself. But remember what I do for a living.) Though Middle may yet go over to Iraq, at least I know now that he will be in the U.S. for a while. And something may happen before his number comes up.

I’ve known other moms whose sons were Over There. My hat has always been off to them, for their courage in continuing their daily lives while the terrible anxiety was gnawing at them. Now, that hat is sweeping the ground as I bow even lower.
---Charlaine Harris