Dark Dates
Cassandra Bick Chronicles, Book #1
By Tracey Sinclair
Author’s Website:  http://www.bodyofageekgoddess.blogspot.com

Brought to you by OBS reviewer Heidi

Cassandra Bick is a Sensitive that has decided to use her ‘gift’ for good, some might say, (others would say just the opposite) by running a dating service of sorts, helping vampires hooking up with willing human donors.  Suddenly, her business is getting a lot of notice from vampires that aren’t exactly keen on the idea of it all and that want her to stop what she’s doing.

Then, her sometimes kind of boyfriend (although she’ll never call him that), Cain, is back in town; something that usually precedes trouble.

Lately, there have been several murders in the news, several of which, are vampires.  And, when Cass’s office is broken into her client list becomes a nice little vampire hit list for the murderer.

Now Cass, her Wiccan employee, Medea, shapeshifter Katie, and Cain have to find out who the killer is and how to stop them before all her clients are eradicated.

I thought this was a decent start to a new series.  This book was written in a light conversational way that draws you in right away and you can’t help, but notice Cassandra’s sarcastic humor, but sometimes it’s a little too much to be believable like when she’s at the end of Val’s sword and is still cracking jokes.  I wanted to like this book more than I did, but I think it definitely has a lot of potential.  You could really tell that the author is from the United Kingdom though with the spelling of some words (i.e. realising, recognised, favour,) and the use of words such as bloke, bugger and bollocks, but it doesn’t detract from the story itself once you get used to it

I really liked Cain and found his character to be pretty ironic (you’ll understand once you read the book and realize what he is).  I also liked the idea of him doing all the things you would least expect someone of his race to do; a trained killer and as equally skilled in the bedroom oh yeah and him technically cheating on his wife with Cassandra.  For some reason I love cocky men in the books I read and Cain definitely fits the bill.  But I was really hoping for a happily ever after between him and Cass and you definitely don’t get that at the end of this book, but it is left open for the next installment.

I found Laclos to be a lot of fun as well, but he’s not someone I’d like to see Cass with (although that could change in the next book), but definitely one to keep Cain on his toes and a great character to set up a nice love triangle for the remainder of the series.

There were several shout-outs to pop culture in this book, Twilight, True Blood, Scooby-Doo, but there were some that I didn’t quite get (e.g. David Attenborough)….not sure if it’s because of my age or nationality….I’m guessing the latter.

I had a hard time getting a feel for the characters with the flashbacks Cassandra kept having about her and Cain and then when they would start to have a conversation the scene would change abruptly to later in the day or sometimes the following day….when I really just want to here more of what they have to say.

I think most of the things I did struggle with was just the stuff in the book that was there to set the scene and help the reader understand different dynamics between characters and things that had happened to bring them to where they were at the onset of the book.  So hopefully the next in the series won’t have to do some much background setup and we can just sit back and enjoy the story.