Books like Death's Mistress

You know a book is good when you finish it and a sudden feeling of emptiness descends on you and the thought of waiting yet another year to reunite with the characters seems too much to bear. Oh, and when you’re reluctant to write a review because it’ll probably not come close to expressing how much you loved the story. Well, here’s an attempt anyway:I. LOVED. THIS. BOOK. Death’s Mistress was great and a very worthy follow up to part one in these series, Midnight's Daughter, the book responsible for making me fall in love with the urban fantasy genre. The Midnight’s Daughter series is about Dorina Basarab (dhampir and daughter of Mircea) and is set in the Cassie Palmer universe. And though we see some familiar faces and -due to overlapping time lines- the same major events happen in both series, the viewpoint is totally different and so is the general atmosphere of the books. Both series are typical Karen Chance: high paced, action packed and very funny, but Dorina makes a more cynical and tortured protagonist and her world seems darker. In Death’s Mistress, Dory takes it upon her to locate a missing Fey relic for her friend Claire. In the meantime Louis-Cesare is looking for his lost mistress and the two tasks become interconnected. And so does just about everything and everyone else in this elaborate plot Karen Chance has weaved. While in Midnight’s Daughter the story was pretty straightforward -Dory taking on the big bad villain- the plot in the current book is almost a suspense form of a whodunit. At times it reminded me of these old Hollywood action movies, the ones which were more about the thrill of the chase rather than about the special effects. The story unfolds in an entertaining and unpredictable way, with a high pace, lots of romantic tension, plenty of sarcasm and many laugh out loud moments. Radu and Stinky provided some entertainment but Ray, the handy dandy vampire, stole the show from the very point we get to be introduced to him, bleeding out on his restroom’s tile floor. Despite the fact that only a month has passed since the events from last book, the characters show growth and development. Slowly but gradually we see Dory coming in touch with her feelings and her relationships with Mircea and Louis-Cesare shifting. We also get to know more about these characters (avid camp-Pritkiners, beware: you’ll like Mircea more). But my favorite is Louis-Cesare. I am in love with the guy. It took a while for him to pop up in this book, but he made up for it. Fast. I loved the scenes between him and Dory, ranging from endearing to scorching hot (sometimes with a funny edge: ‘interrogation techniques’). I don't give a 5 out of 5 very easily but this book deserves it. It wasn’t perfect (there were a few things I would have like to see done differently) but it was very entertaining and showed off Chance's quality of creating two very distinct characters but making them so likable that you can't help but invest in them and their crazy adventure rides. Let's just hope the next one doesn't take so long.