Fury’s Kiss

Fury’s Kiss is the third book in Karen Chance’s Dorina Basarab series and therefore this review may contain spoilers for the previous books. It is also set in the same universe as the Cassie Palmer series and shares some characters so they are really best read together (and in order).

When Dory wakes up in a strange lab, she has no memory of who she is but she knows one thing; she is a dhampir, half vampire, half human and her mission in life is to kill vampires. So when there’s one standing over her, she attacks, even if it is Louis-Cesare who is just trying to help. With her split nature, Dory is used to blacking out but when a team, of first-level masters is killed, she must regain her memories to find out what happened.

The characters in Karen Chance’s books are like friends to me now and I just love returning to their world and being immersed in their stories. I was surprised at first that Dory’s memory loss didn’t last long but soon it starts to come together. There are several memories (in italics) which really won’t make a lot of sense until the end and it’s one of those books that would deserve a re-read with the benefit of hindsight.

The memory loss means you don’t get that oh-so-common recap at the start and I found myself going back to the final chapter of Death’s Mistress just to remind myself where things lay. Although I like that the reader’s sense of disorientation mirrors Dory’s. Just as the Cassie Palmer series has the displacement of the time travel scenes, Fury’s Kiss delves into the landscape of memories and I enjoyed the visualisations.

We learn more about Dory’s dhampir side and you will start to worry for her future but there were some absolute awwww moments which will leave you satisfied. There is also plenty of laugh out loud humour, fast paced action and a good dollop of sexiness. I cannot wait until the next book considering what happens at the end (not a cliffhanger but on-going character development that I want to see continued). Just please write faster Karen! 2013 will see a new Cassie Palmer book but I fear there will be a long wait to meet up with Dory again.

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