2.5 stars

Sometimes when you're chatting away on GR or lurking on someone's feed, you see character pairings mentioned all over the place. You know what I mean - Cat and Bones, Kate and Curran, Eve and Roarke etc. etc. In fact, that's what got me started on the Kate Daniels series, and that worked out really well for me. Cassie and Pritkin? Not so much.

Touch the Dark is one big info-dump with a plot on the side. It was drowning in narrative with precious little dialogue to break things up. Every time I turned the page and saw wall to wall block typing I would groan, knowing there was more endless info-dumps to come before the story would progress an inch. What little dialogue there was was constantly interrupted for more info-dumping.

This was a real slog to read. It would normally take me around two days to read a book of this size - this one took me five (and while not working to-boot), and I really had to push and force myself to keep reading.

The shame of it is, I think there was potential here. I actually didn't mind the story, and might even have enjoyed it were it written in a different way. Some of the characters were also quite intriguing - sadly, Pritkin was not one of them. Clearly he must show some massive improvement as the series progresses, because there was nothing appealing about him here. I'd probably be more happy at this stage to know that this was the last we see of him.

I'm aware that some readers compare this series to the Anita Blake series. For what it's worth, I haven't read that series so my opinion was in no way influenced by that. I've also heard that the series does improve, so I'll give it one more shot. But if the next book makes me feel like I'm reading underwater, that'll be it.