Review: Shatter the Earth by Karen Chance

Shatter the Earth (Cassandra Palmer Series Book 10) by Karen Chance
Urban fantasy/paranormal romance released by Karen Chance on February 4, 2020

Shatter the Earth by Karen Chance book coverIronically for the time traveling, chief seer of the supernatural world, time has never been on Cassie Palmer’s side. There has always seemed to be too much to learn, too much to master, and never enough hours in a day. But the tables have now turned, and the fluctuating timelines of earth and faerie are diverging, slowing time in faerie relative to earth, and giving humans an advantage for the first time in their war with the fey. It is one they desperately need, for a literal war of the worlds is about to take place.
To win, or even to survive, Cassie and her allies, the powerful vampire senator Mircea Basarab and the formidable war mage John Pritkin, will have to pull off their greatest feat yet. And find a way to become more than the sum of their parts.
[Also] The exciting continuation of the Cassie Palmer series! A literal war of the worlds is about to take place between Earth and Faerie. To win, or even to survive, Pythia Cassie Palmer and her allies, the powerful vampire senator Mircea Basarab and the formidable war mage John Pritkin, will have to pull off their greatest feat yet. And find a way to become more than the sum of their parts.
This is the next book in the Cassie Palmer series. It’s got all the things we’ve come to know about Chance’s world, and it ties up some important things that the books have been building towards. There are still some bad guys kicking around by the end, but not extreme cliff hanger levels. Cassie and Pritkin’s relationship solidifies, and Cassie continues to settle into her job.

There are explosions, violence, assassination attempts, magical mayhem galore—all the things you should expect in a Cassie Palmer novel. The fun part for me was that even though Cassie continues to be overwhelmed by her job, she also is trying to be more proactive about some of her problems, and is better able to react to all the magical mayhem at occurs. Pritkin doesn’t handle this development very well; he has a few my-lover-is-in-danger related scenes, but he eventually gets with the program and recognizes that Cassie’s ability to handle herself and others has improved.

On that note, Pritkin and Cassie’s relationship solidifies, but is tested. We get to see them spend time together outside of the magical mayhem that surrounds them, and we see Pritkin support Cassie, not just in a bodyguard sense (though there is a very cute scene along those lines), but in an emotional way, which I don’t think I could have expected at the beginning of this series. And Mircea is slowly learning to treat Cassie as an equivalent power, not as someone with useful abilities that needs to be protected. He also learns some things that might just be world-changing for him, although we don’t spend a lot of time seeing what that new information ultimately means to him long-term.

All in all, this is a good book, and it does a good job of wrapping up this series. I will note that there is still another book to go in this series, plus one more book in a spin-off series, so if you’re one of those people that only reads completed series, give this one at least another year before you pick it up.

Grade: B

You can read an excerpt here and buy a copy here.

4 thoughts on “Review: Shatter the Earth by Karen Chance

  1. May

    I got a question. What do you think about overall series? I stopped reading at book 4 as I felt that it would be a lot of books to go and I was not sure if the author would be able to finish the series. I am glad when you mentioned that the last book will be out soon. Is it worth to read the whole series?

    Reply
    1. Aidee

      Hi May. So as of right now, this series has two books to go, neither of which have been published. The last update from the author was in April of 2021. Your mileage may vary, but I’d wait until the series is completed before reading it, and plan to go into it with the idea that at least one truly ridiculous thing will happen per book, if not more. One of my friends likes to reference an exploding pizza parlor from one of the early books whenever we talk about this series. Hope that helps!

      Reply

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