Cassandra Palmer Series by Karen Chance

It took a while for me to really get into this series but I was determined to finish as much of it as possible before admitting defeat. Why?

Because I fell in love with one of the characters.

John Pritkin.

War mage. Possibly criminally insane. Completely adorable.

He became the only reason why I was still reading the Cassandra Palmer series after the first book, Touch the Dark. The book is narrated by the series' namesake, who sort of reminds me of Kim Harrison's Rachel Morgan: new to her powers, something of a klutz and deals with vampires in her personal life while trying to make sure the rest of the world didn't blow up on her shift. This is actually why I picked up the first book in the Cassandra Palmer series because I love Harrison's The Hollows series and the similarities were a big sell.

But what kept me reading after Touch the Dark was Pritkin. He is a crazy war mage who defects from his Circle and becomes Cassandra's bodyguard because she really needs one in order to stay alive long enough to make sure the world did not explode into chaos. But just because he voluntarily defected and became her bodyguard does not mean he's very nice to her and in fact, he's incredibly prickly and trigger-happy - which is something of an understatement - and does not see anything wrong with tossing Cassandra around to make sure she stays alive.

He's amazing.

He also has a rather interesting family background that would shock the readers because wow, you totally would not have expected that considering how grumpy he is. But then again, this family secret is probably why he's so grumpy. 

Now that I'm done gushing about Pritkin, I can go on to say that after struggling through books 1-3, I am now happily reading book four because it's finally gotten interesting.

And Cassandra's grown on me.

Oh, and okay, Pritkin is getting more scene time. 

While I was iffy about this series in the beginning, I can happily say that I really do like the books now and am anxiously waiting for the next one - which won't come out till summer 2011.