Siren’s Song

A John Pritkin Novel

By: Karen Chance

Narrated by: Joyce Bean

War mages are the magical equivalent of tanks: tough, powerful, and deadly. They have to be, in order to defend the supernatural community from the dangerous threats it sometimes faces. But what happens when the threat is them?

John Pritkin has been trying to recover from a demon curse that separated his body and soul and almost killed him. The reunification has left him with a flood of memories to process, some that he recalls from his past and some that he doesn't, as well as wonky magic, fluctuating power levels, and a splitting headache. Something that only intensifies when he finds himself stuck in a city under siege - by his fellow war mages.

As the only one not overwhelmed by a massive enthrallment spell, John must find a way to free his fellow mages before they destroy themselves, and take a city of a million people along with them.

Contains mature themes.

©2019 Karen Chance (P)2019 Tantor

A fabulous installment from Pritkin’s perspective

This was a free short story, mirroring Dragon’s Claw, which is Dorina’s mission. This is from Pritkin’s perspective, a fun change of pace from the main storyline, which are all from Cassie’s perspective. I don’t recommend tackling this as your first foray into the Cassandra Palmer series, but I can’t speak highly enough of what a fun romp through a demonic war zone this is! Karen Chance writes action unbelievably well, with a light touch that is so refreshing. This is absolutely one of my favorite stories in this world.

I figured out the problem with this series

A lot of people complain about the stories going nowhere and while I’ve agreed I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. A lot of people including me complain about the long action sequences - which I would go so far as to say are not meaningful. I often tune them out - thankfully I just discovered 2X speed. The stories go nowhere because while the first book spent time world building as is common with Fantasy novels - it goes nowhere in that there is no Scooby gang or clear underlying goal. To me the lack of relationship building is the most troublesome because I find myself just waiting for the few moments characters we know and like interact. In between is all the meaningless and uninteresting action. Each book new characters are introduced and we’re supposed to care about them as they careen about. We already know Cassie will survive so watching her careen about it useless - and I can’t bring myself to care about every new character that comes into the story with little time spent building the characters we could know and love. What happened to Raf and Marco. Usually with most Fantasy I’m stuck complaining about lack of female friendships and the protagonist being only surrounded by men. Here I’d just be thankful for relationship building with any of the men. It’s really a shame because the author clearly can write hilarious and heartfelt moments - but 12 hours of listening with 10 seconds total of hilarious or heartfelt only gives me an opportunity to multitask. There are so many interesting characters - build them and build a family. Every time that almost starts it’s abruptly ripped away and replaced with hours and hours of meaningless action that I can’t even remember had meaning midway through. The null witch, Caleb, Casanova, Raf, Marco, the other witch, Jessie - any of them should start to become characters in addition to Cassie, Pritkin. Build the world on a Foundation rather than forcing us to build new worlds with new characters we have no investment in for each book. The one positive I will say is I kind of get the narrator better now. If I think of her as a third party narrator her voice makes more sense. She is actually quite good at everyone but Dorina. She can clearly do a 20 year old, as she does with Cassie. With Dorina, if I pick those books up, I’ll just think of her at narrator.

Is this also Dragon's Claw, Dory's Short story?

I honestly got so confused half way through this book because the stary started sounding like the short story Dragon's Claw that I already read. I'm still confused because it's been year's since I read that short and I honestly didn't remember John being in that story. also was John wearing Cassie's body when he met Dory? I'm so confused and I'm too lazy to reread Dragon's Claw to figure out what I'm missing. My suggestion is to read Dragon's Claw first then this, I think that's chronological order anyway. Love Karen's writing but sometimes the order is confusing.

A really special treat, love Pritkin!

I was really excited to see an entire audiobook from Pritkin's point of view, he's one of my favorite book boyfriends and I thoroughly enjoy this series. I also read the sister book to this one - Devil's claw, from Dory's point of view. It was really interesting to see how they interact with each other and how they view one another. I also like the small glimpses of Pritkin's past. Looking forward to seeing more from the Chanceverse.

Didn't expect to like this...

"Almost Immediately unlikable" is how a character describes John Pritkin and it's a pretty apt description. Which is why i didn't expect to like this book and put off getting it until sheer boredom forced my hand. To be frank the war mages in these books seem a lot like if the KKK were suddenly given overwhelming magical powers and John is one of the most hateful and suspicious of anything that isn't human, despite not being one himself. Maybe it's because there is already a character with dual personalities in the stories or just that i've seen it done too many times but i found his constant harping and blaming his demon for everything to be really really REALLY annoying. However despite all that i did in fact enjoy the story. If nothing else it was quite enjoyable to see him and a certain Main character interact. This book hasn't warmed me any to Prickin but it hasn't made anything worse so i say it's a fairly good one time off shoot and a good read for those waiting for the next Cassey or Dory book.

P.S. I am starting to wonder if the author might take a crap ton of LSD or Shrooms before she writes because nothing else could possibly explain the chaos she creates.