Buying Trouble

Dorina Basarab #0.5

by Karen Chance

In Midnight's Daughter, New York Times bestselling author Karen Chance took us to a new corner of Cassie Palmers world and introduced us to the lives of the mysterious vampires who rule the night. Now, read the eSpecial, Buying Trouble, the companion novella to Midnight's Daughter, and learn why vampires aren't the only creatures to fear. Claire just wants to keep out of trouble. But that isn't always easy when you're a mage with the extremely unusual ability to block all magic around you. And when Claire's sleazy boss decides Claire herself is the most valuable rarity to sell at a magical auction, trouble finds her. Now, her only hope for survival is to trust a mysterious and handsome stranger, a Fey Lord named Heidar. As their pursuers close in, there's one thing for sure, savior or threat, Heidar can show Claire things she never imagined in this world, and in herself. . .

Genres: Urban Fantasy, Fantasy, Paranormal, Vampires, Romance, Fae, Short Stories

96 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 14, 2008

About the author

Karen Chance is the author of two New York Times bestselling series, plus a number of novellas and short stories, all set in the Cassandra Palmer universe. A full-time writer since 2008, she was previously a university history teacher, which comes in handy when writing the time-travel aspect of Cassie’s crazy adventures. She loves Las Vegas, the main setting for her novels, but currently lives in Florida near her family home. Visit her website or connect with her on Facebook here.

Reviews

[Debrac2014 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Re-read! Action packed short story about Claire meeting Heidar!

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entertaining fantasy listening 🎶🔰

This novella e-book is from my local library.

Claire is living in New York City when strange things start happening in a under world 🌎 of feay, dragons 🐉, mage, shifters, and others. This is prequel to a series by the author.

I would recommend this prequel and author to 👍 readers of fantasy world 🌎 novels 👍🔰. 2023 👒😉😀🌙🐉

[Mel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Claire is a null who works at an auction house, just trying to mind her own business, when she discovers that SHE is the one up for sale. In the chaos that ensues, Claire accidentally gets shifted to Faerie with a Light Fey lord by her side. One who she happens to unexplainably find very attractive...

Typical Karen Chance: fast, fun and sexy. The story is set in the Cassie Palmer universe which is wonderfully built. Claire is a bit quirky but very funny. Heidar is just hilarious with his dry Fey humor. To me, this was the best story in the anthology On the Prowl.

[Choco Con Churros · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cuando ví que no tenía ni idea de quién porras era la protagonista de esta historia (al principio pensé que podría ser la de los 2 relatos que inician la saga de Cassie Palmer, pero enseguida vi que no tenía nada que ver), me puse en modo refunfuñón: ¿Otro relato anodino de un personaje que ni conozco?¿De verdad?.
Luego resultó que la historia estaba interesantísima, así que mis gruñidos fueron bajando de intensidad hasta el murmullo inaudible y desaparición.
Luego ya, cuando el personaje hace "plof" y descubre a las malas quién es realmente... me encantooo!. Qué genial!. ¿Quién es este personaje? Y qué cosas le pasan😂. ¿Va a volver a salir pronto?. Quiero más. Autores en GL Bis

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars.

Read as a part of On the Trouble. Cute and interesting world building.

[Thenia · Rating 4 out of 5]

RTC

[Francais Parker · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you follow my reviews, you know the drill! First comes the grades, then any thoughts, gushing or notes I have, and then a ruling for clean-readers.

World-building: A++
Mythology: B
Plot-Twists: A
Suspense: B+
Girl Power: A-
Guy Hero: A-
Villains: B-
Love Interests: A-
Feels: A

Great little taste of this universe, I'll be diving in deeper soon and reading the full-length novels in the coming months (hopefully... because my to-read list is forever long).

For you clean-readers: this book DOES have a bit of mature content. Some self-editing/scene-skipping may be needed to read this one.

[Jéssica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Esse conto eu provavelmente deveria ter lido após ter terminado o primeiro livro da Dorina.
Eu simplesmente não consegui me conectar com os personagens, não conhecia Claire, não fazia ideia de quem era ela e na verdade não me importava muito com o bem-estar dela. Eu esperava por uma conexão maior com o universo de Cassie Palmer, o que não ocorreu.
Agora que eu já terminei o primeiro livro da Dorina, acho que a história dela fez mais sentido e explicou melhor algumas coisas. Deveria ter lido depois de Midnight's Daughter.

[Cassie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Buying Trouble is a prequel novella to the Dorina Basarab series. Dory doesn’t appear in the story, she is mentioned near the end but not by name, it’s told from her best friend Claire’s POV.

Claire is a magical null, she dampens or counters any magic in her vicinity. She is on the run from her family and the Fey her family tried to sell her to working at a shady auction house when her low life boss decides to put her on the auction block too.

In Claire’s wild escape she accidentally ends up in Faerie with a Fey she had been instantly drawn to.
Only they landed in the wrong territory and now they’re on the run together.

This story is full of twists and turns with excellent world and character building. If you’ve never read Ms Chance this is a great starting point for her world. This novella stands on its own and still leaves you wanting more. While this story focuses on supporting characters from the Dory books you get a fabulous look at the politics and variety of creatures.

I can’t recommend the series highly enough. Claire is great. Dory is even better. And don’t forget the timeline intermingles with the Cassie Palmer series too! You can’t go wrong.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this story as part of the On the Prowl anthology

Buying Trouble - Karen Chance 4/5 Stars
This was my second favorite story in the anthology and one I was looking forward to reading as I'm a big fan of Karen Chance's Cassie Palmer series. Claire is a great character & I believe she is Dory's roommate from the Dorina Basarab series but you don't need to have read any of those books to enjoy the story. I loved Heidar, he's probably up there with my favorite leading men from Karen's books. I would love to see more of these two so I'm hoping they will make appearances in the Dorina Basarab series which I'm going to have to start reading very soon. Some of the scenes in this story had me laughing out loud & I'd say this would make a very good introduction to Karen's work if you've not read any of her books before.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this short story about Claire, the null witch and Dory's room mate who encounters the fey and realises some truths about her own ancestry. I read it as part of the anthology On the Prowl not as a standalone but I've re-entered it here so it shows up on 'my books'as I tend to think of it as Claire's story rather than the Dory prequel.

I found Claire in the Karen Chance's Cassie Palmer series quite endearing so I was pleased she had her own story, even though she had been a relatively minor character. Claire is more fun here than in the Cassie books and develops both her maternal touch and her alterego.
Having said that I much prefer the Dory books, and this story provides a good way of opening up that narrative.

There is a good balance between romance and fast action: I frequently lost the plot but if you are familiar with KC's novels, that's nothing new and half the reason why her books are so much fun.

[Anoolka · Rating 4 out of 5]

I seem to like Karen Chance's short stories more than her full novels. I liked Clare here far more than in the first Dorina book. Fascinating bits of worldbuilding - this universe gets richer and richer and I'd like more from the pov of the fae (especially dragons) and the weres (from the other short stories).
Cons - Very speedy romance and too little family interactions - glossed over first encounter with long lost father and brother... missed opportunity for some interesting stuff, imho.

[Mara · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure what it has in common with Dorina, as I read Midnight's daughter years ago, and I do not remember all the details. Probably the underground black market, that stirs some memories?
Cute, but little more; with the usual neckbreaking tempo of a Karen Chance's book.

[Storm · Rating 2 out of 5]

Collected in On the Prowl, this World Of The Lupi Series takes place between the origin story Zombie's Bite and the first book of the series, Midnight's Daughter. I tried to take this seriously but there's some real 1950s golden age of sci-fi B-grade comic/movie pulp dialogue with strange sexual undertones permeating the entire story, especially when it's clearly intimated at the start that our heroine finds the fae sexually attractive to the point that she becomes a total nymphomaniac airhead bimbo in their presence. Consider this passage:-

I told myself to pull back, to get some maneuvering room, but my body wasn't listening. There was no slowly building passion, no steadily mounting desire as might have been true with a handsome man. Instead, the attraction was instantaneous and so overwhelming it left me light-headed. I simply wanted him, so much that I had to fight not to throw myself back into his arms.

So the author has set women's liberation back a few centuries, but I guess that reaction is understandable if the fae is super hot, like maybe, this elf, or his equally hot dad.


As if things weren't bad enough for our protagonist, Claire, her boss decides to improve profits by taking up slavery and auctioning her off to the highest bidder, since her magic absorbing "null" powers are in demand among discerning wealthy buyers. What a scumbag of a horrible boss.


There's some intriguing concepts about the races and decent world building - there are at least 4 different species of fae/elves along with humans and others, and one of them is not what a traditional elf is. However the writing feels like the product of a try-hard university writing course, or paranormal romance fan fiction, so I can't in good conscience give this a higher rating.

[Mitticus · Rating 3 out of 5]

Había leído esta novellette hace muchos años atrás en la antología On the Prowl, que por cierto es bastante buena, y no me acordaba para nada de que iba. Como estoy buscando encontrarle sentido a Dorina Basarab y su montón de seres sobrenaturales le he vuelto a echar una lectura.

Es básicamente lo que le ocurre a Claire, la mejor amiga de Dorina y su compañera de casa, cuando desaparece y esta la busca desesperada.

Claire es una null, trabaja en una casa de subastas conteniendo objetos magicos para que no exploten hasta que se van con sus nuevos dueños, y se mantiene escondida de su primo Sebastian que busca deshacerse de ella por cuestiones de familia y disque venganza porque no se fue calladita cuando su padre la vendió a los fey. Sebastian quiere venderla a los Cosechadores para que extraigan su esencia de null y la conviertan en un arma en esta guerra entre magos, vampiros y fey.

For all their magic strenght, the Fey had never produced a null; a fact that seemed to rankle. They'd been looking for a way to add that particular gift to their magical arsenal for some time, but with so few to choose from, and most of them too weak (...) their hunt had been frustranting. Until they found me.

Aqui es donde Claire conoce a Heidan, y se dan una escapadita a la tierra de las hadas; y es donde Claire descubre su herencia.

Mucha acción y atraccion fisica.

Claire es una null mágica y me recuerda bastante a Lily Yu ( de World of Lupi de Eileen Wilks en ese sentido, que más que null absorbe la magia de los otros.

----
Nota_ 'LIght'Fey divididos en Svarestri
- Alorestry (llamados Green Fey) con mayor contacto con humanos
- y Blarestri.

[Jessica Patzer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I somehow managed to forget that I’d purchased Buying Trouble when I started my chronological read/reread of the Cassie Plamer/Dorina Basarab series. Now that I’ve read it, I’m disappointed I’d forgotten its existence. It’s a nice little adventure basically detailing at least part of Claire’s adventure during her disappearance in Midnight’s Daughter.

I liked getting to know more about Faerie, which gets little “screen time” in the main series. I also liked getting to know Claire more and getting a better grasp on what her powers actually do and are. She’s definitely more of a damsel in Midnight’s Daughter but I suspect that has more to do with being put next to Dory and the vampire craziness in that book. We also get to actually know Heidar here. Or at least know him better than the scant amount of time we had with him in Midnight’s Daughter.

Anyway, I had fun reading through Buying Trouble. Claire’s fun. Faerie is more fun than previous encounters. It was just a fun little romp all around.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book happens in sync with Midnight's Daughter, while listed as a prequel I find that having read Midnight's Daughter first made more sense.

Dory only appears in this story by reference, the main character is Dory's roommate Claire. This story centered on what was happening to Claire while Dory is looking for her in Midnight's Daughter.

In this novella we got to see aspects of the Fey which are the least known about species in this series and the Cassandra Palmer series. It was a refreshing change of pace from the mages and vampires the stories usually center around.

[Jessalyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun Novella

This story took a surprising turn for me & I really enjoyed it. It was a quick read & introduced some new characters from/into the Dorina Basarab & Cassie Palmer series. I don't want to ruin the surprised, but it was a fun novella & I'm not yet sure how it is a prequel to Midnight's Daughter, the first book in the Dorina Basarab series, but as I'm reading that book next, I intend to find out pretty quickly.

[Jack Vasen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite the unlikely threat of being sold for the purpose of having all her null magic, and he life with it, extracted from her, this is still a fairly lighthearted story. There is a bit of a surprise before the climax.

Claire is a clumsy heroine and seems to cause as much trouble as she frees herself from. Heidar is not much of a hero either, but his heart is in the right place - on Claire's side.

Mature themes: plenty of fantasy violence and some barely explicit sex.

[Susan Roe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short but sweet

Another great instalment of Karen Chance world . I enjoyed reading how Claire had met her Fey Prince.
I've read all Karen Chance books , both Cassie's adventures and Dorys and all the short stories and I have never been disappointed.
Keep the tales coming and I'll keep on buying them

[Kristen · Rating 1 out of 5]

I tried reading this short story in the anthology edition called On the Prowl and found myself not interested in it. Second time I read it, I ended up skimming through it again. So this is why I gave it a one star.

[Jen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a short story about a Null named Claire and a Fey named Heidar. It's fun, fast and crazy. I wasn't sure where Karen was going with this story. But I wasn't disappointed at all. This is a great story to learn more about Dorys roommate. And her beginnings.

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is just pure fun. it's the nearly slapstick humor that Chance does so well, without the drama of the arcs of Cassie Palmer and Dorina Basarab. However, there seem to be two stories crammed into one--the love story, and the heritage story, and that is a little much.

[Rebecca W. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Trouble is definitely what these characters get into. They go from one fiasco to another even more ridiculous situation throughout the entire novella. Throw in some very dubious consent issues, and you have a series that I have no interest in touching again.

[Chandni · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this short story. I don't remember Claire from my first reading of the Dorina Basarab stories, but I'm enjoying learning more about her. I also like how Heidar wasn't a toxic love interest.

[Mari · Rating 2 out of 5]

Okay. Skimmed a lot.

[Mary Chancey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it.

This is like all her books, a really good storyline and lots of action. You really get into the character's world.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 But then I know nothing of this author beyond the novella so it may be that I'd like it more if I'd read the series it's set in.

[Sean · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wasn't quite as good as the other books and I really am a fan of dorina. I kind of missed that as we really don't see dorina sat all.

[Shy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Story in On the Prowl.