Pearl's World of Romance - Reviews with a Passion: The Cat

September 9, 2008

The Cat - Jean Johnson

3:54 PM |

Back Cover:
Eight brothers, born in four sets of twins, two years apart to the day—they fulfill the Curse of Eight Prophecy. Though no longer trapped in exile, their growing family faces new problems. For the fifthborn son, it is getting his Destined bride to trust him…

Amara of the Shifterai has good reason to be wary of mages, when mages were responsible for chasing her and her sister out of their homeland. Being on the run for so long hasn’t put her in a trusting mood, yet there is something about Trevan of Nightfall—mage or not—that Amara finds difficult to resist. But can he be trusted with her most fiercely guarded secret?

Courting such a pretty yet prickly outlander won’t be easy, but Trevan is determined to try. She may be fierce, proud, and from a different culture, but he is the Cat, and none but the most fascinating and challenging of women could satisfy him. Of course, it would help if she stood still long enough for him to court her properly…

Trevan is the charming women-expert of the Sons Of Destiny and he's is getting frustrated with his forced abstinence, certainly now that four of his brothers have found and married their Destined Brides. He and Koranen have tried to come up with a solution for their celibacy but are failing at it. When their brothers offer no support Trevan starts feeling more and more resentment at their happiness.
But when his Destiny finally arrives Nightfall he discovers that the frustration over his abstinence is not solved with her arrival.
Amara is a Shifterai shape-shifter with a huge chip on her shoulder. She is on the run with her sister from mages who covet what she protects. What she's given up her future for to protect. She doesn't trust mages as far as she can throw them so earning her trust is hard work for Trevan. Besides that, her people’s way of courting is very different from Trevan’s.

Though they seem very different at first glance, they do have a lot in common and that is what brings them together. They both want to protect the ones they care about and they both want to be loved for who they are, not for what they can do.
Trevan is the one who never had any problems with women and charming them, but now he has to deal with a prickly, resentful, stubborn woman who will not make it easy for him to embrace his Destiny. But he has enough determination to make it work.

Amara is a practical, apprehensive and no nonsense kind of woman, she is cautious and protective, especially of the ones dear to her.
Her bitterness comes from not being able to fulfill the purpose she was supposed to. The purpose she spent her whole life preparing for. This inability comes from forces outside her power and that frustrates her to a point where she chafes at everything and everyone. When she finds a new purpose on Nightfall she softens a bit and her better traits come to the surface. Even if she isn't very likable in the first half of the book I did understand where her animosity came from and the love for her sister always seeped through the annoyance and resentment she often felt.

With THE CAT I embarked on the third set of twins in this series and I enjoyed going back to Nightfall and getting reacquainted with Saber, Wolfer, Dominor, Evanor and their wives.
I learned about the ways and habits of Amara's people and loved seeing Kelly meet her match in Amara when it comes to willpower. Neither of them gives an inch and tries to establish their own supremacy. There was only thing I could think of when reading their scenes: "catfight"
Like in the previous books I was taken deep into this magical world where ordinary and known concepts like central heating and house building are cleverly imbedded into an imaginary world. Jean Johnson makes normal and practical things seem magical and does this in a very fascinating way.
Her world building and characters are great and she knows how to make a magical fantasy world come to life with her writing skills. She also manages to keep secondary characters interesting without taking the focus away from the main characters. The supporting characters have important and crucial roles in the plots but never take the attention of the couple at hand.

Both Amara and Trevan were characters I enjoyed reading but the rest of the book was a bit too descriptive for me. Too many scenes on how to plan cities, how to build houses, how to set up central heating and not enough sparkling sensuality between Trevan and Mara. Their love story got lost in the building of the new Kingdom of Nightfall and that was something that had its influence on my opinion of the book. The development of Nightfall as a new Kingdom and with it, the problems that arise takes up a big chunk of the plot, leaving little room for an intensive courtship between Trevan and Amara.
My hopes were high because knowing Trevan was the womanizing twin I expected lots of romance. But unfortunately these expectations weren't met entirely. Only the second half of the book came close to what I expected Trevan's story would be like. For me the second half was also much better because that's when Amara became more aware of her ill behavior towards the people on Nightfall and Trevan in particular. That's when the real courting began and that's where I started getting what I wanted in the first place.

But even if my expectations weren't met all the way, I still enjoyed this fifth installment in the series and without it this series wouldn't be complete.
All Sons of Destiny will always have a place on my keeper-shelf, representing the fantasy genre.

Quote:
She had to admit her twin had been right all along, though; this was the right place for them to be and not just for her twin's sake. One glance at Trevan was enough to reassure Amara of that. He made her cheeks heat and her heart race. He challenged her mind to think and her heart to feel.

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