Sora's Quest (The Cat's Eye Chronicles #1)

Sora's Quest (The Cat's Eye Chronicles #1)

by T.L. Shreffler

A noblewoman, an assassin, and a soul-stealing necklace....

Sora planned on running away from her wedding, but she never expected to be kidnapped! Dumped into a world of magical races, arcane jewelry and forgotten lore, she finds herself at the mercy of a dangerous assassin, haunted by an even darker past. She yearns for freedom, but he won't let her go -- not when her Cat's Eye necklace is the only thing that can save his life.

But the necklace itself presents a problem. It is an ancient device from the long forgotten War of the Races, and its magic has the ability to steal souls. Can Sora learn to wield its power -- or will the power wield her?

*****

5 stars

I've read this book once before and never wrote a review for it. I don't know why I didn't, sometimes that just happens. Being in a little bit of a book funk I decided to look through my kindle library to see what I had, I remembered that I liked this one so I opened it back up. Its pretty rare for me to actually read a book more then once, even if I really liked it, and if I do start to reread the book I end up stopping a few chapters in. I now remember why this book made such an impression on me. Not only it is a plot set up that I love, its a damn good story.

I know some people might not like it so much, especially since it seems our main heroine, Sora, seems to get a case of Stockholm Syndrome towards our other characters. On first impression this does seem true, but as the story progresses we see that she always has escape in the back of her mind. Even if she is starting to get use to the people around her and to really like them. Its not like she is seriously mistreated by them or that she really has any other choice but to continue on with them, there is nothing left for her where she came from. She kept pretty solid with her dislike of Crash, though she does get a little confused by her feelings for him towards the end, and I think anyone would be hard pressed to not like Dorian and Burn.

There is plenty of action going on, and I liked the way the different races where described. Just when you start think nothing interesting was going to happening things would start to pick up again. There is just enough of this going on in the book to keep you wanting to read.

After some thought there doesn't seem to be much of a goal for the group, its pretty amazing that I was able to burn though the read so fast. I mean sure they are trying to stay one step ahead of a bad guy, and Sora wants to find her mother, but there is no other explanation as to what Crash is doing hanging around with Burn and Dorian in the first place. Oddly enough I was totally okay with that. Everything worked really well for me. Just enough questions are answered that I was satisfied in the end, and want to read the second book in hopes of getting more of the answers I want.

This book had me laughing out loud, made me feel sad and I got angry. When a book can pull out emotions like that from its reader you know it is something worth reading.

That brings me to the bad guy, Volcrain, I wasn't sure if I wanted him to win in the beginning or not. He has a very good reason to be out for revenge against Crash and you feel for him because of that. But as the story progresses and you get the chance to peek into his mind you start to realize he is taking this just a little to far and you can see how he is lost to his revenge and not thinking of the consequence of his actions. He truly turns into something bad.

There is a few different point of views you get, but mainly you are in Sora's head. This is done very well, and I love when there are point of view shifts as it gives you a chance to see things from different angles.

All in all you aren't going to find some helpless damsel in distress in the book. You going to find someone that stands up for the things she believes in, though she isn't perfect Sora is a great character and I look forward to reading more about her.

Would I recommend this book? Yes, this is the kind of book I love to read and if you are like me and enjoy a quest with some not so human people thrown into the mix you will love this book too.