White Cat (book one of the Curse Workers trilogy)
I give it 4 out of 5 stars
from Good Reads
Cassel comes from a family of curse workers — people who have the power to change your emotions, your memories, your luck, by the slightest touch of their hands. And since curse work is illegal, they're all mobsters, or con artists. Except for Cassel. He hasn't got the magic touch, so he's an outsider, the straight kid in a crooked family. You just have to ignore one small detail — he killed his best friend, Lila, three years ago.
Ever since, Cassel has carefully built up a façade of normalcy, blending into the crowd. But his façade starts crumbling when he starts sleepwalking, propelled into the night by terrifying dreams about a white cat that wants to tell him something. He's noticing other disturbing things, too, including the strange behavior of his two brothers. They are keeping secrets from him, caught up in a mysterious plot. As Cassel begins to suspect he's part of a huge con game, he also wonders what really happened to Lila. Could she still be alive? To find that out, Cassel will have to out-con the conmen.
Holly Black has created a gripping tale of mobsters and dark magic where a single touch can bring love — or death — and your dreams might be more real than your memories.
This is book one of a trilogy, followed by "Red Glove". I will admit, I put off reading this book for a long time. The cover didn't really appeal to me (I know, don't judge a book by it's cover..I do, can't help it) and I wasn't really interested in reading about mobsters and con artists. But it kept popping up in my little world and I decided it was time to read it.
In this world, curse workers are a regular part of life. Everybody knows about them and they have just always been there. They are not considered "paranormal" but there is a certain amount of...lets just say certain groups of people are prejudice toward them. The character's in this book do not suffer a direct back lash from that but it is mentioned enough, it feels like the author is laying a foundation for future books.
Cassel is a great character. He is the only non-worker in an all worker family so of course he feels like an out cast. With his infamous family ties he is an out cast at his private school. Before you feel to sorry for him he compensates by being a skilled con man and bookie for his fellow classmates. All the characters in this story have a unique voice and play some very interesting parts.
It took a while to finally get into this book. There is a lot of world building in the beginning and I was not getting into it. I even put it down to read something else. With all the positive things I heard about this book I knew I had to dive back in. If this was a stand alone novel I would have liked it to have more action right off. But if you take into consideration she is creating a world and writing a trilogy it is probably paced pretty well. By the time I hit 33% (I know it was 33% because I read it on my kindle) I was sucked in.
You should defiantly add this to your "to be read" pile.
This is book one of a trilogy, followed by "Red Glove". I will admit, I put off reading this book for a long time. The cover didn't really appeal to me (I know, don't judge a book by it's cover..I do, can't help it) and I wasn't really interested in reading about mobsters and con artists. But it kept popping up in my little world and I decided it was time to read it.
In this world, curse workers are a regular part of life. Everybody knows about them and they have just always been there. They are not considered "paranormal" but there is a certain amount of...lets just say certain groups of people are prejudice toward them. The character's in this book do not suffer a direct back lash from that but it is mentioned enough, it feels like the author is laying a foundation for future books.
Cassel is a great character. He is the only non-worker in an all worker family so of course he feels like an out cast. With his infamous family ties he is an out cast at his private school. Before you feel to sorry for him he compensates by being a skilled con man and bookie for his fellow classmates. All the characters in this story have a unique voice and play some very interesting parts.
It took a while to finally get into this book. There is a lot of world building in the beginning and I was not getting into it. I even put it down to read something else. With all the positive things I heard about this book I knew I had to dive back in. If this was a stand alone novel I would have liked it to have more action right off. But if you take into consideration she is creating a world and writing a trilogy it is probably paced pretty well. By the time I hit 33% (I know it was 33% because I read it on my kindle) I was sucked in.
You should defiantly add this to your "to be read" pile.
Kriston- Thanks again for the great reviews and the humor!
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