White Cat by Holly Black

Genre: YA Urban Fantasy

Pages: Hardback, 310

Publisher: Margaret A. McElderry Books (May 4, 2010)

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.

Holly Black does not disappoint with her new series, but did we expect anything less? I think not! I love the originality of this book and the fact that it is a completely elaborate plot that the reader finds him/herself sucked into before they even realize it. My followers chose this one for me to read and man, am I glad they did. I loved every second of it. It was suspenseful, full of twists and turns, and it didn’t hurt that you had a male lead. Cassel is unlike other male leads because his family harbors secrets (not like any others that you know, that’s for sure). Cassel is trying to find his place in a world with a mother who is overbearing and on top of that works people’s emotions to her advantage, two brothers who seem to hate him, a grandfather who spends the majority of his time drunk, and no true friends at the school he is almost kicked out of.

Things change for Cassel though when he finds himself on the roof of his school with his classmates and teacher below him thinking that he was trying to commit suicide. That event sets into motion Cassel’s adventure into finding out who he truly is, what really happened to his best friend, and who his true family is. I love the events that lead us there because there are just enough clues written in so that the reader can find them if they want to. You know me, I was writing questions down in my journal and then going back to write beside them. There was action in here too which made the story that much harder to put down to watch my children! The ending was probably my favorite part because it was so very well written.

Visit Holly here to find out more about the series and see the trailer if you missed it before.

Happy reading everyone!