Love, Lies, and Hocus Pocus: Cat Magic (The Lily Singer Adventures 0)
by Lydia Sherrer
Rating: 4 stars
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Blurb:
Saving the world is such a bother when it makes you late for your nap.Blessed (or cursed, depending on who you ask) with human intelligence, Sir Edgar Allan Kipling, magical talking cat extraordinaire, spends most of his time keeping his human out of trouble. Of course, having a wizard for a human means that trouble is never far away.
When Sir Kipling’s human goes away for the weekend and leaves him to guard her magical library, things start out quiet. But when he discovers a witch smelling suspiciously of demon magic snooping in his human’s office, quiet goes out the window and chaos looms on the horizon. Will Sir Kipling be able to outwit the intruders before their mischief causes permanent damage?
If you are a cat person, you will adore this book. If you are a dog person, you will also adore this book, and upon completion will be inexplicably compelled to go out and adopt a cat. You have been warned.
My Review
From the moment I first heard about this story I was excited about it and curious how the author would handle it. Cat Magic is a short story told from the point of view of Sir Kipling, the talking cat from this series. Sir Kipling is one of my favorite side character of the series. So I couldn’t wait to read a whole novella written from his point of view. Although I also was slightly hesitant, as I was afraid it might not be as good as I had hoped or the story would be boring now we only got Kipling’s point of view. Ofcourse I shouldn’t have worried as it was great!
Given that Sir Kipling is only a cat I did wonder how the author would handle a story from his point of view. But Sir Kipling is far from a normal cat and with his smarts, Cat Magic and some allies he comes a long way. Who needs opposable thumbs when you have Cat Magic? The author managed to capture the feel of his character really well and it was delightful and so fun to read about Sir Kipling and see the world form his point of view. There is a whole lot of snark, cat magic and an adventure.
And the adventure is a good one. I might’ve worries his adventure would be something silly, but there was real danger and Sir Kipling managed to prevent bad things from happening. I also liked the more normal cat parts and cat behavior mixed in between the adventure. The whole anti dog inner monologue was a bit overdone, but that’s only a small niggle. And it all did fit Sir Kipling’s personality wonderfully.
I really like Sir Kipling and I feel like this novella made me like him more and it was just so fun to have a whole story told from his point of view and seeing how he handled everything. He was still very catlike in his behavior, but also was smart and capable on top of that, which was great. It also was fun to hear his thought regarding Lily and Sebastian and some other topics. And I liked how Sir Kipling met a new side character and how they worked together to stop the threat to the library.
I think the book takes place chronologically between book 4 and 5, but it can easily be read as a standalone or you can start the series here I think. The most important parts are explained, so I think it would also work as a fun introduction to this series. The plot line in this novella isn’t fully resolved, but does have a satisfactory ending. And I am hoping we get to see what happens with the letter and if the bad guy returns. Guess we’ll see in book 5 how/ if this ties in with the rest of the plot.
To summarize: If you want to get a look in the mind of a talking cat and go an pawsome adventure, this book is for you. It was such a fun read and I loved spending some time with Sir Kipling, who is one of my favorite side characters from this series. The author managed to capture his snarky personality perfectly even from his point of view, the adventure was fun to read about and also contained some danger and I liked how cat like, smart and capable Sir Kipling was. While part of the series, you can read it in order or start the series with this one. I am curious how/ if the plot point in this novella ties in with the next book.
You can also read my review on Goodreads and Amazon.
How cute this sounds! Is the cat a black and white cat like on the cover? Just curious because it looks like my cat. Glad you had fun with this one!
I think the cat is grey with white actually, but all the covers are done in a sort of silhouette style, so that’s why the cat is black and white here.
I love that the author took what could have been a so-so in between adventure in her series and made the cat the star with a really dangerous situation. Neat that he was portrayed well as a cat, too.
I read a short story back in January. It was from the Familiar Legacy series about a cat who has magic and is a detective in a cozy mystery. Multiple authors write this series.
Thanks for the review, Lola! I still need to start this series.
Yes I really liked the cat was actually involved in a dangerous and important situation. And the cat acted cat like too :).
That does sound like an interesting series. I will have to look that one up.
I hope you get the chance to start this series eventually!
Love the cover and it sounds like a really good read too. Glad you enjoyed it so much.
It’s a great cover indeed and I am glad it was such a fun read 🙂