Friday, June 20, 2008

Reserved for the Cat by Mercedes Lackey

Ninette Dupond has just lost her job with the Paris Opera Ballet because she performed a piece just a little too well for the tastes of one of the prima ballerinas. With limited options, she is just about to give up on finding a new position when a cat shows up at her apartment and speaks to her, convincing her to pack her things and travel to England. Soon she is wrapped up in a scheme pretending to be a Russian ballerina and performing again in an English theater. Her new life seems a little too good to be true, however, and little does she know that an elemental spirit has devoured the real ballerina that she's impersonating and the elemental has found out about Ninette's deception and has decided to remove the competition.

This is the most recent book in the Elemental Master's series (The Serpent's Shadow, The Gates of Sleep, Phoenix and Ashes, The Wizard of London), but it seems to work more as a stand-alone than as a continuation that some of the other books maintain. I enjoyed this book well enough although I didn't feel that it was one of the best in the series. The characters are very well developed and the plot is interesting without being too predictable. I would definitely recommend this book to fantasy readers, especially those who enjoy historical fiction and fantasy books that involve magic in the 'real world.'


2 comments:

Jill said...

I just finished this one and thought it was very enjoyable. I particularly liked the twist on the fairytale, with the ballet/performing element added. And Thomas the cat was lots of fun!

Chandler Library Gal said...

I'm glad you liked it - you should definitely check out the others in the series if you haven't already.