Cat's Tale by Bettie Sharpe

Cat's Tale: A Fairy Tale Retold by Bettie Sharpe
Release Date: June 27, 2011

2.5/5 Stars

Recommended for: adults who enjoy romance and fairytales

Summary: This is a retelling of Puss and Boots. Catriona is a beautiful, young, extremely ambitious woman. She is clever and uses her cunning to climb the social ladder, to become the King's consort. The problem arises when the elderly king passes away, and Cat needs a solution to keep her position of wealth and privilege. She makes enemies of a wizard, who turns her into a cat as punishment and she sets out on a journey to save herself and enact revenge.

This book is short, just over 100 pages and it's a very quick, light read. The problem with that is that everything progresses so quickly; but to be fair, it isn't a very complicated storyline nor is that the point of this book. It's a romance novel, and the happily ever after relationship Cat finds at the end is truly endearing.
Sharp's writing is humourous, and Cat is the ideal character to showcase this as she is a very witty woman. I loved her sarcastic and clever reactions to small details, they were just so quick and well-timed!

However, there were some problems with the plot that I just couldn't buy in to. Cat is obviously intelligent, but there were times with no explanation as to how she would have knowledge of secrets. They're simply announced and the story moves on, without any indication of how she would have known what would happen. As well, secrets she discovers about herself have no lead up; it's just slipped in to the story without any prior indication or hints.

Overall, I think the largest problem was how quickly the book progressed. It jumped from one scene to the next, without really spending any time on developing the characters or the plot and that was disappointing. It was a very creative and unique spin on the traditional fairytale, that could ave been well done with more development. I've read similar books before, and there are better options out there.

I received a Kindle copy of this book from Net Galley.