Night's Gift
Series: Of Cats and Dragons, Book 1
By: Carol E. Leever, Camilla Ochlan / Narrated By: P. J. Ochlan
Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
Tormy the 30-lb. kitten saves the day; tho’ the main characters are quite likable too!
All right, so I’ve gotta admit that at first, I wasn’t quite into this audiobook. I mean, narrator P.J. Ochlan is the husband of one of the authors, and who on earth gets their HUSBAND to narrate?!? Talk about going cheap! And since his voice is rather smooth, I felt rather lulled more than stimulated. But then he got to dialogue, and that’s where the man shines.
Fortunately, there’s a lot of dialogue in Night’s Gift, the first in what’s a fairly long series. But apparently, based on the authors’ own words, the two women have been kicking around stories of these characters for over thirty years (You can get a LOT of stories in such a lengthy bit o’ time). So they’ve had time to nail their characters down pat, and the banter between our main hero Omen, and the other young man (Maybe they’re kinda sorta just older boys, I dunno how to put it), Templar, is crisp and witty. They wind up with a great relationship, each strong where the other’s weak, and each for the most part appreciating that. The two being in sync is not an eye-roller, rather, it means they can get into all sorts of adventures where they must come together to defeat this, that, the other.
And there’s plenty of other. This book is chockfull of one scrape after another, and I found myself, if not exactly on the edge of my seat, then actually wondering: What next?
Okay, so there’s sooo much Next that it’s actually not until over half of the book until our Animal, Tormy the 30-lb. kitten shows up. Now Tormy is a stellar character and Ochlan (narrator, not author) does an endearing rolling accent for the cat (Tormy, by the way, is won after a round of do-or-die games, and EVERYbody is totally freaked out that Omen chose the box as a prize, chose to open it, chose to keep the danged thing that they’re afraid of).
Tormy is just awfully cute, I admit to being sold on him from the get-go. When I did start having a few problems with how “good” both Omen and Templar were, I was awestruck that I didn’t have any fits about Tormy being (And it’s obviously contrived!) adorable. Ochlan (author) and Leever SHAMElessly turn him into the dearest cat you’d ever want in your own feline-ridden household. He’s always cute; he plays a bit and sometimes gets into mischief; and he likes to be cuddled. Or maybe that’s just me being a weird Cat Lady as I brush up on my dotage.
Expect lots of action, and since it’s the first installment in the series, it’s not a spoiler to say that nothing tooo terribly bad can happen cuz they GOTta be around for the next books; expect charming banter between two kindhearted, uhm, I’ll go with boys…? Expect the world building not to be too terribly fleshed-out, as we shall be discovering more things as we get into the series.
And I gotta tell ya:
I’ll be back for the NEXT one!
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