Gabriel King

A young cat named Tag is suddenly thrust into a magical journey when he escapes from his home. He discovers he has been chosen by Majicou, keeper of the wild roads, as his new apprentice. The roads are streams of magical energy created by the travel of felines throughout the ages. These roads are imperiled by the intrusions of a human known as the Alchemist, who seeks their secrets for his own. Tag is given a task, he must find the King and Queen of cats and get them to Tintagel, a place show more sacred to cats, before the spring equinox. If he fails they will fall into the hands of the Alchemist and the wild roads will be lost. Along his way he meets many other cats and animals that aid him on his journey.

The story was good but I had a bit of trouble following it at times. The author definitely characterized the nature of cats well but in doing so it made the story a bit muddled. Regardless I look forward to reading the sequel; The Golden Cat. show less

Somewhat of an Arthurian quest told completely from the point of view of felines and a few companions of other animal species. These aren't just behaving as humans would, only happen to be animals, these beings perceive the world around them as one would imagine animals to do, their behavior toward each other and their opinions of the humans around them are quite catlike. In fact, humans rarely have much presence, except as providers of food, and with the glaring exception of the Alchemist show more and his minions.
The young Tag is recruited by the ancient Majicou to bring the King & Queen to Tintagel by the equinox.
I'm not sure I would recomment this to anyone younger than a teen. There is torture of cats (which at first I likened to modern use of animals for lab experiments--but it was more on the lines of Nazi experiments on humans, only the Alchemist's purpose differed), and many fights in which the animals are severely wounded & given up for dead. show less

This is better than the LT rating would suggest but I can understand why it is so low - the back cover blurb is only a tiny fraction of the story and if people read it expecting a "supernatural love story" they would be disappointed. I must admit to being baffled by the opening scene until I realised what the POV character was and later realised that this book has a strong connection to Gabriel King's earlier books which are marketed as fantasy and feature cats. Once I understood this I just show more went with the story and enjoyed it. There are some elements towards the end that would be upsetting to cat lovers but I did enjoy the resolution and am pleased to know that there is a follow up book, [Nonesuch], as some things are left unanswered.

I still want to read this author's debut novel [The Wild Road] and when I find it at least I won't be misled about the story. show less

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For years, this was the favourite book of one of my friends. She'd been telling me for ages to read it, and apparently thought I wasn't doing that fast enough because one day, she just delivered it in the mail to me, so I didn't have an excuse any more and could read it immediately.

And even though it has been years since I read it, I've always found it a special book. It was the first real book with animals as main characters and show more animal POVs that I read, and it took a while to fully realize that it was done very good in the book. The cats really act like cats most of the time, and are not just furry, four-legged humans.

The story and the writing were nice as well, and even though I've never managed to read the sequel, I look back to reading The Wild Road with pleasure. show less