Master Cat

Toby's Tale #3

by Virginia Ripple

Toby, a magical talking cat, has cut ties with the Office of Kingdom Guardianship, intent on finding his long-lost father and avenging his mother’s murder. He thought he left everyone behind, but someone from his past is stalking him. Now he must avoid this strange new menace while he seeks the truth about his family’s dark history, a history that threatens to unravel his sanity and cause the rest of the world to descend into madness. Can Toby reconcile himself with the past or will his inner turmoil allow his enemy to plunge humanity into chaos once and for all?

332 pages, Paperback

First published October 8, 2014

Reviews

[Lana · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love all things cats so obviously Virginia Ripples cat books go down a treat and I am sure all cat lovers would really enjoy this magnificent series. This is the 3rd book and finally Toby can see some closure to his search for his long lost father who everyone had told him was dead and to who his nemesis really was! This was a compelling read which kept me on the edge of my seat especially towards the end. The battle of good against evil is as good as any other epic sagas although the protagonists are cats and their human partners and the battle was fought with magic and tooth and claw rather than swords! The characters of both cats and their human partners are very well fleshed out and the plot and lessons learnt through the book especially about greed for power and evil to acquire this are very well written, there is so much depth to these books it's incredible!

[Julian White · Rating 4 out of 5]

This volume satisfactorily wraps up the on-going storyline of Toby's parents and their ties to the threat to the kingdom - some seven years after the close of thr previous book. Toby has elected to pursue things alone, abandoning his erstwhile partner, Lorn; Lorn has other ideas.

The cat/human relationships are well done and amusing; the Christian elements are not obtrusive but present, nevertheless. I still find the idea of a tonsured cat a bit odd, to be honest!

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great read

3rd in the series, and Toby's adventures strain his life and his relationships to the breaking point. The psychology and belief system behind all of this is a masterstroke of the author

[Jean · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book more than I did. It was a bit more disjointed with more viewpoints going on than before as characters split up and played out their parts. The religious aspects were far more heavy-handed.

Still, I did like it as it wound up the series nicely. It also answered some questions that were niggling at me such as how does the cat (Malkin) pairing work when normally cats are not as long-lived as humans. I don't feel a compelling need to read the War of the Malkins series, though.

I'd only suggest this for fans of the series. Were it possible, I would give it 3.5 stars as it suffers in comparison with the other books in the series. As it was better than "okay," I rounded up.