The firecats of Dua are giant beasts with red-gold fur and lashing tails. They are also loving and loyal companions to the few they choose to serve. Every member of the royal House of Durii has a personal guard and a firecat to serve as a reminder of the greatness of their rule. After all, only the truly extraordinary would walk alongside a firecat. Only the truly extraordinary could. Not River, obviously. River took the job of cleaning up after the noble beasts when he came to Dua years ago. He’s not any kind of soldier or guard, and he’s too mouthy to belong around royalty. All he wants to do is avoid some of the more resentful guard trainees, care for the very spoiled cats, and try not to get his heart broken by one maddeningly gentle apprentice wizard.
Apprentice Gavin is powerful, brilliant, and probably noble. He’s destined for greatness—and more than likely a guard and a firecat to protect him. He’s not meant for one insignificant little beastminder like River. But firecats are not the only creatures who are fierce, loyal, and beautiful to behold. River is about to learn that the firecats and the guards who walk with them have more in common than he thought. And he will have to accept that he might be extraordinary as Gavin thinks he is.
Review:
Dear R. Cooper,
Somehow this short story/ short novella (not sure, I always get confused about proper determination based on the length of the story) became over the years one of my comfort reads and multiple rereads and then I realized that I have not reviewed it yet and decided that that was a mistake.
I have to say that the blurb is unnecessary long and too spoilerish, especially for a shorter work, but there is nothing I can do about it.
So basically there is a set up and almost all the story in the blurb minus several important details. The whole story is written in the third person limited POV and River is the narrator. I did ponder whether he could be considered an unreliable narrator and still am not sure about it. He does not misrepresents or conceal any information from the reader, but he certainly is not aware of couple of things that everyone around him seems to be aware of.
I still found River’s head to be a very fun place to be in, even if sometimes frustrating, because while River is a very strong character, he seems at times to downplay his worth (he does not do it to get any cookies mind you, he is very sincere). The love story between River and Gavin was a very lovely one and I love that we start observing it while their relationship already started developing before this story began. I always feel that trying to squeeze a full blown romance in a shorter work really leads to good results.
I just was able to see Gavin really well from River watching him, which does not always happen, but he talks about Gavin with such, I don’t know, I guess tenderness and admiration and love, and not believing that a permanent relationship between them is possible? It was lovely.
River’s selfless love for the fire cats was also very well drawn and I very much appreciated that at the end the boy got what he truly deserved in all the best ways possible.
Grade: B
