Tiger’s Curse

 

by Colleen Houck

Published: 2011

So this was on some list on GoodReads so I thought that I would give it a whirl.  About halfway through I realized that it was the first book in a series (whoops) and was momentarily afraid that the sequel(s) would not yet be published, since this is copyrighted 2011, but lo! Houck managed to write three more books in less than two years after this book was published.  So.  All four are available.  Lucky me.

Anyway.  I enjoyed most of this book.  It started well.  I liked the narrator/heroine just fine, and who doesn’t wish that they could fall in love with a magical tiger?  At the age of 18, it was delightful to have a heroine who was actually the right age to be falling in love and wandering all over the world and making important life-altering decisions.

However, I fear for the rest of the series.  At this point, our heroine has fallen in love with her original tiger.  However, it turns out that this enchanted tiger has a brother who is also an enchanted tiger!  So I’m afraid that this whole thing is just going to devolve into an incredibly dull love triangle (WHICH I HATE), and that’s a shame,  because there is a lot of potential with these characters and their story.

Most of the story takes place in India, and the characters are attempting to appease an Indian goddess so she will lift their curse.  That also gets a bit confusing because there are loads of gods and goddesses in ruinous temples.  I also personally prefer my fantasy to be firmly separate from real life, e.g. I would rather have these characters working with magical entities instead of religious beings.

Still, this was a strong 3-almost-4/5, and I have the other three books on reserve at the library.