Author: Leonie Rogers
Publisher: Hague Publishing
Rating: WARTY!
DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review.
Erratum:
p17 "...given us time to clean up and food..." should surely be "...given us time to clean up and eat..."
This is book two of the 'Frontier' series and I haven't read book one, so I came into this completely blind, and the first chapter didn't help at all. There's no recap of any sort, no referencing back to previous events, and nothing to put the current volume in context. I didn't realize that this was book two of a series when I requested it, so I guess it's my fault for not reading the first one, but it's still a bit of a let-down. I think this is one reason why it was so hard for me to get into this.
There's no indication in the front of the book as to what kind of age-range this novel is aimed at, but judging by the writing tone, it appears to be middle grade (what I call pre-young adult) or younger. It certainly didn't feel to me like a more mature novel than that.
Based, I guess, on the cover of this novel, I started seeing it as a story about cats - or some sort of feline race - but chapter two talks of these people as human, so I'm still confused! Maybe some alien race has started transforming humans into cats? I had no idea what was going on, and it was really annoying. The Frontier of the title is the name of a planet which humans have inhabited for three centuries, but ownership is contested. There's a race of evil aliens known as the Garsal, who call their leader "Overlord" which I could not take at all seriously, especially since I was already struggling to keep reading this.
I made it though the first five chapters which was roughly fifty pages. This was only fifteen percent in, but I struggled to get event hat far, and I honestly couldn't stand the thought of pushing any further when I have other titles calling me. Life's too short! I just could not get with this one at all. Maybe if you love cats and middle-grade alien stories, this will work for you, but I needed more than this was evidently willing to give. I can't recommend it based on what I read. I've read other titles from Hague and they were really good, so thanks to them for the chance to review this one. I'm sorry I couldn't do better than this!
I understand that, since I first took a stab at reading this, the author has re-written the first chapter in this novel to help bring up to speed those readers who may have read the first volume some time before coming to this one. That's commendable and removes one of my issues with this novel, but having re-read some of the chapters which come after chapter one, I still feel no affinity for the characters or for the story. It's just not my kind of story, I guess, but it's also worth noting that I'm in the minority in my opinion, at least according to Goodreads. Those who liked it seem to have really liked it so your experience will likely differ from mine.
