Krait’s Redemption Blog Tour: Review + Giveaway!

What I LOVED:

I loved that Krait’s Redemption picked up right where Ferran’s Map left off. Sora, Crash, Burn, and the rest of the amazing characters that have joined Sora’s quest are still in search for a way to defeat Cerastes and his crazy plan to awaken the Dark God but they are quickly running out of time. Tension, mistrust, and powers beyond their comprehension are also catching up with them, making this a whirlwind of a journey that left me breathless and at the edge of my seat! I loved it so much!

Please forgive me if this is nothing more than plain fangirling, but you must understand that this series is EVERYTHING to me. There are only a few series which I can 100% sincerely devote my love for and basically follow until the end of my times, and The Cat’s Eye Chronicles is one of them.

I love all of the characters, the amazing and complex world-building, the MAGIC, gosh, THE BEST SLOW-BURN ROMANCE IN EXISTENCE (Crash and Sora forever!) ♥. I simply love it all. T.L. Shreffler is a masterful storyteller and every time I get ready to read a book in this series I know I will not only love it, but that it will also destroy me.



And Krait’s Redemption did. Completely. And I would go through it all over again because it is THAT good.

This installment was fierce and exciting! There wasn’t a single dull moment, everything was a frenzy, what with plans to fight back, seeking out old alliances, and even partaking in old celebrations. But gosh, the epic battles and the prices to pay after them… so intense. My heart still aches to be honest.

I am currently in a glass case of emotion and I don’t think I will be recovering anytime soon. I cannot say much but old fans of this series must surely know why I would hurt so much. All I can say is: I NEED THE NEXT BOOK. NOW. (Please) This cannot be the last book. I REFUSE. No no no. THEIR STORY IS NOT DONE YET.

Final Verdict:

Krait’s Redemption is the highly anticipated fifth installment in the Cat’s Eye Chronicles and it is absolutely the book us readers and the story itself deserved. If you are new to this series then prepare to the most epic journey full of magical battles in the company of the most intriguing cast of characters led by a human, an assassin, and a wolfy. To old fans of the series… Brace yourselves!

Prologue
Crash watched the bonfires in the distance.
Each day, more devotees swelled the Shade’s ranks. Shadow portals transported them
from cities, from fields and mountains—from anywhere—to this forsaken desert. Nameless
warriors pooled beneath a red plateau that towered in the twilight, blocking the moon.
An army of the lost, Crash thought. Their burning pyres beckoned to him like lighthouses
on a foreign shore. But he had left those fires behind, walking miles into the flat desert to sit
among the sand.
The Shade’s encampment might be in the Desert of Ester, but he wasn’t sure. His sense of
certainty had fled long ago. He wondered at this unprecedented gathering. He wondered at the
royal city’s evacuation, so close to winter solstice night.
He watched the fires glint against the darkness. He watched, and sat, and pondered. At
first, Cerastes’ army had puzzled him. He didn’t know why a Grandmaster, typically a solitary
figure concerned with martial discipline and meditation, would want to gather so many
numbers. But now, as Crash became more firmly entrenched in the Shade’s activities, he
knew what they were about. He had thought Cerastes meant to wage war against the human
kingdom, but he was wrong.
Cerastes wanted the Hive.
Crash had realized the Grandmaster’s ambition when the assassin Cobra had issued his
last dying words. It had all become suddenly, perfectly clear. Stop him. Cobra’s death had
returned the arrow to Crash’s compass, and perhaps for the first time, he knew true north. He
knew what he had to do.

He stood and walked away from the crimson fires on the horizon, behind an outcropping
of rocks. There, he emptied a bag onto the ground. Ingredients for his spell, including a sheaf
of yellowed parchment and fresh salamander ink, fell to the sand. He wrote the spell, then
built a small fire out of venomgrass and willow bark. He drew symbols in the sand, and the
flames turned indigo blue. Then he burned the paper with its written message. A wandering
wind brushed the top of the dunes, carrying wafts of sand and smoke up to the stars.
He doused the fire when he was finished. Then, his black hood pulled low over his face,
he sat on his heels to wait.
Redemption. A returning, a renewal. Would the Hive help him now, or would they hold
him to his trespasses? Someone must answer, he thought. Someone must answer his call, his
message burned on the wind, and someone must answer for his Grandmaster’s mistakes.
He thought back to Sora and the rest of his companions in the City of Crowns, and he felt
ashamed. Under the influence of Cerastes’ power, he had wavered. His demon had sensed his
Grandmaster’s dark aura, had sensed a home, and for a while, he had lost himself. But Sora’s
touch—more than that, her words, her spirit—had brought him back.
He couldn’t fight Cerastes alone. He couldn’t trust his darker half to resist the Shade’s
pull, because he, too, was a discarded outcast of the Hive. His Grandmaster’s demonic
presence was irresistible, drawing close all those scattered savants with nowhere to belong.
Crash had felt his own will tremble. Even now, he couldn’t quite steady his hands. He
couldn’t show Sora his weakness. More importantly, he couldn’t show it to his own kind.
Someone had to do the right thing. The right thing, he thought ironically. Someone had to
warn the Hive. Anyone who can read the Wind can read this message, he thought. He only
hoped Cerastes was too distracted to see it.
Hours passed as he waited. The silence of the desert stretched, as spacious and echoing as
a tomb. The stars and moon circled overhead, trailing across the heavens. He found the
constellation of Kaelyn the Wanderer and asked, begrudgingly, for luck. Then his eyes picked
out other celestial formations known to his race. He recounted their stories in his head:
Sibilant, the assassin so stealthy and quiet, she could walk between this realm and the world
of ghosts; Dartmouth, who replaced his teeth with knives; Marrow, so cunning he outsmarted
the gods and stole the Dark God’s weapons in eons past. Crash found it ironic that, despite all
that had transpired, a story could still lend him courage. And each star was a story, a light in
the dark, a dream in the abyss.
The wind picked up without warning. A whirl of sand twisted up from the ground,
building, growing. Then a figure stepped from the dust.
Crash stood up. He didn’t know what to expect.
The sand settled. A woman dressed in black stood before him. She was insidiously tall.
Her hair fell in plaited rows down her back. He noted the chakrams at her belt: circular blades
that could remove a man’s head with a single powerful throw. Her eyes glowed the shocking
green of aloe.
Memory stirred, and he recognized her. He searched for her name. It came to him.
“Grandmaster Natrix,” he bowed.
“Viper,” she returned, and waited for him to straighten. “I have listened long for word of
my brother. Tell me, what has Cerastes done?”