Review: Cat’s Claw by Amber Benson
[Calliope Reaper-Jones 2]
Calliope Reaper-Jones is Death’s Daughter. She owes a debt to Cerberus, the three headed dog that guards the gate’s of hell-a debt that involves a trip to Purgatory, Las Vegas, ancient Egypt, and a discount department store that’s more frightening than any supernatural creature she’ll ever encounter.
*Warning: Spoilers from Calliope Reaper-Jones book 1, Death’s Daughter*
Calliope Reaper-Jones is the Grim Reaper’s daughter and she’s having a bad weekend. She works at House and Yard as the Executive Assistant to the Vice President of Sales. Her boss, Hyacinth Stewart, is still pissed over Calliope’s forced absence to save her dad, Death-Ceo and President of Death, INC., after he was kidnapped a month ago. Hy’s so upset in fact, she’s introduced Callie to the term “over-worked” making Calliope extremely tired, but she’s not at all surprised by the punishment.
On her way home Thursday evening she get’s a bizarre phone call (which is incredibly strange considering her phone’s turned off) by a strange woman asking for cupcakes and tea. Later that night, that very same strange woman appears in her kitchen at her very small New York apartment with her extremely rude Minx, Muna. Madame Papillon has been requested by Calliope’s parents to give magic lessons to her. You might remember Madame Calliope from being the very same aura reader that saved her mother from the slow descent when she was a child. So, after some amount of time of coaxing, she finally agrees upon the magic lessons. Though, while Madame Papillon’s there she notices an issue with Calliope’s aura. It’s strange, almost like her soul is intertwined with anthers. Calliope’s first thought is to her lost love, Daniel-ex Devil’s Protege, to which she did some coalescing with in Hell, saving her from a poisoned Madori Sour during her search of the three tasks from the Board.
Calliope travels back home to Sea Verge, her family’s large estate in New Port, Rhode-Island, in search of a certain faun and Executive Assistant to her dad, Jarvis. She needs to get to the Hall of Records in Purgatory to find out more on Daniel’s death and what better way than asking Death’s assistant? Except when she finally catches up to Jarvis, he has more bad news. It seems sometime ago he dropped off a shiny red envelope to Calliope consisting of summons from Cerberus, the guardian of the North Gate in to Hell, which in turn, not knowing or caring what it was, Calliope threw away. Though, with fate finally being on her side, it has landed Calliope at Sea Verge with only forty five minutes to spare to get her to the meeting on time. Clio, Calliope’s sister, fears Cerberus wants his daughter back, but Calliope knows the real truth behind the summoning. Cerberous is calling in his favor for letting her take his darling daughter, Runt. After arriving in Hell, Calliope learns quickly that Cerberus’s “favor” will be no small feet. He wants her to find a man that was due at his gates thousand of years ago, Senenmut the architect of the Egyptian Pyramids. Calliope agrees to the terms of the favor and her journey to finding the lost Senenmut finally begins.
Cat’s Claw is in the same fashion as the first, very light and a quick read. Calliope’s maturing a little more and starting see things differently. I think she’s starting to understand that not everything is about her, that maybe-even as much as she wants it to-she’ll never get away from the underworld with her having Death as her father. She’s learning the true value of friendship, though, fer addiction to clothing hasn’t faded, she’s just to broke now to afford anything she really wants. What I didn’t like about Cat’s Claw was Calliope’s confessed love for Daniel. If you remember back to the time they spent actually together in Death’s Daughter, you’ll realize it doesn’t amount to much. And while I can still be completely shocked by his decision at the end of Death’s Daughter, I don’t think their relationship can be amounted to much more than like and lust. I wish more of connection was established between the two. The story in Cat’s Claw was really clever and, like the first, really fast paced. The new villain, Bast-The Queen of Cats, was of course my favorite. How deliciously evil and well thought out her nefarious plans were. I really enjoyed Cat’s Claw and thought it was a good edition to the Calliope Reaper-Jones series.
Calliope Reaper-Jones [UF]
Death’s Daughter-February 24, 2009
Cat’s Claw-February 23, 2010
Visit Amber Benson’s .
This book was given to us by Amber Benson for review.
Hi! I'm half way through Cat's Claw and I'm loving it! Although I'm not a fan of the cover,lol Amber Benson is a really good writer and I love the main character Calliope! She is so hilarious! Great review ladies:)
I don't really like that cover either but the book does look interesting.