The Cat Kin

Nick Green, I really am “mildly peeved”, and upping the global crossness levels strikes me as a good thing to do. What can Faber be thinking? After putting me through that reading hell back in the autumn of one of the worst books ever, I have now read another Faber book which is truly good. And what do they do? They decide it hasn’t sold enough copies for them to publish its two sequels. Well, maybe they could push the sales a bit, then? That’s sort of what publishers do. Isn’t it?

I am talking of The Cat Kin, Nick Green’s first book. Having been alerted both to the book and to Nick’s predicament by lowebrow a couple of months ago, I wrote to Nick, ordered the book and fumed a bit.

I have just finished reading The Cat Kin, and it’s great. Perfect for the 8+ reader, and I didn’t feel too old for it, so a fairly wide appeal I’d say. I’m not much of a cat person, as some of you know, but the idea that a group of children can take on cat qualities and fight crime, strikes me as rather fun.

There are lots of books on children fighting baddies of one kind or another, helped by a variety of skills, fantasy or otherwise. Turning into cats is certainly different, and sounds awfully plausible, too. Nick doesn’t shy away from topics such as violence and death or even cruelty to animals, and there’s enough of a cliff hanger ending to make me want to read the next book.

According to Nick’s website, and no thanks to Faber, we actually can. He has hooked up with Lulu, who will kindly print the book for you if you buy it, and send it to you.

I shouldn’t comment too much on what authors are like, but Nick sounds fun and intelligent, and his website is enjoyable and so is his blog. In this there’s a marked difference to that other Faber author that they do seem to like publicity for. I suspect they’ve got muddled up on this.

It’s their loss. I’m sure Nick will do well, even if it has to take longer than it should do.

If you have a reader of the right age, 8 and upwards, at home, do get a copy of The Cat Kin. And for those presents you need to buy, too. And then investigate this Lulu printing business. I will. See if together we can make a difference.