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Bring out the Claws

By Staff | May 6, 2008

I knew I was emotionally invested in Rachel Vincent’s “Rogue” when I was getting angry and upset with how the other characters were treating Faythe. I found myself wanting to defend her actions and her mistakes to a group of fictional people.

So I was hooked.

“Rogue” is the sequel to Vincent’s equally engrossing “Stray” – a story of a Pride of werecats and in particular, the Alpha’s daughter, Faythe, who escaped her family’s hold on her in search of a normal life at college, complete with roommates and boyfriend. In”Stray,” Faythe found her old life coming back in the form of her ex-boyfriend, Marc, who also happened to be her father’s enforcer, and was trying to protect her from a dangerous non-Pride cat, a Stray. Faythe’s independent streak and well, brattiness, ended up putting her in danger and she was kidnapped by the Stray. And Faythe had to grow up fast and became a very interesting character.

Now, in “Rogue,” Faythe has settled back into Pride life, at least for now. She and Marc are back together and working together to round up Strays that invade her fatherás territory and she has cut all strings to her past at the college.

But when Faythe and Marc start finding dead Strays, they investigate further and find a link with missing human women – who bear an uncanny resemblance to Faythe. All of Faythe’s actions are under scrutiny by her Pride, her father, and Marc, and relationships are strained to the breaking point.

Faythe is such an engrossing character in that she’s not perfect. She makes mistakes, sometimes big ones that affect more than just her, and may not even be aware of it. But she tries to move on and fix things, and you have to like that in a character. She might be a supernatural creature, but she has ordinary human fears and desires – not sure about wanting to commit, wanting her independence, wanting to do her own thing and not what her family expects – and that makes her highly relatable. Vincent’s strength lies in creating these wonderful, flawed characters who practically step off the pages, putting her on the list of authors to watch.

The ending doesn’t exactly end, setting itself up for the next book, “Pride,” coming out this fall, which frankly, can’t get here soon enough for me.

“Rogue” is published by Mira Books. It is $6.99 and 394 pages long.

Contact Amy at amendenhall@graffitiwv.com‘>amendenhall@graffitiwv.com‘>amendenhall@graffitiwv.com‘>amendenhall@graffitiwv.com