Why I Love Cat Royal

Okay, I'm thoroughly enjoying break and getting a lot of good reading in. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE The Diamond of Drury Lane and its heroine, Cat Royal. In her own words, here is one reason why:

"I'm going to be a writer," I said on impulse. "I'll write for the stage." Pedro gave me a skeptical look. "I've been taught to read and write by the old prompt. He always told me that there was no better education to be had anywhere in the world. Shakespeare, Dryden, Johnson - I've read them all. I speak French with the ballerinas - and I can read it too."

The book is thrilling and particularly well written. I must now await the second delivery from Amazon.co.uk so that I can read the sequel, Cat Among the Pigeons. Here's the synopsis:

As gripping as "The Diamond of Drury Lane", this stunning second volume from Julia Golding sees Cat storm a gentleman's club, jump aboard a slave ship and enter the heart of the shadiest part of London - blindfolded! As the book opens, we discover that Pedro's slave master has come over from the West Indies to track the boy down and drag him back into slavery. Cat obviously decides she is not going to let that happen, but hereby makes herself another enemy. Soon, she finds she has the police on her tail...Cat is driven to flee the theatre and ends up going into hiding, passing herself off as a boy at Westminister school. Then Billy Shepherd turns up...Once again, Julia will have you captivated from page one.

Also on my booklist, the following fabulous selections:

• The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (Check out this video for his take on the book.)
• Princess Academy by Shannon Hale
• The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
• Guardian of the Horizon by Elizabeth Peters

And for those of you who don't know, the announcement of the Newbery, Caldecott, etc. will occur on Monday, January 22nd. I can't wait to learn about the winners.

Happy reading!