Tiger’s Curse by Colleen Houck

Title: Tiger’s Curse (The Tiger Saga #1)
Author: Colleen Houck
Genre: Paranormal Romance, Young Adult
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton (26th May 2011)
Blurb:

Passion. Fate. Loyalty.Would you risk it all to change your destiny?

The last thing Kelsey Hayes thought she’d be doing this summer was trying to break a 300-year-old Indian curse. With a mysterious white tiger named Ren. Halfway around the world.

But that’s exactly what happened.

Face-to-face with dark forces, spell-binding magic, and mysterious worlds where nothing is as it seems, Kelsey risks everything to piece together an ancient prophecy that could break the curse forever.

Tiger’s Curse is the exciting first volume in an epic fantasy-romance that will leave you breathless and yearning for more.

Rating: **** (4 stars)
Review:

TIGER’S CURSE is the first book in THE TIGER SAGA by Colleen Houck. It tells the story of Kelsey a seventeen, almost eighteen, year-old who just graduated from high school and is looking for a summer job in order to save some money for college. She ends up getting a circus job where she meets a white tiger named Ren.

I first heard about TIGER’S CURSE through the wonderful Jenna Does Books and the fact that in September 2012 she held {Month of the Tiger} on her blog which celebrated the release of the fourth book in the series. She was just so passionate about the book and the series that I was instantly intrigued. It took me a while to get around to buying the first book, but I am soooo glad I did.

TIGER’S CURSE in a lot of ways reads like an epic fantasy, it certainly has that feel to it. However, for all the magical elements to the plot the settings are very real places. One of the things that I most enjoyed about TIGER’S CURSE is that not only does it take us to India, but Kelsey is the only white character for most of the book. I really liked the multicultural elements of the book, and the way that all the different places Kelsey and Ren travel through feel very real. I cannot comment on how accurate Houck’s portrayal of India is, never having visited it myself, but it did feel very real and vibrant.

To be honest the plot of TIGER’S CURSE is very fantastical. Not at all what you would expect from your typical paranormal romance. There are no vampires, no witches, and no werewolves. There is just a tiger under a 300-year-old curse. I liked the fact that the first chapter of the book, almost a prologue, focuses on the curse itself even though the context doesn’t become clear for a while.

From this point on the book is narrated by Kelsey herself, and I thought this really worked. She’s a good narrator, and a very believable character. Houck gives her an interesting background which explains a lot of her behaviour. I thought she was a really brave character on the whole, but towards the end of the book she began to frustrate me a little bit – but I could see her motivation for her actions, even if I didn’t agree with it.

If you are looking for a slightly different paranormal romance with heavy elements of fantasy, then I suggest that you give TIGER’S CURSE a try. I am looking forward to getting my hands on the second book in this series.