Tiger’s Voyage by Colleen Houck

Title: Tiger’s Voyage (The Tiger Saga #3)
Author: Colleen Houck
Genre: Mythology, Paranormal Romance, Young Adult
Publisher: Hodder (10th November 2011)
Blurb:

With the head-to-head battle against the villainous Lokesh behind her, Kelsey confronts a new heartbreak: in the wake of his traumatic experience, her beloved Ren no longer remembers who she is. As the trio continues their quest by challenging give cunning and duplicitous dragons, Ren and Kishan once more vie for her affections – leaving Kelsey more confused than ever.

Fraught with danger, filled with magic, and packed with romance, Tiger’s Voyage brings Kelsey and her two tiger princes one step closer to breaking the curse.

Rating: *** (3 stars)
Review:

TIGER’S VOYAGE is the third book in Colleen Houck’s superb THE TIGER’S SAGA. It continues the story of Kelsey Hayes American girl who comes across two Indian princes who are cursed into tiger form – Ren and Kishan – and helps them try to break the curse. By the beginning of TIGER’S VOYAGE they have already completed half of the tasks required to completely break the curse, but the final task came with a terrible price – the repercussions of which play out through the book.

In TIGER’S VOYAGE Houck really goes to town on both the Indian based mythology and on the love triangle elements of the plot. Whilst I adored the exploration of the Indian mythology and how cleverly Houck applied it to the overall arc of the saga, and how she showed that there are common themes to quite a lot of the world’s mythology. I have to confess I wasn’t so impressed with the return of the love triangle. I did see it coming as a possible consequence of the events at the end of TIGER’S QUEST, but honestly I’m really starting to get bored with it.

Houck has split the plot of TIGER’S VOYAGE into two main, interlinking arcs which I think really works and creates balance within the narrative. The first arc is that of breaking the curse that besets Ren and Kishan. It was quite fun to watch this unfold, and I really enjoyed all the ‘research’ that Houck included within the narrative as they tried to figure out what they needed to do to break this section of it. The second arc of the story focused on the consequences of Ren’s memory loss and what this meant for everyone. I really liked the way Houck used the figures of Kadam and Phet in this arc, and how they both acted as father figures for Kelsey. Kishan was also brilliantly written, and I should probably confess that after this book I have something of a soft spot for him.

Things of course never run smoothly for Kelsey, Ren and Kishan, but I think they all really grew in this book and had to face some really tough challenges. The ending of the book was a definite twist, and leads into the fourth book in the saga TIGER’S DESTINY which promises to be a really interesting book. Overall I think that TIGER’S VOYAGE is a brilliant addition to THE TIGER SAGA. If you are looking for paranormal romance with a slight twist and some mythological themes then you should definitely consider picking up this series.