White Cat by Holly Black

 

White Cat (Curse Workers) by Holly Black is a book that I had on my Want list for quite a while.  It never came up on my book exchange sites and, for some reason, I passed over it whenever I downloaded new books.  This past week, I downloaded a handful of books that had been on my Want list for a while and White Cat (Curse Workers) is the first one I read.  I only hope I enjoy the rest of them as much as I enjoyed this one.

Cassel Sharpe belongs to a family of "workers", magic users or curse workers, a practice that is outlawed.  However, the gene seems to have skipped him somehow, because he is the only member of the family without power.  He is, however, an excellent con artist, which he did get from his parents.  With his father dead and his mother incarcerated, Cassel attends a very prestigious school, where he attempts to keep his family secrets while running a minor con here and there.  Cassel is also haunted by the memory of Lila, his best friend and first love.  Two years earlier he murdered Lila, although he has no recollection of actually committing the deed nor of why he did it.  His family covered up his crime and now his brothers and grandfather are trying to help Cassel move forward with his life.

However, all is not as it seems.  A terrifying bout of sleepwalking turns Cassel's world upside down.  Truths he has believed his entire life are false and nothing will ever be the same...

Holly Black has created an interesting world in her Curse Workers series.  Cassel is caught between many worlds:  his family's world of curse workers and organized crime, the elite world of his classmates and the world of Carney, where interesting characters reside.  Cassel is an intelligent, likable character whom you want to see get a happy ending.  I can't say if his ending is happy, but I can say that it leads me to want to read the sequel Red Glove (Curse Workers, Book 2), which was just released last week.