"Tigers Curse"

How does one even begin to unravel their feelings about their favorite book, to lay them all out on the table in order to be individually dissected, and thought about? This is tricky business. The Tigers Curse novel is by far my favorite story yet, and I'm quite the book snob. I have been since I was four.

Colleen Houck is perhaps the most thorough, detailed, and beautifully imaginative author that I have ever had the pleasure to stumble across, in all of my years of eagerly and helplessly devouring all sorts of books. Her characters are vulnerable, dangerously realistic, and easy to relate to. You harbor their aches, pains, and joys as if they were your own. Though she's written quite a few works of art, in my opinion, my favorite of all her books, is Tiger's Curse. The start of a five book series. The opening scene is set in Oregon, the home of an ordinary, average teenage girl. Kelsey went looking for a job, and ends up getting a short-term gig at a local circus. That's how it all begins. That's how she meets Ren, who happens to be a trained, white tiger, and she finds her destiny. Kelsey gets attached to Ren pretty quickly, in her short time working for the traveling circus. She begins to read to him little poems, or Shakespeare, in her free time, and she sketches him in her journal as she sits by his cage, with her favorite quilt. What she doesn't know is that, Ren, the tiger, is getting pretty attached to her as well.

One night, as she watches him lay miserably in his cage at the circus, she wishes that he was free. That's how the first part of the curse gets broken. You see, what you didn't know, is that Ren wasn't always a furry white tiger. No, he once was a great prince of India. He was cursed by a greedy villain, Lokesh, who was actually trying to kill him, in order to take over his country, and to steal his amulet. Now, hundreds of years later, Ren is in captivity, but all of that is about to change. Ren is able to leave the circus, and Kelsey, well, she begins the adventure of a lifetime. Kelsey agrees to help Ren, who can now be a man for a few short minutes of the day, thanks to Kelsey's wish, to break the curse that was placed on him all of those years ago.

Their adventure takes place in India, and their feelings for each other begin to deepen into something sacred, and beautiful. The book is filled with many twists and turns; love, passion, and desire fight against the hidden fears that Kelsey has inside of her, that she'll never be enough for the charming Indian prince, Ren. She compares herself to a raddish. At the end of it all, after all that Ren and Kelsey went through, the feelings of worthlessness eventually win out, leaving Ren alone with his "bad boy" brother, father-like friend in India, and Kelsey on a plane back to Oregon. The two lovers are equally heart broken, and the readers are left to hope for a better outcome in book two.

Spoiler alert, all of the rest of the books in the series are equally enticing. They always leave you wanting more, even at the very end of the series. My highest praise goes to Colleen Houck for the creation of her novels. I'm always left waiting on the very edge of my seat for more of her work. I hope that one day I can be a fourth as good of an author as her, but for now, I leave my five star review on the table, and hope that you'll pick up some of her novels from your local bookstore because of it.