The Catswold Portal - Softcover

9780060765408: The Catswold Portal
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A striking new reissue of an epic fantasy by popular Harper author Shirley Rousseau Murphy, featuring a princess's dangerous quest to reclaim her throne...and, of course, cats!

There is a door in an artist's garden: an elaborate carved passageway into a realm ruled by a dark sorceress queen. There entities strange and wondrous roam the Netherworld––yet none as astonishing as the shape–shifting Catswold...

Raised by the oldwitch Mag, Melissa discovers a perilous secret. She has more than one form––human girl and magical cat––and once inhabited two worlds. And it is her destiny to return to a mystic realm of wonder and terror, to do battle for her people's liberation and the crown that is rightfully hers.

A man beset by tragedy, painter Braden West is intrigued by the calico cat who has charmed her way into his studio. But his "guest" is more than she seems, and Braden's very existence will be radically altered as he follows Melissa from the Hell Pit into the dread perils of an evil ruling court, thrust into the heart of a magical conflict with more at stake than he could possibly have imagined.

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About the Author:

Shirley Rousseau Murphy is the author of twenty mysteries in the Joe Grey series, for which she has won the Cat Writers’ Association Muse Medallion nine years running, and has received ten national Cat Writers’ Association Awards for best novel of the year. She is also a noted children’s book author, and has received five Council of Authors and Journalists Awards. She lives in Carmel, California, where she serves as full-time household help to two demanding feline ladies.

From Kirkus Reviews:
Longish first novel about a magical world where cats change to people and back again, from a veteran children's author. In 1957 San Francisco, successful painter Braden West mourns the recent death of his wife, Alice. He has an important show coming up but is too depressed to work. Meanwhile, he's mysteriously drawn, as was his wife, to a vivid sculpture of cats carved into the door of his house--a sculpture that turns out to be the portal into the cat world, through which he is drawn. But the bulk of the story is given over to 17-year-old Melissa, a farm girl and then a scullery maid, whose real heritage as the ``Queen of faerie'' has been hidden from her through black magic. So off she goes on a perilous, not very original quest. As in fairy tale, there's a wicked queen, who at one point turns Melissa into a tiny calico cat. West joins Melissa in their quest, and they fall in love, a subplot with all the variety of a genre romance. And, of course, West has found his Alice again, more or less. Murphy is often lyrical, but she leans too heavily on the conventions laid down by C.S. Lewis, Anne McCaffrey, and Andre Norton. The most interesting writing here is in fact the cat lore, which Murphy seems to know everything there is to know about and which she associates with what might be called the archetypal female. The interweaving between real and fantasy worlds is well done; the implied notion, intriguing if arguable, is that women are like cats inside--cool, independent, and a bit mystical. Murphy needs to leave her mentors behind, and the love story's a trifle soggy. But, still, she's a writer to watch. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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  • PublisherHarper Voyager
  • Publication date2005
  • ISBN 10 0060765402
  • ISBN 13 9780060765408
  • BindingMass Market Paperback
  • Number of pages432
  • Rating

Other Popular Editions of the Same Title

9780451451460: The Catswold Portal

Featured Edition

ISBN 10:  ISBN 13:  9780451451460
Publisher: Roc Hardcover, 1992
Hardcover

  • 9780451452757: The Catswold Portal

    Roc, 1993
    Softcover

  • 9780785717546: The Catswold Portal

    Bt Bound
    Library Binding

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