Title Dream Cat Series --- Author Kat Lowe Cover Art Kat Lowe Publisher Highlands Publishing LLC - 2011 First Printing Highlands Publishing LLC - 2011 Category Humour Warnings None Main Characters Elizabeth, Andrew, Lucifer Main Elements Demons, mythology

Elizabeth is about to get a terrible surprise birthday present. Lucifer is going to send her a mass invasion of demons. It's nothing personal, just the coming of age gift that all female Argonauts receive.

Until a possessed bear attacks her, Elizabeth knows nothing of her destiny. She thinks her greatest problem is how to escape her mother's plan to turn her into an engineer. But a man with James Bond eyes appears to make her a much better offer.

Elizabeth is invited to join the Argonauts, a secret society of historical figures who protect mankind from evil. During her training, she learns more than just how to handle weapons. She finds out why she dreams about a white cat whenever she has a bad day. And she discovers that she is no ordinary Argonaut. When Lucifer develops too much interest in Elizabeth, her family becomes a target as well. She must choose between protecting her loved ones and obeying her mentor's mandate against prematurely wielding her extraordinary powers.

To earn her place in the elite group, Elizabeth will have to pass a killer final exam. If she succeeds, she will become the most powerful woman on Earth. If she fails, she will lose the man of her dreams. No pressure...

My friend got this for free somewhere and passed it along to me, I figured it was short so I'd give it a try, after I like things based on Greek Mythology. However it had a weird mix where Lucifer was also involved along with a lot of Christian references. There's no reason the two can't or shouldn't coexist, just because the Argonauts are several centuries (millenia really) older than Christianity, this book takes place in the modern day, don't think there's anyone left who actually worships the ancient Greek gods now so you'll have to get your new warriors from other religious pools.

Elizabeth's family, though actually completely unaware of the supernatural world, also seem to be unsurprised by the things going on around them. Like one day their nice neighbour, Andrew, offers to teach Elizabeth to sword fight and that evening the two of them elope (this was for the convenience of Elizabeth's training, better they marry than shock her grandparents that they are "living in sin"...but I'd be pretty darn shocked if my granddaughter ran off and married a guy she knew for one afternoon!).

Then she hops around the world world to get one day of training from a bunch of other Argonaut pairs. Then they all return to Andrew's home for the big battle (couldn't they just have all gone there in the first place, to save Elizabeth all that wasted time bouncing around in airplanes between England, Peru and Greece among others?). So Elizabeth got a full total of about 5 or 6 days of actual training before she has to take on hundreds of demons for her initiation. But yeah, this is one of the books where the teenage protagonist is "special", so of course she can defeat a billion demons while all the trained argonauts, some of them thousands of years old, need to be rescued by her.

And depressingly, the end result of everything involves requiring all the female becoming broodmares to repopulate the Earth...go strong female characters! Oh sorry, forgot, you can't fight anymore, you're pregnant (which is exactly what happens to another character who has sex one day and is visible pregnant the next morning, uh huh...so not only can't you keep fighting for another couple months, you jump straight to the part where you're just twiddling your thumbs waiting for the baby to pop while the men go off and do the fighting). I did mention this is a Christian book, and yeah, part of most religions is that you're supposed to breed and spread your religion through the world (go forth and multiply and all that), unfortunately that leaves women out of the action for a good chunk of their lives. Guess that's why Elizabeth had to be a teenager when she saves the world, now that she's mature she'll be spending the rest of her time having kids...

BTW, isn't Emrys the basis of Merlin, not King Arthur?

I must admit I liked her meetings with Lucifer, and her flock of dream sheep. And Elizabeth's grandmother putting Achilles in his place was a lot of fun (oddly the "insta-love" didn't happen between the two protagonists). However, like my friend, I'll be passing this one along to someone else.