I discover this book on Goodreads and everyone says it like Warrior Cats, but must darker and mature. Right they are. There are some deep themes of class, prejudice, growing up, and trying to find your place in the world.

The writing is hunting at times giving an uncanny atmosphere. When Ratha’s brings the fire to the clan, you can feel their fear and anxiety. There are some gritty death and intends mating scenes.
The characters all stand out on their own. You get the since that each of them has their own ambition. Ratha starts out young and naïve. She grows and struggles to break form what she been taught. When she finds out and suspects turns out to be wrong in a way, all while changing her world view.

The story looks in to what drives prejudice and to think for yourself. A massages that speaks strongly for today world. Also has a massages of companionship and to seek companionship with others.

I would like to know more about some of the characters. Like one of the Un-named, what happen to her? Anyways this is a nice hidden gem that heavily character driven and satisfy my tastes for something dark and mature. ( )

There's an art in the Ratha's series that is hard for me to find in other books. What they don't know we(the reader) might know, but what they do know we(the reader) might not know. It becomes immersing to have to figure out what some words mean, how they came to call something a "creature" even if it's not living, and how they function as a 'family'. Each character has a personality that isn't shoved into your face, they aren't cardboard either, you learn as you go instead of being given everything in the first meeting with the characters.

All of my Ratha's books were lost in moving, I will be buying them each one by one again. When I have this review will be updated/retouched upon. ( )

I missed this series when it first came out, but the author was kind enough to give me a copy of the first book when we met at a convention in San Jose, where we'd been discussing alien-building. Ratha is based on large terrestrial felines, being largely leopard-like, and the author has done a good job of portraying feline societies of two types. In this case, the divide is one intelligence, language capability, and social behavior among felines whose troops resemble the pack structures of wolves and related canine species. The main character is a cub at the story's start and I found her fascinating, not least because I am the creature of several cats (and usually at least one dog). The description of herding behavior, and the legal system wrapped around it were convincing to me, though anthropomorphized to some degree. The central event, however, is the discovery of fire as a phenomenon that can be controlled by Ratha and those of her people who are willing to face their fear of the Red Tongue. There are a series of conflict involved in all this, including romantic liaisons, clashes between the two societies, and the establishment of heirarchy in each. It was a fast, easy read for all of this, and now I will go looking for the rest of the series. ( )

Ratha’s Creature was a great read, and truly different. I don’t find many books where the main character is full-blown animal (aka, no shape-shifting abilities), and it brought me back to the time when I used to roleplay as a wolf. Upon first getting this book, I wondered what the “creature” part of the title meant, and during the part it was revealed, I had to remind myself that we’re in the mind of an animal who has never seen the likes of what Ratha encounters, which only makes sense! It was actually very refreshing to step outside my boundary and read something so… “innocent.” It made me think about how animals might refer other things that we know of... (continued via website) ( )

Ratha is a young female in a tribe of intelligent, talking big cats who call themselves The Named. The book follows her growing up & negotiating the tumultuous power struggles of her world.

For some reason, from the brief description I'd read of this series, I expected the characters to feel like 'aliens' - but overall, I thought this felt more like an animal story. I'd recommend it more for fans of animal stories than pure sci-fi fans (think Tad Williams' 'Tailchaser's Song', for example).

The first issue Ratha encounters is a gender issue: she is picked by her mentor to be trained to be a scout, but female cubs are generally not given this training. I felt this aspect of the book was the weakest, as it echoes the many, many, many fantasy books where the young woman has to overcome sexism to follow her dreams. However, in nature, among big cats, female felines are certainly not at all prevented from hunting and scouting. Actually, they are often the main hunters. The author put quite a bit of effort into emphasizing that her characters think 'like cats', but I felt that portraying a research-based, inventive feline-influenced society fell by the wayside.

However, I did like the interesting dynamic that Bell sets up between the intelligent cats and the non-talking (non-sentient?) cats. The portrayal of the social confusion, rumors/stereotypes and emotional turmoil this rift causes is done quite nicely.

I also liked the idea of a group of predators discovering the benefits of herding and protecting prey, and enjoyed Ratha's innovative and fumbling attempts to harness fire for her species' benefit.

The book follows a plotline of conflict, exile, then return, and allows Ratha growth in maturity and experience along the way. There are 5 books in this series, so there's plenty to-come after this one for those who want to find out more about Ratha and the fate of her tribe - but this installment ends at a satisfying juncture.

A copy of this book was provided to me by Netgalley and Open Road Media. Many thanks for the opportunity to read. As always, my opinions are solely my own.

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