The Cat: A Novel of the Sons of Destiny by Jean Johnston

Amara of the Shifterai has been attempting to keep her twin sister safe almost from the time they were born. While she was born with the Natural Shapeshifting Abilities shared by all Shifterai, her sister was born with none of that. Instead, the Gods gifted her with a different power. And because of that power, Mages from all over their home continent have tried to steal her away, endangering and even killing members of their clan to get their hands on Arora.

To keep her sister safe, Amara left home and clan behind so that her clan would no longer be troubled by the attacks of treacherous mages. But their attempt to escape by ship, a ship whose mage was weak, so that he would not think to try and steal Arora away, has led to a possibly fatal drawback: the ship ran into a vicious storm, one the mage aboard was too weak to handle, and the ship broke up and sank in the teeth of the storm.

Amara managed to get her sister onto a single piece of the floating ship, and to bring aboard a cask full of water so that both of them could have clean, fresh water to drink. But all else is gone in the wreck, and Amara, shapechanged into a form more suited for a watery environment, has been towing her sister, hoping for the sight of land. So when she finds am island, she pulls her sister there and brings their bit of driftwood up above the tideline before going in search of fresh water and something to eat that *isn't* raw fish.

But this is no deserted island she's stumbled on. Instead, it is the home of eight brothers exiled from their home because of an ancient prophecy. Each of them is destined to meet a bride, and marry her. And they are not just brothers, but four sets of twins. Half of the brothers have already met and married their brides, but now it is the fifth brother, Trevan's turn.

Trevan has been trying to construct an artificial woman for his seventh brother, Koranen. Koranen has never been able to be with a woman because of his unrestrained powers over fire, and so he has looked to Trevanen, the most powerful magician of his brothers, to construct an illusionary woman who he cannot hurt, to ease his passion. But Trevanen hasn't gotten it right yet. Oh, the woman looks right, sounds right and feels appropriately soft, but the responses aren't right. Trevanen approaches his married brothers and their wives for help in getting the responses right, but none of his brothers will allow their wives reactions to be recorded.

The family is engaged in another task, in turning their isle of exile into a separate Kingdom, with its own laws, patron God or Goddess and thriving population. To do that, though, they will need settlers, and buildings ready and waiting for them. The family, which is pretty much all mages, have turned their efforts to this end, and when Trevanen discovers Amara, he not only wants to woo and wed her, but to get her help in this building exercise.

Amara, for her part, is extremely suspicious of Trevanen and his family, not only because they are strangers, but because they are mages. As he seeks to woo her, and she tries to protect her sister (who, in her turn, will become wife to Trevanen's twin, Rydan... eventually), and the rest of the inhabitants of the Island of Nightfall seek to deal with all the problems of setting up their own kingdom. But can Amara, a Princess of the Shifterai, deal with Kelly, Queen of Nightfall, when her own dreams of ruling were brutally torn away from her by having to protect and shelter her sister Arora? And can the two strong women ever like each other or agree when both of them have strong and decided ideas about how to run a community?

It took me a chapter or two to really get into this story, but after that, I was hooked. While Amara comes off a bit strongwilled and arrogant when it comes to protecting her sister, we find out that she has good reason to be. She's not an easy woman to like, though, as her jealousy and anger over having to protect her sister flares up time and time again, as does her resistance to being wooed in any way other than the one she would have expected at home. And yet, in all her clashes with Kelly, the ones that occur come because they are very much alike, rather than too different.

At times, I felt sorry that Trevanen had to put up with Amara. She was clannish in the worst sorts of ways, and protective to the point of being her sister's jailer. Her uncertainty and unwillingness to trust Trev and his siblings led to her being snappish and at times outright rude to them, and to others. And her excessive pride led to her running away everytime she made a mistake or got embarassed. Once she finally calms down a little, she gets a lot better and won back my sympathy. The best thing she did to win it back was being aware that she had acted like a bitch much of the time, and ask for his forgiveness, as well as trying to find a way to live beyond what her people accepted during the process of wooing.

The sex was hot, and I enjoyed reading it an awful lot. I may not read the first books in the series, but I will look out for sequels, mainly because there was enough backstory given that I feel I know what happened in the other, earlier, books in the series. I'd recommend it to others with some significant cautions, realizing that the heroine is not for everyone and she might piss a lot of readers off or lose their sympathy and never regain it. Amara is a difficult woman, and not one some readers will enjoy reading about.