The Cat Who Chased Ghosts - Nic Minnella - ★★★.¾

AUTHOR: Nic Minnella

SERIES: The Guardian Cats #1

GENRE: Middle-Grade Paranormal Fantasy

PUBLICATION DATE: September 1, 2024

RATING: 3.75 stars.

In a Nutshell: A paranormal fantasy for middle-graders featuring kids, cats, spooky houses, and ghosts. (Yup, all in plural.) Entertaining and exciting. The writing could have done with a wee bit of finetuning, but for an indie debut, this is quite good. First of the Guardian Cats series; can be read as a standalone. Recommended to middle-graders, especially if they love felines and spooky stories.

Plot Preview:

The Thompson family – dad Robert, mom Catherine, and son Timmy – has just inherited an old, almost dilapidated house from Robert’s deceased great-aunt. None of them are excited at the state of the house, but they have no choice so they move in. Timmy is very excited to hear that the resident cat, an overweight orange tabby named Whiskers, is also part of their inheritance.

As Timmy begins exploring the house and interacting with the kids in his new school, he learns some unsavoury details about his new residence. Initially, he dismisses them as impossible, but the creaky attic and the spooky night sounds might just convince him otherwise. Never did Timmy dream that within a few days of moving, he would be forced to confront paranormal entities and help a distressed soul.

The story comes to us in the third-person POVs of the Thompson family, mainly from Timmy.

Bookish Yays:

😻 Whiskers the Guardian Cat. The champion of the story, though it is very hard to accept this at first. 😅 I loved his attitude. If only he had a talking role! There are other cats also, but in tinier roles. (Fellow dog people, you needn’t despair. That’s all I’ll say.)

😻 Timmy, a good protagonist who isn't perfect but knows his limitations. I liked seeing his growth through the story.

😻 His new friends Jasper and Louisa. Initially, I thought Jasper would be the typical new-school bully, so his actual behaviour was a wonderful surprise. Louisa is a good sensible addition to balance out the impulsive boys.

😻 The paranormal content, which is more varied than I had assumed. Great fun to read as there’s a lot to explore. Some parts reminded me of ‘Coraline’, but in a good way. A part of the paranormal stuff might be a bit scary to younger readers, but I think they’ll like it as well.

😻 The concept of Guardian cats, which is explained right at the start in detail with historical examples before the main story begins. Fascinating!

😻 The epilogue. I really didn’t expect such an inclusion in a middle-grade novel, but it was a lovely ending.

😻 At just 122 pages, this is a quick read. Once the action begins, the book doesn’t slacken its pace.

Bookish Mixed Bags:

🐈 Robert and Catherine Thompson. We know they love their son and do everything out of this feeling, but boy, are they overprotective! I felt sorry for poor Timmy! Then again, such annoying parents do exist so can’t hold it as a Nay. I wish there had been more depth to their arcs.

🐈 Louisa’s aunt is also a great character, but there are some unanswered points in her arc. I am not sure if the next book will continue with some of these same characters, but I do hope she can return for she has great potential to be the linchpin of this series long with the cats.

🐈 The time period of the story is unspecified. While this isn’t a limitation as such, it helps to know the era so that we understand the character behaviour better. I thought it was present day, but the epilogue proved otherwise.

🐈 The narrative perspective does some headjumping, especially in the first few chapters. It took me while to get used to the random switch between character perspectives. Thankfully, I got used to this after some pages, and in the second half, found the book much more settled, with clear demarcations indicating the change in perspective.

Bookish Nays:

😿 The comments made to Timmy by his parents and also by Jasper wrt Louisa, as if a boy and a girl cannot be platonic friends and there has to be some ulterior romantic motive to their interactions. Leave such love out of middle-grade books!

Overall, I really enjoyed this indie debut. While I would have preferred a bit more finetuning in the writing, I found the key elements of this story coming together quite well. Some of my negative points of feedback come from an adult perspective, and I am sure I wouldn’t even have noticed these when I was a middle-grader and life was simpler.

This is the first book of the Guardian cats series. Each book features different protagonists, but all share the theme of Guardian Cats and tween heroes facing supernatural enemies. Thus they work well as standalone books and can be read in any order. I will be jumping to Book Two right away.

Definitely recommended. With the delectable combo of cats, haunted houses, and ghosts, this series is perfect for spooky season. The book aims at middle-graders, so ages 9-12.

I purchased this book when it was available as a freebie on Amazon.

The digital version of this book is currently available on Kindle Unlimited.