Product Description

As gripping as "The Diamond of Drury Lane", this fabulous second volume from multi award-winning author Julia Golding sees Cat Royal storm a gentleman's club, jump aboard a slave ship and enter the heart of the shadiest part of London - blindfolded! In an attempt to save Pedro from his former slave master, Cat makes some enemies and finds she has the police on her tail...Cat is driven to flee the theatre and ends up going into hiding - in a boy's school. Then Cat's nemesis Billy Shepherd turns up...Prepare to be gripped from page one.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #43349 in Books
• Published on: 2008-02-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

Review
"'Pacy...A most engaging read' Books for Keeps; 'An eminently satisfying and delightful read' Sunday Tribune; 'Hugely enjoyable romp of a tale' School Librarian; 'A colourful, action-packed story' Publishing News - On Cat among the Pigeons: 'A highly enjoyable story full of adventure, likeable character and sharp, witty dialogue' Anti-slavery magazine. - On Den of Thieves: 'Rip-roaring saga...thoroughly entertaining...lively and absorbing' The Times Educational Supplement; 'This is rollicking historical fiction at its best, a great read' Sunday Express"

Hang on for the wild ride of Cat Royal's second adventure, after The Diamond of Drury Lane (2008). The redheaded firebrand sees her friend Pedro scale the heights as Ariel in Mr. Sheridan's production of The Tempest, only to find that his evil former master insists Pedro is still his slave. In trying to protect Pedro, Cat finds she must leave Drury Lane and hide herself - at her friend Lord Francis's school. The somewhat-stale trope of a girl in boys' clothing gets a few charming grace notes as Cat survives a beating and finds out how much easier (and harder) boys have it. The eerily scary Billy Boil continues to slither in and out of Cat's life, and she makes him a promise she will no doubt regret keeping. As the story rockets along, Cat makes both new enemies and new and stalwart friends. Some historical figures drift through these pages, the pace is quick and engaging and the colorful evocation of 1790s London will keep readers plunging on and awaiting the next installment. (glossary) (Historical fiction. 10-14) (Kirkus Reviews)

About the Author
Julia Golding read English at Cambridge then joined the Foreign Office and served in Poland. Her work as a diplomat took her from the high point of town twinning in the Tatra Mountains to the low of inspecting the bottom of a Silesian coal mine. On leaving Poland, she exchanged diplomacy for academia and took a doctorate in the literature of the English Romantic Period at Oxford. She then joined Oxfam as a lobbyist on conflict issues, campaigning at the UN and with governments to lessen the impact of conflict on civilians living in war zones. Married with three children, Julia now lives in Oxford. The Diamond of Drury Lane won the Nestle Children's Book Prize 2006 and the Waterstone's Children's Book Prize 2006.

Customer Reviews

Cat Among the Pigeons
At 17, I'm older than the target audience for this book, but I firmly beleive that a good book should be readable to the young and old(er) alike. And Cat Among the Pigeons certainly meets this specification.

The best feature of this book, and the first 'The Diamond of Drury Lane' (read it before reading this) is the charecters. None of them are clean cut villains or perfectly holy and good heroes and heroines they're all somewhere in between. At times you want to scream at the charecters for being so mindless and stupid, whilst at other points you want to hug them for being so kind and good.

The best charecter in this, is probably Billy 'Boil' Sheperd, who gets a great deal of charecetr development here, he is clearly the villain in the first installment of the 'Den of Thieves' trilogy, but here the reader is totally in the dark with regards to his motivations and his alliances, his strange relationship with the books heroine Cat(herine) Royal, an orphan who is a ward of the theatre on Drury Lane, is very compelling, let me just say I cannot wait for the next installment in 2007!

The historical setting is well chosen and accurately portrayed, you really get a feel of how people lived back in the 18th century, although you may not realise it, you actually learn from the book, but this is overshadowed by how enjoyable the books are. I would say this book is a far betyter introduction to the period than any stuffy old history lesson.

I will not give you a synoposis of the book, for Amazon provides a very concise one, all I will say now is go out and buy a copy, for yourself, or for your children!

(Please note, I do not have my own acount, so I'm using my father's, I am certainly not a Mr Grant!)

Cat Among the Pigeons (Cat Royal)
This is the second book in the series and it didn't disapoint. Very good historical fiction.

2nd book from cat royal.
in this 2nd book of cat royal, shes on the run from the police ( again) and pedros old slave master wants to ship jim off to another slave plantation.

In my view this author is brilliant, she has made a brilliant backgroundfor the story and has planned it out well, I reccomend this book to every n e who can get there hands on it.