Odd & True by Cat Winters

The Book:

Book Title: Odd & True

Book Author: Cat Winters

Page Count: 368

Publishing Date: September 12, 2017

Publisher: Amulet Books

Date Read: July 23, 2017

                     

The Review:

“Once upon a tie, on a cold January morning…a girl named Trudchen Maria Grey was born in a castle built to resemble a stone Scottish fortress called Dunnottar…”

Odd & True will captivate you from page one. Cat Winters has created a surprisingly imaginative story. Prepare yourself for a journey of life, love, horror, and shocking twists.

The Plot: Trudchen has grown up with the stories her sister, Odette, has told her about monsters and hunters. So far, the only monster she has ever met was the one that disabled her as a child, Polio. At the age of fifteen, two years after Od has mysteriously been sent away by their Aunt Viktoria, Tru gets a knock on her window in the middle of the night. Reunited, Od drags Tru on an adventure to hunt the infamous Leeds Devil. But will the sisters discover more horrors than a supposed monster?

“Everything about my life with Od had dripped with fantasy, reveries, whimsy, and bunkum.”

This one was quite the unexpected read. It held promises of Supernatural style hunting with historical fiction aspects from Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter, but it delivered so much more! It was a medium paced, fantastic, coming of age story with hidden bits of horror, whimsy, and intrigue.

“…for the land is filled with wild and mystical beasts that terrify even the bravest huntsmen.”

I absolutely loved this book! It gets all the stars from me! I finished it in one day and cannot stop thinking about it. Winters did an exceptional job with creating this story around the sisters, Trudchen and Odette. There is this incredible bond between the two that only true sisters can have! The setting and world building is outstanding and the characters were outstandingly written!

Odette was such an amazing oddity. She had such depth and portrayed a sense of disconnection from reality. She was brave and fragile at the same time. She truly cared about her sister, and had such woeful determination to accomplish her search. She added both gravity and fantasy to the story and helped to shape Trudchen’s character.

“The tarot predicts your future…This one is La Force, which foretells that you become a woman of great strength and courage. You yourself will be able to conquer dangerous creatures.”

Trudchen was a fantastic character. As a child, she was innocent, gullible, and curious. She undergoes an incredible transformation and becomes a grounded, skeptical young lady. She doesn’t let her disability hold her back and she holds grand morals of knowing right from wrong and showing love for family.

“Unlike my older sister, I held no interest in pursuing ‘real-life monsters’ for I no longer believed in such poppycock.”

I recommend this book hands down! Odd & True will take you on a journey through the lives of these two sisters and all the bumps in their road. It is full of unexpected twists and has an ending that will both surprise you and leave you wanting for more! This one gets a full 5 stars from me and I am terribly excited to read more from Cat Winters!

“Even if we never read a second volume of a book, the characters continue to live on and on and on, and their stories merge into other stories, told by new generations of heroes and heroines.”

Thank you to NetGalley and Amulet Books/Abrams Kids for providing me with this free Advanced Reading E-copy in exchange for my honest review! All quotes used are from the book, written by the author.

---

  Darque Dreamer 

Blogger/ Punk Rocker / Quirky Housewife

---