WHITE CAT: Book One THE CURSE WORKERS - Holly Black

From the back of the book: Cassel comes from a family of curse workers---people who have the power to change your emotions, your memories, your luck, by the slightest touch of their hands. And since curse work is illegal, they're all mobsters or con artists. Except for Cassel. He's the straight kid in a crooked family, if you ignore one small detail--he killed his best friend, Lila, three years ago.

Now Cassel is having nightmares, terrifying dreams about a white cat that seems to want to tell him something. He's starting to notice other things, too---the strange behavior of his two brothers, who seem caught up in a secret plot. As Cassel starts to suspect he's part of a huge con game, he must unravel his past and his memories. To find out the truth, Cassel will have to outcon the conmen.

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This was such a good book! One of those *danger* books in that I would stay up 'past my bedtime' to read just one more page.

Poor Cassel, I wanted to reach inside and hug him one minute and smack him around the next. He's a product of his grifter family upbringing so he knows how to con (that was the part I wanted to smack around). He also has a big heart and a conscience so he wants to help people as much as he is capable.

He gets kicked out of school for sleepwalking himself up on the roof of his dorm, he has turn over his 'business' to his roommate, learns to make friends, helps his grandfather clear out the family home...a family of hoarders, so it's a helluva job. And then there's the white cat of his dreams....a white cat with a message. And, oddly enough, there's a white cat living in the barn of the family home.

It's urban fantasy at its finest. The reader realizes quickly that the premise of this Earth has had 'curse workers' since forever. A hint shows when glove wearing is casually mentioned. Everyone wears gloves in case one is a curser worker. The curse workers are the mob, they control through their abilities or have curse workers in their employ who will do it for them. This is an addictive (addicting?) book. I really will do my best to be patient to wait until the next in the series is out.

Five glove are hip beans.....