For readers who loved Watership Down or Tailchaser's Song , The Wild Road supplies a welcome helping of epic animal fantasy. While not as complex as Richard Adams' classic novel, London author Gabriel King's tale of questing cats does feature characters as uniquely likable as the unlikely helpmeets of the Down rabbits. The innocent heroics of the kitten Tag make for an eminently readable stand-alone novel. When a carelessly opened back door gives Tag the chance to go out after his feathered tormentors, he uses the opportunity without hesitation. He gives chase to the magpie who plagues him and finds himself suddenly and irrevocably lost, unable to retrace his own broken scent trail back to his house, his dulls.
Rain starts to fall, and the lost kitten's life can never be the same.
Someone, or something, has been watching him carefully for a long time. Majicou, the ancient black one-eyed cat who speaks to Tag in his dreams, needs an apprentice, a cat who can find the King and Queen of cats, to bring them to Tintagel by the spring equinox and save them from the evil machinations of the shadowy human figure known as the Alchemist. Domesticated beyond the ability to fend for himself, Tag finds help in the unlikeliest places. By using these wild roads, and through determination and a lot of luck, Tag finds Pertelot and Ragnar. Tag helps the sick and starving Pertelot and Ragnar, only to lose them again after a near-deadly encounter with the Alchemist.