The Ringmaster

Black Cat Circus, Book 4

By: Kota Quinn

Narrated by: Zachary Zaba

The last thing half-fae, half-demon Ringmaster Seven needs is to hold someone captive in his bedroom, no matter how attractive he finds the young man. It’s been ten years since Seven fled the fae courts and found sanctuary in the human realm. He will do anything to protect his circus and found family. So, when Seven wakes up to find a beautiful yet feral creature straddling him and reeking of faerie magic, his only option is to bind the little minx and deal with him later.

Time is running out for Indy. It’s been almost ten years since Indy was cursed. His only hope of breaking the magic is to find his fated mate or lose his human form forever. Seeing no other choice, Indy travels with a magical circus of paranormal creatures. Only, when Indy momentarily gets his human form back, he’s more concerned about getting revenge on the Ringmaster rather than finding love.

Can Sev help Indy break this curse before it’s too late, or will he die trying?

The Ringmaster is an enemies-to-lovers, fated mates, paranormal MM romance. It is part of the Black Cat Circus multi-author series that features found family and a magical cast of characters. Each book can be listened to as a standalone but is better enjoyed as a series.

©2023 Kota Quinn (P)2024 Kota Quinn

The Ringmaster and his Little Not-Human

1st person, past tense, dual POV
Indy (32), cursed human / (Peanut the cat in the BCC)
Seven, half-fae, half-demon Ringmaster of the BCC

Audio, narrated by Zachary Zaba - 4.5 Stars
After listening to [book:The Aerialist|123010675] I just had to roll right into Peanut's story and Whispersynced the audiobook right away.
Usually I'm not the biggest fan of a single narrator (or the same narrators) doing an entire series and then listening to them back-to-back as I have a difficult time getting into the new characters and not hearing them as the MCs of the previous book. I did not have that issue here at all. Once I hit play on <i>The Ringmaster</i> Indy and Sev came to life and I never even caught echoes of Bri and/or Zander (unless they were talking). The narrator absolutely imbued each character with their own distinct voice, making it extremely easy to get sucked into the story and keep track of events and POVs. As I've said before, it usually takes me a chapter to get into this narrator's style, but once I'm there I enjoy the narration immensely.

Story - 3.5 stars
While the books in this series CAN be read as standalones, they do feature a core group of characters that appear in each others stories and Peanut (Indy) and Bri's stories are intertwined more closely than the rest of the series so I would recommend reading them together at the very least if you aren't going to read the rest of the series. For my part I listened to [book:The Daredevil|123005039] a few months ago, ARC read all of season 2, skipped <i>The Firedancer</i> (for the moment), and just listened to <i>The Aerialist</i> and <i>The Ringmaster</i> back-to-back so I've done some bouncing around and had fun doing so, I'm usually more methodical with my reading.

While I did enjoy this story a great deal, it felt like the author got distracted with irrelevant worldbuilding and side characters then rushed the actual story and relationship building, which ruined my enjoyment. As if setting up more of the BCC for future romance wasn't enough, the whole war in Faerie and the Goblin Market and their respective cast of characters got page time that would, in my opinion, have been better served by further exploring Indy and Sev's connection, and figuring out how to fully lift Indy's curse and reunite him with the brother he hasn't seen in the past decade. By the time these areas are brought into focus, their resolutions felt a little slap dash and suffered from a whole lot of telling rather than showing with a lot of missing context that would have made for a richer story.

Still, I enjoyed the story, I loved the continued relationship between Bri and Peanut, seeing glimpses of the previous couples, seeing Indy and Sev dance around each other a bit trying to decide whether to trust one another as their hearts and minds warred with one another. The hints of shibari, praise kink, etc were fun and it would have been fun to have seen it be more developed. Sev's charater arc in coming to terms with his demon side was particularly well done and I adored Indy's role in that.
No regrets in buying and listening to it.

Seven's Feisty Cat

Indy "Peanut" & Seven "Sev"
Rating: 3.5 ⭐
Narrators: Zachary Zaba

- Paranormal
- Enemies-to-Lovers
- Fated Mates
- Found Family
- Shibari
- Fae/Demon x Magical Cat
- Age Gap
- Size Difference
- Tail Play