The first arc never reaches the levels that some of the worst books in the series do,

but this book still stands apart as being particularly difficult to read.

The characters are grating, the logic for important decisions is silly if it exists

at all, and Fireheart of all characters is suddenly a horrible person in a number of ways.

But the worst bit...is that this book's Bluestar moments are phenomenal, and to read

or even get to them, you have to swallow down the rest of the story.

But let's do it anyway.

A Dangerous Path was released on June 1st of 2004, six months after Rising Storm.

So apparently the speeding up of book production couldn't last.

This is another Cherith-written book, which is genuinely sad.

Cherith has some really good books later down the line.

But this being her second addition to the series doesn't speak well of her.

Just be aware, it gets better, and admittedly Cherith's involvement could explain how

out of whack the characters will feel in this book.

She isn't nearly as used to writing for them.

But let's start with the allegiances.

There's an interesting little trait of this book's allegiance that actually began in

the last book but that I didn't mention there: In the future we'll come to expect

the warriors' and apprentices' allegiances to be listed in order of age or at least promotion

time.

However, here, when Brackenfur was made a warrior, he was instantly propelled above

Sandstorm and Dustpelt who, we know, are not only older than him, but older than his mentors.

I have to imagine this is just another slight to Sandstorm and Dustpelt.

Poor guys.

This book marks the first time that queens have ever returned to be warriors again, instating

this role as a temporary one.

Brindleface and Frostfur have apparently finished their times as queens and returned to their

warrior duties.

Otherwise, not too many changes in the allegiances this time around.

Besides two of the queens moving back, the only changes are Yellowfang, Patchpelt, and

Halfttail disappearing after their deaths, and one weird quirk of this book where Sandstorm,

after not being an apprentice for three books, is listed with the apprentices again, as well

as with the warriors.

But it's a glitch.

Hopefully not indicative of the arc's attitude towards her and her progress.

The top 10 characters in this book only have 79% of the lines.

Yay!

That's the lowest we've had so far!

There are certainly plenty of characters and plot threads in this book all happening simultaneously,

so it makes sense.

Additionally, 43% of the characters are she-cats!

Yay again!

Certainly an increase, though not a 50-50 split just yet.

Unfortunately, these characters only get 31% of the lines…that's even less than Rising

Storm where they had less she-cats to divide lines between.

But maybe it doesn't matter what the exact line divisions are when it comes to the quality

of the story, so let's look at that instead.

We begin with the most spoilery prologue in the first arc: a pack of vicious dogs escaping

their human captors and running off into the woods with the goal to kill.

Now, the prologue about in Forest of Secrets certainly wasn't subtle, but it at least

tried to hide the secret of Bluestar's relation to the kits.

This book will eventually tell us that a dog pack is loose in the forest.

This is shocking to all of Thunderclan, but it is not surprising to us at all, because

we know everything about the dogs by the first chapter.

Anyway, enough of the prologue.

We jump in right where we left off in Rising Storm: with Tigerstar as the new leader of

Shadowclan.

Several cats, both at the gathering and back in camp, call him a traitor and ask Fireheart

to denounce him, which Fireheart agrees to until Tigerstar claims he was chosen by Starclan

and Fireheart suddenly convinces himself that not only is Tigerstar deserving of the leadership,

but that he might have changed into a good cat since he fulfilled his ambition.

He decides to say nothing and welcome Tigerstar as a leader instead.

Despite this, no on, including Sandstorm, who was furious earlier, is mad at Fireheart,

and instead they all congratulate him for speaking well.

After the gathering Fireheart deflects the clan's complaints by saying that Shadowclan

doesn't know Tigerstar is a traitor…But they would know if you had just *told them*

when you had the chance the previous night.

He hands the job of calming the clan off to Whitestorm and goes to check on Bluestar.

She definitely takes the news the worst, losing her faith in all the other clans and Starclan

itself.

Fireheart tells her to calm down, because Tigerstar might not be so bad now, and Bluestar

accurately tells him that he is a fool to believe that.

Fireheart is then warned about other creatures hunting on the territory, and Whitestorm lets

him know even this early that the area reeked of dogs.

Whitestorm is very serious and worried, but Fireheart brushes it off and says that dogs

are no big deal, since twolegs will take them back soon anyway.

Fireheart determines that Brightpaw, Thornpaw, and Swiftpaw are ready to be made warriors and

then goes to see Graystripe, who lets Fireheart know that he and Sandstorm make a great couple

(unofficially), warns him about Tigerstar, again, and tells him that Leopardfur has taken

over most of the duties with Crookedstar being so old.

When they return to camp, Fireheart gets yet another warning about dogs, this time in a

Starclan dream sent to Cinderpelt, and he brushes that off too, much to Cinderpelt's

annoyance.

Fireheart then takes some time to yell at Bramblekit for playing roughly with Snowkit,

who Brackenfur is worried about.

Goldenflower takes Fireheart aside and tells him both kits, Bramblekit especially, respect

him, and he shouldn't look at them differently because of their father.

She then decides that Fireheart should tell the kits about Tigerstar...because he's

deputy I guess.

Fireheart promises Brackenfur Snowkit as an apprentice and then goes to speak with Bluestar

about making the old apprentices warriors.

But she's...not all there, and only agrees to Cloudpaw's ceremony since Fireheart is

his mentor.

First though, it's time for Cinderpelt to make her first half-moon journey without Yellowfang,

but she does have Littlecloud for company, Runningnose's new apprentice.

The medicine cats express grief over Whitethroat's death and Fireheart has a chance to tell them

how Tigerstar was involved and give them important information about their leader, as powerful

figures who could do something to change it.

Instead, he decides not to do that, to spare Littlecloud's feelings.

Hey, You know what else would spare his feelings?

Not letting him live under a *second* evil dictator!

Runningnose then tell Fireheart that, while it's strange that a strong and respectable

warrior was thrown out of Thunderclan, he doesn't expect Fireheart to say anything

on the topic since it would give away clan secrets, and then tells the story of Nightstar

not getting any lives from Starclan, giving away his own clan's secrets that even his

clanmates didn't know...uh huh.

Fireheart has a dream where he looks for Spottedleaf and can't find her and Sandstorm defends

him from Dustpelt and tries to ask him about it but he brushes her off and takes them hunting

instead, where they meet Princess.

Princess is here to tell us that twolegs are looking for something in the forest.

Oh, I wonder what it could possibly be?

They then go see Graystripe *again,* who tells Fireheart and Sandstorm that Tigerstar had

a long talk with Leopardfur, and then Mistyfoot warns them that Graypool is missing.

Fireheart finds her quite quickly, and sees her talk to Tigerstar who gets to find out about

Thunderclan kits in Riverclan, and then accidentally drops her off a cliff and kills her.

Mistyfoot and Graystripe are distraught to find her body, and Fireheart has the chance

to tell them Tigerstar led to her death, but doesn't because it would apparently instantly

reveal Bluestar's secret, something he is sure is more important than Tigerstar murdering

Mistyfoot's adoptive mother.

Back home, Fireheart punishes Bramblekit because he just saw Tigerstar kill someone and Cinderpelt

finds out that Snowkit is deaf.

Speckletail is still very protective of him.

On a patrol, Fireheart finds dog remains and concludes a dog is loose in the forest.

Whitestorm reports this too, and Fireheart decides to report it to Bluestar, who is not

on one of her good days and declares Windclan to be at fault.

Snowkit is carried off by a hawk, Bluestar declares war with their ancestors, a devastated

Speckletail joins the elders, Leopardstar is now leader of Riverclan, Graystripe is

giving away his clan's battle plans now, and Fireheart decides to embark on a quest

with Tallstar and Ravenpaw to stop war with Windclan.

As, sorry, I forgot that he didn't decide to do that until Spottedleaf told him he had

to in a dream.

Very important, my mistake.

Darkstripe takes Tawnykit and Bramblekit to meet their father, who tells them the story

of his life because Goldenflower and Fireheart haven't bothered yet.

Fireheart does succeed at stopping the war but Whitestorm and Sandstorm are both upset

that he didn't come to them for help.

Bluestar also saw through his plan and punished him by keeping him as deputy of her clan of traitors

Bluestar went to the Moonstone on her own to challenge Starclan, and they gave her yet

another warning about dogs which no cat does anything with.

Riverclan attacks Sunningrocks as Graystripe predicted and when Bluestar won't fight

Mistyfoot and Stonefur, Fireheart reveals that she is their mother.

They're not happy about it.

Graystripe also warns Fireheart twice and pulls Leopardstar off of him, which let's

Thunderclan win the battle and gets Graystripe kicked out of Riverclan.

Bluestar allows him back into Thunderclan, but more out of disinterest than any care

for Graystripe.

The rest of the clan isn't as forgiving, and Fireheart shows off his amazing ability

to irritate Sandstorm when she's trying to help.

Cloudpaw is made a warrior primarily because he doesn't respect Starclan and Longtail

is angry with Fireheart that his apprentice is being passed over for Cloudpaw.

I don't blame him.

And here it comes.

Swiftpaw and Brightpaw decided to prove they were ready to be warriors by tracking down

*whatever strange creature* might be taking their prey, and it isn't long before they're

discovered mangled and broken.

Swiftpaw is dead and Brightpaw is brutally injured, put into a coma for a long while,

at which time she is named Lostface, and still rattled and sent to the elders' den after.

Here we do finally get to see Cloudtail's tenderness and care for her, a nice facet

to his personality in juxtaposition with his usual brash, overconfident attitude.

Fireheart looks in on Tawnykit and Bramblekit and immediately decides to mentor the latter

himself.

Even Graystripe questions this choice, but Fireheart wants Bramblekit beside him where

he can be sure the little kitten won't murder him or something.

Graystripe recommends the obvious choice of Sandstorm for Tawnykit's mentor, but Fireheart

“feels reluctant” to give her an apprentice because apparently Tigerstar might pose a

danger to his kits' mentors somehow, and decides on Brackenfur instead.

Sandstorm is extremely unhappy about this, but she forgives him much faster than expected

because she loves him, and Fireheart finally admits it too.

The new apprentices are taken out and finally told about their father from Fireheart, and

Bramblepaw realizes this is why Fireheart always treated him differently.

He's upset, and runs away.

The clan finds a trail of rabbits leading the dogs to Thunderclan's camp, with the

dead body of Bridleface at the end of the line, and after getting understandably angry

at this, they form and execute a plan to lead the dogs into the gorge instead.

This nearly works until Tigerstar shows up and holds Fireheart down long enough for the

dogs to catch up.

Bluestar comes in to sacrifice herself pushing them off the edge.

She says goodbye to her kits, who pulled her from the water, and makes peace with Starclan

before she dies.

Bluestar is completely unhinged and easily the best part of this book.

She goes between mad rage and a glassy-eyed departure from reality that is really hard

to read about sometimes.

You feel true sadness looking at what she has become, and remembering the strong, wise,

compassionate leader she was at the beginning of the arc.

Her reaction to Snowkit is particularly chilling, as she uses a sliver of the tenderness that

was once at the heart of her character, but mostly is there to say that Snowkit was hopeless,

and uses him to say Starclan is at war with her clan, terrifying every cat there.

Unfortunately though, this book had far more faults than strengths.

For example, the main antagonistic force of Tigerstar as Shadowclan's new leader is

handled very badly.

Someone needs to call him out and explain his behavior, preferably Fireheart since he knows the most.

But every time it's suggested, it's shut down moments after and everyone pretends this

is okay.

It is not.

Cats do keep bringing up how bad Tigerstar was in private and noticing bad things he

is still doing, but for one reason or another they always brush past it so Tigerstar can

keep working on his plan in the shadows.