Seven Years Awesome Luck is a novel by Shawna Canon
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After his mother Jacqueline makes a deal with an elderly witch, Trick spends seven years as a cat. When his time is up and he changes back, the witch has passed away and the family is free to go on with their lives — except that Trick is quite unhappy to have no tail or fur any more and be expected to go to school. If only the spell hadn't worn off...
Denneka isn't really looking forward to another year with more bullies than friends. The new teacher is hard to read, unfairly harsh one moment and helpful the next. At least the new boy, Trick, is kind of cute, but he's also seriously weird, lacking awareness of social cues or even basic modesty. He seems to like her, though — up until he disappears, and a cat turns up at her home with the same green eyes...
Jacqueline doesn't know who the new witch is that's messing with her family again, but whoever it is had better hope she doesn't catch them.
Seven Years Awesome Luck provides examples of:
- Animorphism: Witches appear to be able to give out both voluntary and involuntary versions of this.
- Trick is turned into a cat for seven years, then transforms back.
- He's later turned back into a cat, then enchanted to change into a human when within ten feet of Denneka.
- Julia's enchantment turns her into a hawk during the day, and back to human at night.
- Kester transforms himself into an ordinary-looking man when outside his home, in order to get a job where he can watch Trick's antics.
- At the end of the story, both Trick and Julia are granted full control of their own transformations.
- Babies Ever After: The epilogue shows new children in several families, but most particularly Denneka is pregnant to Trick, and isn't sure whether some cat traits may have been passed down.
- Familiar: Witch familiars get a telepathic bond with their masters, and can't ignore their masters' commands. Interestingly, they have to be animals when the bond is formed, but they don't have to stay that way full-time.
- Trick spends a year as a witch's familiar, mostly just keeping her company.
- Julia is more of a full-time servant to Kester, using her eagle form to scout the town and occasionally even defend people he's interested in. She doesn't resent her slavery, as she's devoted to him emotionally as well as magically.
- Friendless Background: Both Trick, who's new to town, and Denneka, who grew up there, have no close friends and latch onto each other. In his case, it's less about wanting inclusion and respect, more about wanting head scratches and a warm lap.
- Heel Realization: Kester gets one after Landon uses his newly learned Mind Control abilities on him, giving him a taste of how his many victims have felt.
- He Knows Too Much: While he was still a cat, Trick saw a corpse being added to someone else's grave, though he didn't realise its significance at the time. When he passes the information on, though, it starts to attract dangerous attention.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: Jacqueline would really like to put her family's magical past behind them and move on with the rest of their lives. No such luck; one of her sons is not finished with being a cat, and the other was born with magic.
- It Amused Me: With phenomenal cosmic power and hundreds of years' life expectancy, Kester approaches life and other people primarily as means of entertainment.
- Laser-Guided Karma: After Kester teaches Landon the basics of Mind Control magic, having Landon practise on a police officer, Landon then turns on Kester and makes him start talking about himself.
- Leonine Contract: Jacqueline is desperate enough to save her unborn child that she accepts the potion to do so before finding out the cost. In fairness, she couldn't have expected that the witch would ask for Trick to become her familiar in exchange. By that time, though, it's too late to back out; the potion has been drunk, and denying the witch her payment would have ended badly.
- Literal-Minded: Trick's years as a cat have left him with no understanding of figurative speech. When asked what he sees in Denneka, for example, he replies that she lets him sleep with her — because he's literally slept in her bed (as a cat, and then as a boy who identifies as a cat and whom she doesn't know what to do with).
- Mama Bear: Even with all his power, Kester is still mildly intimidated by Jacqueline's campaign to track down the witch who's toying with her family and make them stop.
- The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: Trick has picked up many cat traits from his seven years, from rubbing his head against friends, to chasing laser pointers, to hunting mice. He's likely especially susceptible since he likes being a cat.
- Please Put Some Clothes On: Trick's family and Denneka both harp on about this. Trick himself doesn't care about clothes in the slightest. It gets even worse when he starts transforming every time he moves away from Denneka, leaving his clothes in a pile on the floor.
- Power Limiter: Kester's watch holds a transformation spell that turns him into "John", but also locks his magic away until he takes it off. This comes back to bite him when he's kidnapped and his hands are tied so he can't reach the watch.
- Unstoppable Rage: The first time that Kester ever kills someone with magic is when he's just been kidnapped, and he levels the building in outrage.
