The Year of the Cat Books in Order

The Year of the Cat is a young adult horror trilogy that starts with a new girl, a high school legend, and the kind of dangerous attraction that is clearly going to cause trouble. Holly arrives at Los Gatos High and quickly gets drawn into a local story about a panther and a dark, magnetic boy named Alex.

The pull is not just romantic.

As the trilogy unfolds, Holly learns that the legend tied to the school and the town is more than gossip. There are hints of cult behavior, animal hunger, shifting identity, and a growing split between the ordinary life Holly thought she knew and the wilder one trying to claim her. Alex is central to that pressure, but so is Jason, who offers Holly a different kind of loyalty and a possible way back.

The appeal of the series is the mood. Casey Daniels gives the books a sleek, uneasy feel, with adolescence, desire, and fear all tangled together. The panther imagery is not there only for atmosphere. It becomes part of Holly's struggle over who she is and what she wants. By the time the trilogy reaches The Amulet, the question is not just who Holly will choose. It is whether she can still choose at all.

These books sit in that 1990s YA horror space where the stories move fast, the stakes are immediate, and the supernatural elements are woven right into teenage drama. High school matters. So does romance. But the real engine is identity under pressure, and the sense that once Holly steps too far into this other world, getting back out may not be simple.

If you like YA horror with shapeshifter energy, moody romance, and a heroine caught between human life and something more feral, this trilogy has a lot going for it. It is compact, strange, and just dark enough to keep the tension humming.