Crookedstar's Promise is a children's fantasy novel, the fourth super edition in the Warriors series by Erin Hunter

Erin Hunter

Erin Hunter is a pseudonym used by the authors Kate Cary, Cherith Baldry, and Tui Sutherland, along with editor Victoria Holmes. Under this pen name, they have written two series of books. They are best known for the Warriors series, but the authors have also created another similar series called...

. The book itself is being written by Kate Cary

Kate Cary

Kate Cary is one of the authors of the Warriors novel series, a story about wild cats, which she writes under the pen name of Erin Hunter. The other authors who also write the Warriors novel series under the pen name Erin Hunter are Cherith Baldry, Victoria Holmes, and Tui T. Sutherland...

. It was released on July 5, 2011.

Development

At first, an Early Clan Super Edition was planned to be released in 2010 with Victoria Holmes saying "I’d love to do a Super Edition about the very early Clans so we can see how they started to take the shape that we recognize today". However, because Erin Hunter has decided to instead do an entire arc dedicated to the early Clan days, the book was cancelled and Crookedstar's Promise was to be released in 2011 instead. In the seventh author chat, it was revealed that an evil female cat named Mapleshade, first mentioned in Night Whispers (who eventually ends up in the Dark Forest), will be featured in the book. Mapleshade is the first evil she-cat mentioned in this book series. Erin Hunter did not want readers to become upset because she only wrote evil toms. She also wants readers to compare Mapleshade to Tigerstar and Scourge to see which one of them is the most evil. Crookedstar loses his mate, his kits, his brother, his mother, his leader, and his father. Through these losses, he becomes stronger.

Plot

The books follows Crookedstar, first known as Stormkit. Stormkit is chased by the ThunderClan medicine cat, Goosefeather, at the Sunningrocks, where he breaks his jaw. His mother, Rainflower, however, feels no sympathy for Stormkit and asks the RiverClan leader, Hailstar, to rename Stormkit to Crookedkit, and Crookedkit is left distraught by this. Crookedkit is curious of what his destiny will be, and he attempts to travel to the Moonstone. However, he gets lost and ends up at a barn instead, where he stays for a while. Mapleshade, an evil ThunderClan she-cat, talks to Crookedkit in a dream, and asks him to make a promise to be loyal to RiverClan above all other things. Crookedkit did not understand what he was promising when he made his pledge.