Cat's Cradle Book 1: The Golden Twine by Jo Rioux

Suri, an orphan who tags along with a traveling caravan, longs to be a monster tamer.  Monster tamers protect Galatea from monsters slipping into the valley from the mountains.  Suri has never met a real monster, until a series of strange events cause Suri to be running from her life from a clan of caitsiths (cat-like monsters).

This was a promising beginning.  I liked Suri a lot.  She's spunky and determined, but also clearly lonely.  She doesn't really seem to know much about her family or where she came from.  Her desire to be a monster tamer seems to come from stories she knows about her birth, and how she came from the mountains where the monsters live.  Is this story true, or was she just making it up to impress the other kids?  It's unclear.

Suri has accidentally come into possession of a magical ball of golden twine the caitsiths use to make themselves appear human, and now they're after her.  Suri doesn't realize that the twine is what they want.

Suri makes some monster friends who aren't trying to kill her, and after finding that her caravan has left without her, she decides to travel on with them.  The first book ends with the caitsiths, in human disguise, put the prince on the trail of the monsters Suri is traveling with.

What will happen next!  I will be waiting to find out.