Victoria Holmes revealed in an AuthorTracker email that she had developed the general idea for the book quickly, but it took a while to find the right ending.

The Clan experiences internal conflict regarding house cats who train in SkyClan during the day, but leave at night to return to their human owners.

Later, four loners, Stick, Cora, Coal and Shorty, cats that Firestar met on his quest also become a topic of debate in the Clan.

The major themes in the book are rebellion and the fact that SkyClan has to figure its destiny without the help of other Clans or their warriors ancestors.

One day, Leafstar receives a dream from Spottedleaf, an old medicine cat of ThunderClan who helped SkyClan when Firestar first reformed the Clan.

There she realizes that the loners came to recruit help to defeat a group of cats that steal prey in their town.

Returning to her Clan, Leafstar sets up rules for visiting cats in order to prevent any future conflicts.

The review also praised how well developed the characters are and the book has "a range of emotions and thoughts that draw readers into their dilemmas".