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In the Book Bar: JANE DOE by Victoria Helen Stone

Neither of our silly cats was in the mood to do book poses tonight, so it was sister Sofia to the rescue, even though this book features a cat character 🙂

We got this book as an Advance Reader’s Copy at the RT Booklovers Convention in Reno, which we just returned from and which was, as always, wonderful! The book will publish on August 1, 2018.

We packed this one in our carry-on and are so glad we did; we couldn’t put it down. It’s the story of a woman named Jane who has recently lost someone very dear to her. She knows who is responsible and is hell-bent on getting revenge, however she can.

Jane keeps calling herself a sociopath, and we have to say, she is the most relatable sociopath we’ve ever encountered! As the book goes on, we found ourselves so engrossed in her story, and really rooting for her. At the same time she is plotting revenge, she meets a guy, and adopts a cat, which, of course, we loved 🙂 And they kind of pull her back into life and help her overcome her pain.

JANE DOE is a really suspenseful page-turner with an engaging main character and strong secondary characters. We give it five bonito flakes!

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In the Book Bar: WISH ME HOME by Kay Bratt

This kitty seems to be reading a lot of dog books lately!

We found this book on Audible – it was an Audible book of the day – and we couldn’t remove the ear buds for practically the length of the book. It’s about a young woman, Cara, who was orphaned at a young age and was raised by several foster families with her sister Hana. At the start of the book Cara’s running from something – we find out what much later. Her car has broken down and she’s walking along the highway, when she finds a stray dog, who basically adopts her. She decides to go to Key West, as she’s a literary gal and has always loved Hemingway, and wants to see his house. (We could so relate – that house is one of our favorite places!) So, Cara names the dog Hemmy and off they go.

They meet many strangers along their journey – most of them good people who help her out, some of them horrible. Just like in life. The book is about finding home, and eventually, she and Hemmy do just that. A home that is perfect for both of them. And the kicker – and the part we so love – is that it is Hemmy who leads her there.

Kay Bratt is a new author to us, but she reminds us of Catherine Ryan Hyde, one of our very favorite authors. We will definitely read Bratt’s other books. WISH ME HOME deserves five bonito flakes!

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In the Book Bar: SUSPECT by Robert Crais

With so many dog lovers and so many readers of crime novels, we find it strange that there aren’t more K-9 mysteries out there. Why?

Well, we were thrilled to find this one – SUSPECT by Robert Crais, which we originally found as an Audible daily deal, then loved it so much we bought the hardcover. It’s the story of Scott, a detective, and his K-9 partner, Maggie, a German shepherd who served multiple tours in Afghanistan and Iraq and who has now retired from Marine service. Both Scott and Maggie lost their former partners – Scott’s Stephanie was killed in a shoot-out, in which he nearly died as well – and Maggie’s Pete was shot by an IED sniper. The book begins with that attack, in Afghanistan. It’s an excruciating scene and I felt so much compassion for Maggie as she stood over Pete barking and whelping, doing everything she could to protect him, not to let him be taken away by medical helicopter, even though it was clear he was gone. The snipers start shooting at her as well, so she must be flown away to safety too.

At the beginning of their partnership, both Scott and Maggie are, understandably, suffering from PTSD. These are my favorite novels, where animal and human heal each other. It helps that there’s a great, page-turning suspense at the same time! Which is why we want more K-9 mysteries… Anyway, when Scott returns to his job and begins K-9 training, he spots Maggie from afar. He is supposed to be assigned a Belgian Malinois, but there is something about this German Shepherd that he connects to, he senses they share something, and he begs his Lieutenant, the wonderful, hard-exteriored but softy-at-heart Leland, to give him a chance with Maggie. Leland explains that Maggie is too afraid of loud noises to be a sufficient member of the force, and she is about to be returned; Scott is her last chance. So, Scott has his challenges cut out for him.

And of course he succeeds. What I loved was watching him train her, get her to overcome her fears. And she helps him in return. I also loved that Crais delves so deeply into his characters’ psyches, including Maggie’s. He details her progress from knowing Scott first as a guy who’s nice to her, then a real companion, and finally to her pack leader, just as Pete once was. The shoot-out that got Stephanie killed is the subject of their investigation, as the crime still hasn’t been solved. This is both a page-turning suspense and a detailed character study, and we can’t wait for more. There’s one more book involving Scott and Maggie – The Promise – though it appears to feature mainly Elvis Cole and Joe Pike, the stars of Crais’ two main mystery series. I will definitely read it. But more Scott and Maggie, please, Mr. Crais!

And, if anyone finds any other good K-9 mysteries, please let us know!

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Review: CAT AMONG THE PUMPKINS, by Mandy Morton

We’ve been reading a lot of cat cozies lately, and this is a quite original addition to our collection!

The original “cat mysteries” – written by Lilian Jackson Braun and Rita Mae Brown – involved cats as sleuths themselves, at least to an extent. Braun’s cats help their human solve the crime by giving him clues, while Brown’s cats – and other animals – actually speak to each other (though humans can’t understand them), have strong, memorable personalities, and take a very active part in solving the crimes. We personally like Brown’s Sneaky Pie series the best because we like when the animals are memorable and have main roles. It seems like most cat mysteries published lately feature cats mainly as props; they’re really not even characters. Everyone knows cats are darn smart and make excellent sleuths so we’re not sure what that’s about…

Anyway,  Mandy Morton‘s No. 2 Feline Detective Agency series is a welcome deviation from that. In this series, there are only cats; no humans and no other animals. Since the cats alone are the sleuths, they are obviously anthropomorphized. That may confuse some readers. But we find it fun!

In Cat Among Pumpkins, the second book in the series, Hettie Bagshot, a former musician, runs the agency, along with her trusty sidekick, Tilly Jenkins, an arthritic older tabby whom Hettie took in. Later, an aging outdoor tomcat named Bruiser – our favorite! – shows up tired and weary of the outdoors (though too proud to outright admit it). They let him stay in the shed out back and give him a role as driver of the motorcycle-with-sidecar, in which they do their sleuthing. These cats are all drawn so well. Hettie has a little catnip-smoking habit, while Tilly enjoys her tea 🙂

Oh, we should mention that Morton is British and the books are set in England and full of English flavor, which we loved. There’s a Guy Fawkes day celebration that the town is preparing for, and the riverside towns have Stratford-upon-Avon-type names such as Much-Purring-on-the-Rug, Much-Purring-on-the-Chair, and the like. There’s an Indian family – the Doshes – who run a store chain. The mother, Pakora, desperately wants her son, Balti, to learn to run the business, but Balti wants to play sitar professionally – and he’s quite good at it, according to musician Hettie. We enjoyed the camaraderie between Hettie and Balti.

When Mavis Spitforce, who is researching an old, unsolved mass murder, is found dead with her research papers torn up and stuffed into her mouth, Hettie and Tilly must delve back into the cold case to find the killer. Along the way, they come across a good deal of very colorful suspects. Details bring the town and its inhabitants to life and the mystery is well-paced and plotted. We did not figure it all out until the very end. But, as always for us, it’s all about the main characters. They drive the story. And we definitely want to spend more time with Hettie, Tilly, and Bruiser!

Four delicious bonito flakes!

(Above pic is of our sis, Rhea, with the book.)

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Review: LILY AND THE OCTOPUS, by Steven Rowley

This review was originally published July 9, 2017 but this is WK’s very favorite book for the past few years – yes, despite it being about a dog! So, we are putting it up at the top of our brand new Cat Cafe and Book Bar 🙂 Since, as we said, one of the main characters is a dog, we had our Sofia pose with the book 🙂 Here is the original review from our old Tumblr book blog:

Lily and the Octopus by Steven Rowley is a fitting starting book for my new blog! I found this book at my favorite local mystery bookstore, the Poisoned Pen in Scottsdale, AZ, even though it’s not a mystery. I’m a sucker for anything with a dog on the cover – and anything blurbed by Garth Stein:) So, I snatched it. And so glad I did. It became one of my favorite books of last year … well, one of my favorite books ever, actually.

It’s kind of hard to describe – mostly realistic with a slight bit of fantasy thrown in. Ted is a gay man living in Los Angeles, approaching middle age, his writing career is not going so well, he’s broken up with a long-term boyfriend, he’s not tremendously close to family. And then, his dog, Lily, his best friend in the world, becomes sick with cancer – the “octopus” which he finds one evening on her head, with its tentacles creeping down over her temples, taking root. It’s a rather fitting image of cancer. The book is basically about his dealing with this horrible impending loss.

I found myself relating to so much of Ted’s life. I’m not a gay man, but I am a writer and I lived in LA and I know too well how it feels to be stuck in your writing career, to not be in a relationship, and to have your pets be a huge part of your world, even if it’s largely a world of your own human-centric creation. Ted and Lily have movie nights, pizza nights, they have lively discussions of actors and actresses. My dog and I have different kinds of discussions – we talk about passing scenery and prior travels when we’re on road trips, people when we’re at outdoor cafes, books and news and Facebook friend updates when we’re lazing on the living room couch. She goes practically everywhere with me, she sits at my side when I read or write, we eat together, sleep together, we experience the world together. I can’t imagine losing her. It physically hurts to think about it. Everyone can relate to this book because everyone has someone they share their life with, whom they can’t imagine living without.

The book is about love, the deepest friendship imaginable, about surviving grief, and about surviving death. Ted is an agnostic throughout most of the book, but at the end, he comes to believe that Lily will experience the afterlife. He tells her to look for her mother up in heaven; she will take care of her. And, later, when he embarks on a new (human) relationship, he tells the new man the story of Lily, making Lily very happy. So, Lily will survive, as we all will, through story, though art. This book is ultimately about the power of literature, which, as the owner of Gatsby Books in Long Beach, CA, once said, connects us all through time and place.

Rowley recently toured to promote the paperback. So fabulous to meet him at Changing Hands in Phoenix!

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Sneaky Pie Brown Rules!

We are major, major fans of Rita Mae and Sneaky Pie Brown in this household! Sofia poses with the very first in the Sneaky Pie series, Wish You Were Here. The best cozy mystery / cat mystery writer around, in our humble opinion. Brown’s cats – Mrs. Murphy and Pewter – and dog, Tucker, are all so smart and their personalities really shine through. And, most importantly, they help their human solve the crimes. So often, with the current crop of cat mysteries, the cats just sit around looking cute. They have a very minor, if any role. Cats are smart! Use them, mystery writers!

Anyway, our human is working on just such a cat mystery. And, inspired by Sneaky Pie’s Tucker, and our own dear little dog, Sofia, she has decided to add a dog sleuth 🙂

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Review: DOG CRAZY, by Meg Donohue

WK found this wonderful gem used at one of her favorite bookstores, Changing Hands. Where would we be without our indie bookstores???

The cover kind of makes the novel look like cute chick lit, but it is so much deeper and more serious and it contains some of the most beautiful, visceral evocations of dog / human love and what it’s like to lose a beloved pet. Donohue has an MFA from Columbia and a BA in comparative literature from Dartmouth and it shows.

Maggie is a young psychologist specializing in pet bereavement. She’s just taken the plunge and relocated from her Philadelphia hometown to San Francisco to open her new practice when her beloved dog, Toby, is stricken with cancer and dies. She’s so traumatized that she ends up an agoraphobe (like her mother), unable to leave her house. One of her new clients is Anya, whose brother has hired Maggie to help his sister overcome the loss of her dog. Anya’s dropped out of school and lost her job over her trauma. Problem is, Anya doesn’t want to overcome her dog’s death because she believes her dog is still alive but has been kidnapped. No one in Anya’s family believes her and Maggie is unsure whether the dog is still alive but is compelled by Anya’s deep convictions to help her search. In order to do that, she, of course, must go out of her home, which she does initially with the help of her friend’s therapy dog, Giselle, then with the help of Anya.

The story is part mystery – is Anya’s dog still alive?, part story of friendship between the two young women, and part psychological journey to mental wellness. You just know Maggie will end up with one of the many dogs she helps along her journey – from the stray, to the rescue with behavioral problems preventing his adoption, to Giselle the therapy dog – and you’re rooting for her to take one into her home and love him like she did Toby.

It’s a wonderful book particularly for anyone suffering the loss of a pet who needs to know they are far from alone.

Sofia, our dog, poses with the book, and she gives it five scrumptious bonito flakes!

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Review: PURR M FOR MURDER, by T.C. LoTempio

Purr M For Murder is a really sweet cozy mystery and is the first, that I know of anyway, that is set in a cat cafe! Ms. Witty Kitty would so love to open her own cat cafe someday, so she was overjoyed when she saw the back-cover blurb on this one!

It’s actually set in a Deer Park, North Carolina cat rescue called Friendly Paws, which is owned by sleuth Sydney’s sister, Kat, but in order to raise funds for the rescue, the sisters organize a cat event in a local cafe (which is how the current craze of cat cafes in the U.S. began :)) Well, everyone in the small town is super excited for the cat cafe event, thinking it’s a fabulous idea for a fundraiser – which of course it is – except for Kat’s landlord, Trowbridge Littleton (what a great name!), who promises to do everything he can to keep the event from happening. He also owns an art gallery down the street, and, when Sydney shows up there to try to convince him to reconsider, she finds Kat already there, along with Trowbridge’s dead body. Sydney now has to prove her sister’s innocence and find the real killer. Of course Trowbridge is not very liked among the townspeople, so there are lots of possibilities for who the real killer is, and LoTempio keeps us guessing until the end.

I found all of the characters delightful, as well as the well-described setting, and Sydney is a savvy, endearing sleuth you really want to root for. What I always love about cat or dog mysteries, though, is watching the animal help solve the crime. Here, an orange tabby named Toby performs that function quite well. Toby is a bit of a wandering tom whose ways leads him to see certain things, making him very helpful to the woman whom it seems will become his chosen human, sleuth Sydney.

This is a fun cat cozy and only the first in what I hope will become a long series. Five delicious bonito flakes!

Above sister Katusha checks out our copy of the book, which WK found at the Scottsdale Civic Library’s little Friends of the Library bookstore.

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Review: A TALE OF TWO KITTIES, by Sofie Kelly

Sister Katusha poses with our copy of the book, which we bought at Poisoned Pen Bookstore in Scottsdale, AZ.

Witty Kitty loved this cozy mystery set in a library and starring two cats with magical powers. Cats who can do magic – what could be more enchanting! Kathleen Paulson, head librarian in small town Mayville Heights, MN, finds the estranged father of a good friend, Simon, bludgeoned to death. It falls on her – and her cats – to prove to the head detective, Marcus, who happens to be Kathleen’s love interest – innocent. It is well known by the townspeople that Simon fought viciously with his father, and he has a motive and little alibi, so Kathleen’s got her work cut out for her.

As for the two cats: Hercules, a tuxedo cat, has the ability to walk through walls, and Owen, his grey tabby brother, the power to disappear at will. (Lots of cats seem to have that power :)) Kelly creatively makes good use of the cats’ magical powers in helping to solve the crime.

This was my first Sofie Kelly book – she has several in the “Magical Cats” series. I found the town to be well described, making me feel like I lived there, and the characters, including the minor ones, well drawn, making me feel like they were my friends. Kathleen is smart and resourceful, as you’d expect of a librarian, and easy to root for, and the mystery was adequately suspenseful without the murderer coming from out of nowhere, like I’ve seen in too many cozy mysteries lately. Kathleen ends up solving not on the the killing at hand but a crime from the past as well.

WK gives this one five bonito flakes!