Today is National Tortie Cat Day (or Tortoisehell Cat Appreciation Day). If you’ve ever had a tortie, you’re probably celebrating in your heart. I am. What is a tortie (or tortoiseshell) cat? They sort of look like a calico without the white and the colors (black, grey, brown and a light or dark shade of orange) are not organized over the fur, but mixed all together forming a mottled look—dappled, speckled. Some say torties are born with attitude—torti-tude. Those I’ve known had little minds of their own. Some torties are a bit sassy at times, but mostly, in my experience, they have a sweetnes ..read more

Do you have friends who still offer their cats the freedom of the out of doors? I imagine you have neighbors who do. I now have six neighborhood cats visiting my yard pretty much on a daily basis. Two coming from one neighbor, one each from two other neighbors and two cats that I don’t know where they belong. They’re all beautiful, well-cared-for cats. That, I’m glad to see, and Olivia and I enjoy seeing cats in the yard. So far, they’re mannerly and fun to watch. But I sure do worry about their safety, as I’m sure you do about the cats roaming free in your neighborhood. There seems to be no m ..read more

For those of you who missed the announcements, we have two new books for your spring reading pleasure almost back-to-back. Maybe you noticed that we came out with two books in January—Olivia’s Perilous Curtain Call (Book 18 of Olivia’s series) on January 18 and Meow or Never (Book 68 or the Klepto Cat series) on January 31. Well, we did it again in March. I published The Good, the Bad, and Olivia (Book 19) on March 11 and Within Paw’s Reach (Book 69 in the Klepto Cat Mystery series) on March 26. So what’s happening now in the factory? Promotion, of course, and, yup, we have two more books in t ..read more

April 6—tomorrow—is National Siamese Cat Day. If you’re like most long-time cat people, you’ve either had a Siamese cat or knew one well. My grandmother had Siamese cats as I grew up. Hers were the applehead or traditional seal point or classic Siamese. I adopted (rescued) a cat once that had the Siamese markings. In fact Siamese cats were quite popular and you saw a lot of them around, but then they all looked pretty much the same—cream-colored fur with dark brown points. The body style was similar, too. Today there are many styles of Siamese cats, the applehead, classic, wedge head and they ..read more

Every once in a while I celebrate unusual and little-known cats in this blog. I’ll focus on a new or unusual breed or write about an obscure wild cat. Some of you know that one of my favorite wildcats is the Pallas cat. It’s one of the world’s most unusual cats and one that I’m not sure has ever to this day been tamed. This week, I heard of another wild cat for the first time. The Kellas cat. There is a lot of controversy and mis-information out there about this cat. Here’s a link where the author tries to sort it all out. https://www.prettylitter.com/blog/kellas-hybrid-cat Basically, the Kell ..read more

Rags delights in this sweet and spirited story. Valuables are going missing in an upscale neighborhood. Even the authorities are at a loss in this quirky mystery. So they call in Rags, and he sniffs out the very surprising culprit. While on duty, Rags alerts the detective to a heinous crime taking place in their midst and manages to free a battered woman.  He saves a group of children from a boisterous dog, then helps in the dog’s time of need. He sounds the alarm that results in the capture of a criminal on the loose, and he changes the heart of a man who had lost his way.   ..read more

I don’t always realize it when it’s happening, but I do quite a bit of teaching in my fiction books. Maybe it’s because of my background—forty years writing nonfiction articles and books. I can’t not teach. Sometimes I don’t realize I’m doing it, but readers are starting to mention it and thank me for it and tell me how much they appreciate it. I’m so glad because, like everyone else who writes or teaches or creates art or…I want to make a difference. And part of making a difference is to share, to open minds, to offer new ideas ideas, and to  teach. I guess I do this and people are notic ..read more

I thought this was a good topic for Cuddly Kitten Day, which is tomorrow.  If there’s one thing a cat person truly loves to do it is to cuddle with a kitten or a cat. for some of us, it’s difficult and sometimes impossible to resist running your hand over a cat’s fur. But sometimes a cat doesn’t want to be petted. How do you know this? The cat might roll over and show her claws, slap your hand, bite you–either warning bites or serious bites, or she’ll just walk away. Then there are cats with preferences as to how they want to be petted. Does she enjoy light petting, rough petting and ruff ..read more

I’ve had a lot of cats over the years and some of them have unusual preferences in toys. Lily adored Beany Baby-type small stuffed toys. She especially enjoyed bringing her favorites to me each morning as a gift. She didn’t play with them, but she did decorate the house with them—dropping one here and another one there… You move one and she’d often find that toy and put it back where she had put it. Max loved those larger white mice toys with a red pompom nose. He’d play with the mouse just long enough to get that pompom off, then that became his toy. His favorite game with that pompom was to ..read more

It’s nothing serious, folks. We’ve produced 13 Klepto and Calico Mysteries per year for the last two years and 12 the year before that with a total of 87 books over the last 11 years. Pretty ambitious for someone who began her mystery-writing career in retirement, wouldn’t you say? The fact that I continue to write these fun, cozy mysteries certainly reflects my joy in doing so. So, while you may become disappointed when a book is delayed for any reason—it happens—you can bet it annoys me, as well. While all of the glitches we’ve encountered over the years have resulted in only minor delays in ..read more