The Fun Books: A New Addition

 

Book #3 Have Cats -- Will Crime-Solve releases October 1, 2024. Here's the universal link to buy it from your favorite book site in paperback or e-book. The audio book is in progress. I'll keep you posted.

    https://books2read.com/u/md2D5R

Or you can ask for it at a book store. 

Or you can ask your local librarian to get it for you.

The Cats & Crimes books are fun to write for several reasons. First, Lorilee is my age, so we share some views on life. She spent her working years in public service with family services; I was a public school teacher. Like me, she's of the opinion that people can be irritating when they refuse to educate themselves, think things through, and consider the feelings of others.

Second, I get to write about cats, which is always a plus for me. I love pulling stories of cats I've known into the books, and I also talk to cat lovers everywhere to get more anecdotes. Lorilee takes in strays and adopts cats with issues that make them hard to place. I enjoy stopping at shelters and talking with staff members who provide ideas for subplots, like the cat at one shelter who wandered into a delivery truck and ended up all the way across the state.

Third, I like Jess, Lorilee's ward. As a teacher, I often dealt with kids I would have liked to take home with me, so they could be who they wanted to be. Girls whose families focused on their brothers and considered daughters little more than servants. Boys whose fathers expected them to play football when they'd rather have worked on the yearbook. Kids who came to school stressed after a night of listening to alcohol-fueled fighting between their parents. In this series, Jess gets the chance to choose his own way, not his dad's, and I get to help a kid from a dysfunctional family--at least in fiction.

And fourth, I enjoy the comedy I can include in my cozy mysteries. In the Sleuth Sisters Mysteries, the humor comes from sister interactions. In Trailer Park Tales, it's husbands and wives, balancing love with daily irritation. There are never hard-boiled detectives who beat someone senseless to make them cooperate. There are no complicated plot-lines that don't really make sense in the end. My cozies focus on a mystery that needs solving, and in Cats & Crimes, an odd but compatible duo who have the drive to make it happen...as soon as they finish feeding those eight cats.