A Midwinter's Tail by Sofie Kelly: Guest Author, Review & Giveaway

The Cat is in the Details

By Sofie Kelly

Because the Magical Cats Mysteries have several cats as characters, I have a lot of facts about cats in my files. But I’d probably know a lot of these things anyway. I like cats and I like interesting bits of information. So how many of these cat facts did you know?

A group of cats is called a clowder. (Probably evolved from the word clutter.)

The Encyclopedia of Cats says there are more cats than dogs in North America. (Since there are also more women than men in North America could the two be connected?) The goddess, Bast has the body of a woman and the head of a cat. Cats have about a dozen whiskers on each side, which function as touch receptors.

According to How Stuff Works, cats don’t have true collar bones like we do, which is why they can squeeze through very narrow openings. A cat’s nose pad is ridged with a unique pattern, just like the fingerprint of a human.

Cats purr at the same frequency as an idling diesel engine. Most cats are lactose intolerant. A female cat is called a molly. Cats have no taste buds for sweetness. (Which explains, along with the lactose intolerance, why cats don’t eat a pint of Mocha Fudge ice cream when they’re having a bad day.)

A house cat can run faster than the worlds fastest man, Usain Bolt—about 30 mph versus about 27 mph at Bolt’s fastest. A 3 oz can of fancy feast has on average les than 90 calories.

According to the book What Cats Are Made Of, cats make close to 100 different sounds. Dogs make about ten. (I’m not saying that means cats are ten times smarter. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.)

********************

Giveaway: Leave a comment by noon eastern on Monday, October 13th for your chance to win a copy of A Midwinter's Tail. (US entries only, please.)

Blurb: Kathleen Paulson is snowed under running her library and caring for her extraordinary felines, Owen and Hercules. But when a fund-raiser turns deadly, she’ll have to add sleuthing to her already full schedule....

Winter in Mayville Heights is busy and not just because of the holidays. Kathleen is hard at work organizing a benefit to raise money for the library’s popular Reading Buddies program. She has her hands full hosting the event. And when a guest at the gala drops dead, her magical cats, Owen and Hercules, will have their paws full helping her solve a murder.

The victim is the ex of town rascal Burtis Chapman, but she hasn’t lived in the area in years. And though everybody is denying knowledge of why she was back in town, as Kathleen and her detective boyfriend, Marcus, begin nosing around, they discover more people are connected to the deceased than claimed to be. Now Marcus, Kathleen, and her uncanny cats have to unravel this midwinter tale before the case gets cold.

Tortie Shorties

Book reviews that are short and sweet...just like Truffles!

The Magical Cats Mystery series is quite simply, pure magic. Owen and Hercules are back for their 4th adventure in A Midwinter's Tail and more adorable and clever than ever.

It's the holiday season in Mayville Heights and Kathleen is keeping busy planning a fundraiser for the library's Reading Buddies program for kids. The rumor mill is in overdrive over Dayna, the ex-wife of Burtis Chapman, who left town 20 years ago and never came back. Then in the middle of the fundraiser she drops dead after eating chocolate truffles that were coated in pistachio oil. Chocolatier Olivia Ramsey swears there were no nuts in her kitchen because she has a nut allergy of her own. Poor Kathleen has no choice but to refund everybody's money and risk losing the program that means so much to her and the town.

In previous books Owen seemed to steal the show with his Fred the Funky Chicken toys, but in this book Hercules has received a little purple catnip mouse that he just adores and Owen is jealous. The hijinks between these two had me laughing out loud. Plus Hercules aversion to getting his paws wet takes an even more humorous turn when there's snow on the ground!

I love how this series has ongoing storylines from each book to the next, including the various romances and especially the care of a local feral cat colony. Rich characters, a cozy setting, and two extra special felines make this one of the best cat mystery series on the shelves today.