Are My Psycho Kitties From Another Planet? by Joan Donaldson-Yarmey

https://www.bookswelove.com/shop/p/the-criminal-streak

https://www.bookswelove.com/shop/p/betrayed

On the evening of June 24^th, 2025, I arrived home in Edmonton, Alberta, from a dragon boat festival in Vancouver, B.C, just in time to celebrate my husband’s and my anniversary on August 25^th. I found a message from my son about two ten-year-old cats whose owner had died unexpectedly. No one in the family wanted them and they were going to be euthanized if no one else took them. My husband and I had put our eighteen-year-old cat to sleep a month before and had decided we wouldn’t be getting any more pets because it is so hard to say goodbye to them. However, it didn’t seem right that these sisters should die through no fault of their own. So hubby and I decided our anniversary gift would be to adopt them and I called the number. It was arranged that we would pick them up on August 26^th.

For our anniversary we decided to go out for dinner but he had to go help our daughter and didn’t make it back in time so we went to pick up KFC. While we waited for our order I tried to fill up our drinks but the Pepsi syrup ran out and I only got carbonated water. I waited while the tanks were changed. Carbonated water came out for the first bit and I kept dumping it out while waiting for the syrup. Then the power went out. Luckily, we did get our chicken order but our drinks were kind of anaemic.

When we got home, we found our power was out also, so we had a romantic meal by twilight. The power came on about an hour later and we had to reset our clocks. My husband couldn’t get the one on our gas stove to work and somehow he locked the oven door while trying.

We picked up our cats on the 26th. One, renamed Lovey, snooped around and settled in. The other, renamed Trixie, went and hid under the bed. Over the next few weeks, Lovely adopted me and Trixie adopted hubby. After spending their lives in an apartment, it took them a while to venture out into our back yard. But once they were comfortable, they wanted to go out every morning and we had to leave the door open all day so they could come and go as they pleased. They weren't impressed when the cold and snow came.

Lovely likes to sit with me on my chair and she purrs loudly and sleeps soundly. She follows me around the house and waits at the top of the stairs when I go down to the basement. Sometimes she goes down with me. At night she sleeps against my legs or face to face and she licks my arms and purrs. Trixie likes to purr on hubby's lap in the evening and rubs his face with hers. She goes out to the garage with him and sleeps on the chair. At night she sleeps with her head against his.

We naturally thought, that being sisters, they would get along. But no. They growl and hiss at each other when they walk by, they swipe at each other if one gets too close, they tease by blocking the door so the other one can’t leave or come back in the house. They hiss at each other from across the room.

And we are not safe. As I said, Lovely likes to sit on my knee when I am in my chair. However, if I want to move her so I can stand up, she hisses and growls at me then walks across the living room hissing and growling at anything she sees. Trixie will let hubby pet her for a while and then swats his hand or claws him when she has had enough. If we walk too fast past them, they growl, grab at our legs, and even chase us while yowling.

So, the questions are: have they been taken over by aliens from another planet? has some evil entity taken possession of them? or are they just psycho? After all, we only have the word of a person we met for half an hour, while picking them up, that their owner had died, that they were ten-year-old sisters, and that they'd lived in an apartment all their lives. We really know nothing about their previous life. And they aren't telling us anything. Lol 

Why Have Animals As Characters? by Victoria Chatham

 

AVAILABLE HERE

I love all animals. Even little critters, like frogs. They give me the creeps, but I find them fascinating. By far my favourite animals are horses and dogs, and more recently, cats. Animals have long had their place in literature.

Think Bolingbroke’s horse Barbary from Shakespeare’s King Richard II or grey Capilet in Twelfth Night. There is, of course, the ubiquitous Black Beauty by Anna Sewell, Don Quixote’s Rocinante, and Marguerite Henry’s Sham from her book King of the Wind. Zane Grey named many of the horses in his western novels, as did Louis L’Amour. Smoky, Ginger, Merrylegs, Artax, The Black, Joey are names that I have known and love from the stories in which they appeared.

Who can forget Buck from Call of the Wild, or Bulls Eye, Bill Sikes’ dog from Oliver Twist, and didn’t we all love Perdita and Pongo, the Dalmatians from 101 Dalmatians? Stephen King’s Cujo might have given some of us nightmares, as did The Hound of the Baskervilles, but I don’t mind betting cute little Peg from Lady and the Tramp had you smiling again. Cats, albeit to a lesser degree, also have their place in literature, such as Crookshanks from the Harry Potter tales, Tab from Watership Down and all those marvellous cat characters from T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. Old Deuteronomy, Rumpleteazer, Rum Tum Tugger all appeared in the musical Cats.

Lennard

I write historical and contemporary western romance novels, so it's almost impossible for me not to include animal characters. In my cozy mystery series, my amateur sleuth, Winnie Hatherall, has a lovable big mixed-breed dog named Lennard. How did my Regency Lord get from his London residence to his country estate? He either drove his team himself or was driven by his coachman. A team of four horses, plus a couple of park hacks in town and hunters in the country, added up to a minimum of a stable of eight horses. The better those horses were kept, the longer they were of service, so would all have been named and known as individuals.

What I try to bring to my pages when I write horses into my novels is how that particular animal impacts my hero or heroine. They usually have a part to play in showing off my characters’ skills, as they do for Emmaline in His Dark Enchantress. In Shell Shocked, set at the end of World War 1, the dog, Bella, helps her master recuperate from his experiences at the front. In my contemporary western romances, what cowboy does not have a horse, and often a dog, both for work and company?

Animals, real or imagined, help ground us humans with their sense of immediacy, of being in the here and now. Animals add so much to my life, and I want that for my characters, too.

Victoria Chatham

AT BWL PUBLISHING INC

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Did a cop write this story? by Dean Hovey

By now, I hope everyone knows D.L. Dixen's resumé includes experience in the criminal justice system bringing added depth to my nerdy science background. She suggested the book's title and many of the scenes and characters are seasoned by her life experiences. She shared a recent discussion she'd had with a law enforcement officer who heard the book's title and asked, "Did a cop write this?" The title sounds like something one officer would say to another when discussing a death scene with no obvious cause of death.That's exactly where this book starts. Our Pine County investigators are called to "The Dusty Muskie Bar and Event Center" where one of the previous Night's customers decided he was too intoxicated to drive home so he slept on a cot in the back room. When the owner tried to wake him the next morning, he was unresponsive. When CJ, Pam. and Floyd arrive they determine that "sleeping beauty" woke up dead. The Medical Examiner's initial assessment shows no foul play. As Pam and CJ dig deeper, they become suspicious of that determination.The story twists on from there as we throw in check washing, a bank robbery, a drug deal gone wrong, and a suspicious dysfunctional family with two sons on probation. CJ and Pam's personal lives intrude on the investigation when Pam's husband wins the (equine) grand prize in a 4-H raffle. There are a few laughs, a bit of cursing, a few tears, and a few tense moments as the investigation takes unexpected turns.Check it out on Amazon, of join us for one of our summer book events in Askov, Milaca, Moose Lake, Cambridge, White Bear Lake, Sandstone and more! https://www.amazon.com/dp/0228640520 Print https://www.amazon.com/stores/Dean-L.-Hovey/author/B00J78JMLY

The Mystery of Old Economy Village, by Diane Scott Lewis

 

A young adult haunted house story. Five stars from Long and Short Reviews! They were thrilled by the novella.

To purchase, click HERE

Today's post is about a visit I took with my husband and best friend to Old Economy Village, an historic site near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I hope you find it interesting.

The village was founded by German Lutheran separates in the 19th century. A sect that formed to create a utopian society, waiting for the second coming of the Messiah. 

Visitors can explore several historic buildings, original artifacts, and learn about their culture.

George Rapp led the group. He began preaching in his native Germany. When he split from the Lutheran Church he was banned from preaching. He called himself a prophet and defied the church. His subsequent persecution forced him to flee to the United States with his followers in 1803.

He preached celibacy to keep the group pure as they waited for the Messiah. They didn't believe in procreation, and that was their downfall. Pretty soon they died out.

Rapp died in the village in 1847

Here is my husband talking to our guide

The society was self-sufficient. A sawmill, tannery, distillery. We even took part in rope making. I can't find the picture I took of that.

They nurtured beautiful gardens and grew their own food.

Harmonist church-another society in Harmony, PA, founded by Rapp

They were nonviolent pacifists who refused to serve in the military. Following the literal teachings of the New Testament, as interpreted by Rapp, they believed Jesus would come again and a thousand years of peace would ensue. Their experiment failed.

Rapp was sometimes called a tyrant and was sued by former members for compensation, so not everything was peaceful.

The village is mostly intact and welcomes visitors. A fascinating excursion.

A recent storm sent a tree onto one of the buildings, crushing it. Sorry to hear that.

Find out more about me and my books

                                         

Diane lives in western Pennsylvania with one naughty Dachshund

A time before ready meals...by Sheila Claydon

 

Find my books here

This is the cover for my new book, due to be published in May. As usual, BWL has come up with a great cover. The four leaf clover features throughout the story in one way or another, so it really is a case of 'it does what it says on the tin.' The cover is the easy bit though. Editing it has been an altogether different matter.

The first half of the book is set in 1979. The second half, six years later. Also, to confuse matters further, I wrote it some time in the 1980s, which was, as the introduction says; 'a time before ready meals, before takeaway coffees. A time when a microwave oven was considered the latest in technology. A time when we used maps to navigate, reference books for research, and learned phone numbers off by heart.'

I discovered the manuscript, which I had never tried to have published, when I was clearing our loft space. I immediately sat down to read it, ignoring all the dust and spider webs as it took me back in time to when I was a young mother, at home all day, looking after small children. The further I read, the more I identified with Joanne, the heroine, even though her life was very different from mine. She, too, dialled numbers on a phone that was attached by cable to a land line. She travelled by bus. If she was late home then the meal her mother had cooked her was dried out in the oven. Teashops were more usual than coffee shops. Sunday lunch was sacrosanct, and holidays were never in hotels but in guest houses in seaside towns. I remembered, too, what it was like to meet someone more sophisticated and not want to lose face, which is something that happens to Joanne.

Her life and relationships are certainly not mine, but it was clear that in those far off days my observations and early memories had shaped the story. 

Trying to re-write it for the present day would not have worked. Life and how people handled relationships were so different then. With no cell phones or Internet, people had to meet up to talk. And they had to rely on physical clues...will she let me kiss her....does that mean she wants me to leave...why is he looking at me like that? No dating apps. No texting. No sexting. And interestingly, far more freedom to risk a kiss than is possible in today's 'me too' world.

So instead of attempting a re-write, I began to edit and polish what would be a retro book. By the time I sent it off to the editor I was feeling quite pleased with myself. It was a good story wrapped up in an unintended history lesson. Then it came back and the editor's criticisms and suggestions made me look at it anew with a much more critical eye. She was right. I did need to change the tense in quite a few places. I did need to tighten up the dialogue. And where she got it wrong I needed to revisit to see why, and then rephrase. 

It's been an interesting exercise. I have not only learned to read an older manuscript much more critically, especially one that I had forgotten about, but I have also realised how much better a writer I have become over the years. My later books get few editorial comments. My writing is tighter, and my characters leap straight from my imagination onto the page instead of me having to work at developing them. 

So now all I have to do is decide whether to write a new story, or whether to defy the spiders and go hunting in that loft space again.