A brand new feline cozy from Mollie Hunt, the creator of the award-winning Crazy Cat Lady Mysteries.
I do know it’s a cliché, however I actually am excited! August seventeenth (Black Cat Appreciation Day) I’ll be launching Ghost Cat of Ocean Cove, Book One in my new Tenth Life Cozy Mystery Series.
The blurb:
A ghost cat and a chilly case homicide flip a septuagenarian’s seashore home dream right into a nightmare.
Camelia Collins and her cat Blaze transfer to the Oregon Coast to meet a lifelong dream, however that dream turns into a nightmare when Camelia learns she has bought a homicide home. The former resident, reclusive businessman Jonathan Chamber, was brutally killed on the stoop, and the killer remains to be at giant.
What’s extra, Camelia discovers an historical headstone behind her backyard belonging to a cat named Soji. Dead way back, this seventh black kitten of a seventh black kitten now returns in corporeal kind. Will Soji’s haunting assist Camelia resolve the homicide thriller or ship her screaming again to Portland?
I selected Black Cat Appreciation Day as a result of Soji, the ghost kitty that haunts my new sequence, is black. Or I suppose I ought to say, was black. Now, in spirit kind, she will seem as white mist with glowing crimson eyes in addition to her authentic black motif.
The different cat hero of the guide is Blaze, a Tuxedo cat. Tuxies are generally thought-about among the many black cat lot. They share the black cats’ drawback in shelters, typically being picked final or not being picked in any respect.
Black Cat Appreciation Day (to not be confused with National Black Cat Day) goals to dispel the unfavorable myths and superstitions which have grown up round black cats. You can rejoice by hugging your black cat, adopting a black cat; sharing about black cats on social media; and even studying a comfortable thriller about black cats!
When septuagenarian Camelia Collins fulfills her lifelong dream of transferring to the Oregon Coast, she’s in for a shock. Her actual property agent failed to say the earlier tenant was murdered on her doorstep—and three years later, the case stays unsolved!
But that’s not all.
At the again of her backyard lies the traditional headstone of a cat named Soji—now Soji’s ghost needs to come back out to play!
Read an excerpt:
As Camelia contemplated her new kitchen cupboards, she heard the lightest of plops—somebody hopping up onto the desk. She appeared round, anticipating to see Blaze, however to her shock, the floor was naked.
Humph, she grunted as she positioned gadgets on the cabinets. Then she heard the sound as soon as extra because the perpetrator jumped down, a definite plunk, adopted by the press of claws as he made his means throughout the ground.
“Blaze…” she started, turning to the sound. Though the room was awash with shadows, there have been none darkish sufficient to hide her tuxie boy. The flooring was empty of cat.
“Blaze? Is that you simply?” Her voice appeared to echo, and she or he paused, noting the trace of a waver.
Then a particular meo-rauw resounded from the lounge, and in pranced the cat in query.
“Oh, there you might be,” she mentioned too loudly as she swept him into her arms. “I used to be beginning to suppose I used to be going batty.”
Burying her face in his fur, she breathed a sigh of reduction. She massaged his spine and scratched his sideburns, eliciting a rumbling purr that rose to audible proportions within the quiet of the approaching evening.
Suddenly the purr lower off mid-rumble, and the large cat tensed. Struggling out of Camelia’s grasp, he gained the ground with one lengthy leap. Ears again and mouth open, he circled like a wildcat. After two full rounds, he stopped, going through the murky nook. Next, he did one thing Camelia had by no means seen the mild feline do earlier than—he arched his lengthy again and started to hiss like a Halloween cat.
Camelia stared with out comprehension. “What is it, Blaze? What are you ?”
Understandably, he didn’t reply, however the hissing ceased as abruptly because it had begun, and now he simply eyed the place with deep suspicion.
Camelia adopted his gaze, peering into the gloom however not detecting something other than the darkish.
The very darkish.
Darker than it must be…
Suddenly a form started to coalesce towards the blackness. A wave of vertigo hit Camelia full power, and she or he grabbed the sting of the desk to maintain herself from falling. “This can’t be!” she whispered into the gloom. It was inconceivable! There was no means she may very well be seeing what was proper earlier than her eyes!
A cat made from mist, white and vaporous as smoke but unquestionably current. Camelia might select each hair, each whisker. The almond eyes glowed crimson, and she or he gasped in terror. Then the entire thing flip-flopped—the white switched to black and the crimson eyes to emerald inexperienced. All ghostly countenance vanished, resolving right into a fairly normal-looking black cat.
Blaze sunk right into a loaf place, his ears perked ahead in curiosity slightly that concern. Camelia watched in morbid fascination to see what would occur subsequent.
The black cat noticed the pair with an enigmatic stare, then opened her mouth right into a grand yawn which climaxed in a delicate—and really actual—mew. She gave a gradual blink, a love blink, and abruptly Camelia’s terror vanished.
“Soji?” she provided, for who else might or not it’s however the ghost cat of Ocean Cove?
Then, simply when Camelia thought she had recovered from the shock of seeing a specter in her kitchen, she received a second shock.
“Yes,” Soji answered in completely comprehensible English. “It is I.”
