Release of The Mythmakers!

We are beyond thrilled that today is the release of book 5 in the Miss Cuddlywumps Investigates series!

In "The Mythmakers," I, Miss Cuddlywumps, am the hero, obviously, as I match wits with some people who are making myths the modern way, on YouTube. Too bad at least one of these mythmakers is apparently not above killing, for reasons that are not entirely clear until the very end of the book. Also, my Rory person spends a little time being held at the sheriff's department as a "person of interest." Sort of makes you wonder what's going to happen between her and her boyfriend, the sheriff, doesn't it?

For a limited time, "The Mythmakers" Kindle edition is available for just 99 cents from Amazon.

Also for a limited time, "The Mythmakers" print edition is available for $8.00--that's 20% off our regular price and nearly 40% off the Amazon price, and it's available only if you buy directly from Cuddlywumps Publishing. Don't forget to ask for my pawtograph!

Cat of the Week: Hopey in Baltimore

November is Adopt a Senior Pet Month! There’s no better time to welcome an older cat into your home.

Each week in this space, we feature an older adult or senior cat (7 years +) in need of adoption or sponsorship. Mature cats make great companions, and unlike kittens, they (probably) won’t climb the curtains! Adopt an older cat, and help them enjoy the best years of their life.

Today, we’re introducing Hopey, a 7-year-old black-and-white lady who has such unique markings on her cute face. We think she looks sort of like her paw slipped while she was applying mascara around her right eye. And she has a cute little stump tail too! Hopey had trouble adjusting to all the stresses of the shelter, but thankfully she has been able to go to a foster home where she can settle in in peace. She does like to snuggle on someone’s lap, and she enjoys getting butt scratches. She has lived with a dog and a child before.

Hopey is currently in a foster home through the Baltimore Humane Society. Learn more about her here.

Can’t adopt? You can still help! Check out Sammy’s Cat Necessities Fund, which provides money for everyday and medical needs of cats at the Baltimore Humane Society. You can also make a general donation or sponsor a particular animal on this page. Every little bit helps!

Book Review: Familiar Motives

On this Mysterious Monday, we bring you our review of book 3 of Delia James’s Witch’s Cat mystery series, Familiar Motives. As the series title indicates, this book features plenty of witches and a couple of pretty terrific cats. It is the first book we have read in this series, but we had no trouble getting right into the story.

The plot

Annabelle Amelia Blessingsound Britton is an artist and a witch—well, an apprentice witch; she’s new to the craft. She is from an old New England family and lives in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. She also has a gift she calls her “Vibe,” with which she can sense emotional vibrations resulting from dramatic events—murder, for example. This gift comes in handy when a local veterinarian, Ramona Forsythe, meets an unfortunate end under mysterious circumstances. Ramona’s death is bad, obviously, but also bad is the disappearance of Ruby, a cat better known as Attitude Cat. Attitude Cat is the spokesfeline for a cat food line, and her disappearance has pet lovers in a tizzy as “Where is Attitude Cat?” becomes the question to be answered.

For Anna and the rest of her coven, though, there are two additional big questions: “Who killed Ramona?” and “Which witch was involved?”

See, Ramona was also a witch, and she was trusted with taking care of the “special” pets in town—such as Anna’s feline familiar (more on him later). She had “wards” on her home to protect it, and they were shattered by another witch ... a witch who might just have killed the vet and snatched the famous cat she was keeping at her home for a few days. Anna’s witchcraft mentor, Julia, is livid to know that a witch may have had something to do with Ramona’s death, and she announces to the coven that they will be searching for that witch—and doing whatever they have to do to get justice for Ramona.

There are plenty of non-witch suspects as well, as Ramona might have been disposed of simply to get her out of the way so Ruby could be stolen. Possible motives include greed and a possible conspiracy to cover up a big problem with that pet food company (in other words, greed again). Because there is a big chunk of money involved with Ruby.

The cats

The main cat in Familiar Motives is Anna’s familiar, Alistair. He’s a big gray cat who is able to disappear at will, a skill that is both useful to Anna and sometimes kind of a pain. (You know how sometimes you can’t find your cat and she’s just hiding under the bed? Well, imagine if she was able to vanish into thin air and go anywhere.)  Alistair is important to the plot and plays a major role, as Anna assigns him the task of finding Ruby. Ruby is a black-and-white cat who became sort of accidentally famous when her human took her to a photo shoot on a whim. Now she’s a Very Big Deal and is worth quite a lot of money. Obviously she is extremely important since she is the one who gets cat-napped, but we don’t actually see a lot of her since she is also, you know, missing for most of the book. We do like how she gives ladies’ man Alistair the brush-off early in the book!

Our verdict

Familiar Motives is truly a great cozy. We loved reading about how Anna’s magical abilities affect her life, and the descriptions of how she senses emotional energy were engrossing. The final confrontation had us turning pages like mad, but even before that we enjoyed the delicious tension between so many of the characters—and within characters as they deal with internal struggles. For example, should a cop who’s also a witch use magic to help solve a crime? (Answer: no.) Should Anna tell her family that she is a witch? (Answer: undetermined—or at least, I’m not going to tell you.) The mystery is well crafted, and we enjoyed meeting Alistair and seeing him play such a vital role in the plot. He is an excellent cat. He should really find himself one girlfriend and stick with her though, instead of falling for every female feline he meets!

We will have to find time to go back and read this series from the start. Recommended!

A note on the "Paws Up" system: Miss C gives either one or two paws up. One paw is for a good read; two paws is for a great read. She never gives three or four paws because that would require her to lie on her back...and Miss C does not do that!

The link below is an Amazon Associates link. If you purchase the book through this link, old SoLT and I could get some coin for our kibble account. Thank you!

Sunday Selfie: Real Cat Webster

Real Cat Webster did this week's Sunday Selfie. He took this selfie of him sitting with his mommy (old SoLT) the night she returned from her recent trip. He was so happy she was home!

We're joining the Sunday Selfies blog hop, hosted by The Cat on My Head.

Caturday Art: Real Cats Webster and Paisley

We kept things simple for Caturday Art this week, using just one quick effect from Lunapic. It's the Edtaonisl art effect, with an added 3-D canvas border:

We had no idea what Edtaonisl meant, so of course we googled it and learned that it is the sort of made-up title of a 1913 painting by Francis Picabia (whom we had never heard of before, so that shows you how much we know about art history!). You can find out more from the Art Institute of Chicago.

And here is the original of our picture. It is a pretty crummy photo by old SoLT that does not do the Real Cats justice at all!

We're pleased to be joining the Caturday Art blog hop, hosted by Athena and Marie!

Words with Webster: Thermoneutral Zone, Plus Friendly Fill-Ins

We have two fun Friday features for you today. First up is Real Cat Webster, who has a  scientific word to share. After that, it’s on to Friendly Fill-Ins!

Words with Webster

Hi, everybody! It’s me, Real Cat Webster. Welcome to Words with Me. Today’s word is “thermoneutral zone.” I know, technically that’s two words, but just go with it, okay? It’s also called TNZ for short, so let’s just call it that from now on. If you’re curious like I am (you’ve heard of curiosity and the cat?), you are probably wondering what TNZ is. Well, I found out from part of a scientific paper that it’s “the range of ambient temperatures without regulatory changes in metabolic heat production or evaporative heat loss.”

Whatever that means, right?

In plain English, the TNZ—and I’m speaking strictly in relation to cats, because that’s all that really matters—is a range of temperatures where a cat doesn’t have to use any energy to get cooler or warmer. In other words, it’s when the temperature is absolutely purrfect. For cats, this Zone of Purrfection is between 85 and 100 degrees Fahrenheit (or 86 to 97 degrees, according to some sources). In the past couple of years, you may have come across this tidbit in various stories about why cats love boxes. One possible explanation is that a box holds in some body heat and helps the cat maintain that Zone of Purrfection. Purrsonally, I don’t care much for boxes, so I can’t say whether this is true or not.

I looked into the history of “thermoneutral” in the Oxford English Dictionary and found out it goes back to the 1960s. The quotes are all scientific and stuff, like this one from Respiration Physiology:

The thermoneutral skin temperature zone for fasting adult sheep has been found to be 33–35°C as determined by immersion in a water bath. (I.30, 1966)

That just makes me wonder what they did to the poor sheep, because I’m guessing that sheep did not ask to go on a fast or be immersed in a water bath.

Anyway, “thermoneutral” is from the Greek θερμός (thermos, meaning “hot”) and the French/Latin neutral/neutralis (meaning “not taking part in war; not taking sides” and “neither masculine nor feminine; not belonging to either side,” respectively).

As long as I was in the OED, I looked up “zone,” and then I got kind of confused because there are a whole bunch of definitions. The one that best fits our needs is “a definite region or area … distinguished from adjacent regions by some special quality or condition (indicated by a defining word or phrase).” The quotes for this meaning were all boring scientific things, so I picked this one from ca. 1500 that’s about zones of the earth:

For thre zones shal he fynde Where no man may lyue in one kynde One is hote and colde are two. (Hist. K. Boccus & Sydracke)

“Zone” is from the Latin zona, from the Greek ζώνη, meaning “girdle.”

So, the TNZ for cats might also be called the Girdle of Purrfection, which I think is a much better name thermo-whatever.

And now, after all that scientific stuff, please enjoy this picture of a cat in a box, enjoying his or her Girdle or Zone of Purrfection:

Friendly Fill-Ins

And now it’s time for Friendly Fill-Ins, from 15andmeowing and McGuffy’s Reader. They are a fun way to learn a little bit about the authors of the blogs you read. The first two questions, answered by Real Cat Paisley this week, are from Ellen of 15andmeowing, and the next two, answered by old SoLT, are from Annie of McGuffy’s Reader.

Real Cat Paisley’s answers:

1. The best part of where I live is the sunroom with my cat tree and lots of windows.

2. The worst part of where I live is there’s a dog here.

Old SoLT’s answers:

3. If I had a lot of money, I would create a sanctuary where homeless senior cats could live out their days comfortably, with good food, veterinary care, and of course lots of love.

4. My favourite article of cold weather clothing is my flannel-lined jeans. They are awesome when walking the dog on a cold day!

New Trailer for Miss Cuddlywumps Investigates Mystery Series

Well, old SoLT is finally back at her desk and ready to blog again. She has wanted to have time to create a book trailer, and she has all kinds of fantastic ideas for animation and such, but I reminded her to start small and simple. Believe me, she had enough challenges putting this together. We hope you enjoy it!

And this seems like the perfect time to remind you that Book 5 in the series, The Mythmakers, will officially be released in less than 1 week! You can pre-order the Kindle version from Amazon for just 99 cents (price good through the end of November). Or you can catch the print version on sale at the Cuddlywumps Publishing site. The sale price is only available through our website, and only through November.

And if you want to treat yourself (or someone else--Christmas is coming!) to all five print books, the set is on sale too! Find it only at the Cuddlywumps Publishing site.

Just in case you do not know yet, in this series I, Miss Cuddlywumps, play a classically-educated, mystery-solving at. (In other words, I play myself.) I live with a rather inept human who is lovable despite her many faults, and together we solve all the mysteries in our very small town (but I do most of the work, naturally). Here is the description of The Mythmakers:

Lately, things have been quiet in the tiny, historic village of Brooksford, Maryland. The residents got through Halloween with no “shenanigans,” as the mayor would say, and now they’re headed into a peaceful Thanksgiving season. But Rory Roberts knows better. She knows something is off from the moment the first amateur filmmakers arrive at the edge of town, and her feelings prove true when their “documentary” leads to a violent death in Rory’s backyard, with Rory herself as an early suspect.

Now, Rory and her classically educated calico cat, Miss C, with help from their friends, must work through their limited list of suspects to determine who the real killer is. They may find clues in an online horror movie showing the moments leading up to the crime, but that video also causes more trouble for Brooksford when it quickly goes viral, drawing crowds of unwanted tourists into town, and straight to Rory’s normally quiet cottage. Will Miss C’s classical education be up to the challenge of deciphering the 21st-century clues in this crime, or will her and Rory’s meddling only push the killer to strike again?