Cats rejoice! Ollie is here. By perusing his diary, the discerning cat (and aren’t all cats ‘discerning’) can be taken through important questions such as how to successfully enter a new household, how relate to the other established felines, and how to manage the Two-legged-furless-food-bowl-filler-person.

‘There’s a lot of work involved in being a kitten. It’s not all lying around looking cute and adorable, you know, although that is part of my job description.’ Ollie speaking (on the day of The Great Toilet Paper Debacle.)

The Lazy Paws Guest House for Discerning Felines

The Pet Shop Man phoned The Cat Lady of Brook Street about a kitten who had lost his home. She called him Ollie, ‘and he didn’t stop crying.’ Meeting a line up of six huge cats, Garfield, Sam, Billy. Timmy, Ricky and Charlie, when he arrived only frightened him more.

Great Garfield, the Obi Wan Kenobi of Felines

But Garfield takes kindly to the kitten and helps him to understand important things. ‘Cats live alongside, humans and … we help them, guide them, show them the way.’ Mentored by wise Garfield, Ollie learns the ways of the Guest House and how to enjoy his life. Napping, eating, exploring, watching the birds, and dancing with butterflies are important parts of his curriculum.

Some Things To Not Do, Apparently

Trying to dig a way out of a laundry by making an artistic hole in a new mat. Peeing on a cushion. Leaping out from behind doors on unsuspecting fellow cats. Peeing on the cushion again. Chewing the knitting wool. Helping to sweep by standing on the broom. Bounding on to Mum’s bed at 4.30 am.

The Great Cat In The Sky

As he gets a bit bigger, Ollie also learns how to swing from the curtains, do daring roof climbs, and to make neighbourhood friends. From Garfield he learns the stories of cats who have lived before in the house, and how to Say Goodbyes.

‘The Great Cat gives us a certain amount of time with the two-legged furless ones … and its up to us .. to teach humans about life and how to get the best out of it.’ Garfield to the house hold cats.

‘I, Ollie, ,the award-winning Diary writer Extraordinaire, have danced with Butterflies’. Ollie, in May

 Landing On All Four Paws: The diary of a kitten called Ollie, by Ollie Cat, is now available on Amazon. (FREE too, if you use Kindle Unlimited.) The author dedicates it to “all the cats I’ve known and loved, and those I’ve yet to meet.” Take a look. You will purr, you will growl, y ou will discover cat Tai chi, you will curl up for a nap, and you will get a bit teary.

Ollies Further adventures are now out too! And a third one is on the way.

The author: Pauline Dewbery helped Ollie to record his adventures. She trained to be an editor and had many articles published in teen girl’s magazines. Pauline is a pet bereavement counsellor. The Daily Mews is Pauline Dewberry’s popular website for cat lovers. With cat humour and jokes, caption contests, guest articles about cat care and cat antics, it is your ‘purrfect way to start the day.’ It provides, among other things, a space to respectfully reflect on feelings of grief for our passed pets, for instance, in the tributes called “Napping on A Sunbeam”.

Pauline also wrote For Such A Time As This: My journey through cancer. How love and my cats sustained, fortified me, and helped take the pain away. This is listed at Amazon UK and Amazon USA and on Amazon Australia. and more. It’s about $3 on Kindle and in some regions its FREE to read with Kindle unlimited.

You are at Mark’s blog called Baffled Bear Books. Mark is a dark coffee tragic, bibliophile and Guardian of Mawson Bear, a Ponderer of Baffling Things and one of this bright world’s few published bears.

She snarled in a most unladylike way, ‘Stay away from my grandfather, stay away from my family, and stay away from me.’ Robyn Stanford to our hero. P. 15.

We begin as Amun Galeas confides in us about certain events in 1888 in London and .. Wait, who is this Amun Galeas? He doesn’t seem to know that himself. Each time he carries his throbbing head out of a strange bedroom to seek answers he gets bashed again. I wondered if our narrator would even last the early chapters; nor did he seem to have much confidence about that chance himself.

Unarmed except for my razor wit, which many would argue made me totally defenceless, I crept through the gate ..

Time and again our hero is rescued by Sebastian Vulk, but just who is that randy old dog? We readers have little time to mull over these identities, however, due to the odd attitude of Amun’s hosts, the Stanton family, about their disappearing servants.

Journalist, Abraham (call me ‘Bram’) Stoker scents a scoop. Bram is turns out to be usefully related to Mr Doyle, a medical man, Arthur Conan Doyle, that is, who knows a peculiar corpse when he sees one.

Amun in the course of his most enlightening account, entrusts we readers with the curious and true facts of what really occurred in London the year 1888 (necesarily suppressed at the time); and we incidentally learn where Messers Stoker and Doyle first heard the genisis of the stories they were to later publish. The two cousins turn out to be handy with sword blades as well as quills, which is just as well because there is a certain degree of close quarter fighting in this story.

I hefted my sword over my head like some ancient statue depicting St George slaying the dragon, and then brought the weapon down with a noise similar to chopping into a thick cabbage.

A shipwreck in Australia, an overly-optimistic medical procedure on a Pope, a study of the London railway network, a survey of the complex Balkan history, and of one weird ‘Balkan Problem’ in particular, a hitherto unrecorded episode of young Winston Churchill’s career, and more .. These apparently disparent elements are most satisfactorily weaved together, twist by turn, in this thrilling, chilling, and entertaining novel from Phil Hore.

But, you ask, what about the dragons in the title? Oh, you will learn all about it in this true account, gentle reader. Select an armchair (set its back to the wall in the corner, of course) settle down, pour a red wine, a deep red red wine – and enjoy. Oh, and, err, keep a shield close to hand. Useful things, shields.

Where to learn about this dastardly Brotherhood of the Dragon: From Odyssey Books , and Amazon and Bookshop Org (supporting local bookshops.)
Or, ask your friendly local bookstore to order it in for you, and more for friends who appreciate gothic tales.

‘Everything is Geography.’ Ty Kornotz, Professor of, yes, geography.

Mud and Glass by Laura E Goodin is an affectionate satire of the academic world,  Unwittingly, Dr Celeste Carlucci becomes the target of everyone who thinks she can help them find the missing Littoral Codex and thus the key to power and glory. Especially power. Their power.

‘Everything is dramatic arts’. Russ Garrick, Professor of, unsurprisingly, dramatic arts.

In this zany romp we have media billionaires (ruthless), The Littoral League. (weird) , librarians (never underestimate librarians), newly minted ninjas, and a resistance movement of geriatric academics. 

Tenureless and struggling to survive until payday, Celeste is as keen to defend her precious cache of cookies  as on dodging her multiplying enemies.She gets shot at, assaulted and dragged along secret tunnels. Will anyone even explain to her what all this is about? With intellect and altruism their only strengths, street theatre their only weapon, and a library to die for their only equipment, can our motley band strike back at the forces of greed and evil? Can you and I?

Mud and Glass is published by Odyssey Books.

More books from Laura E Goodwin: After The Bloodwood Staff (follow link to see my review).

PS. After reading Mud And Glass, I feel in a strong position to advise you to never order a cup of macadamia-chilli icecream. Even if you do want to ‘feel more alive’.

Cinco Novelas en las Islas Canarias Estoy encantada de anunciar que mi serie de novelas situada en las hermosas islas de Lanzarote y Fuerteventura ahora está disponible en español. Conoces a personajes ingleses muy divertidos y graciosos, junto con algunos personajes majorero o conejero. La historia, la cultura, la geografía, el turismo y el medio […]

Misterios de las Islas Canarias

Mawson’s Guardian says: Isobel Blackthorn has also written The Drago Tree, reviewed here by me, and Click on the above to read more about this trilogy. You can see my reviews and details of some of Isobel’s other books right here on this web den. The Drago Tree is the first of Blackthorn’s several books set on the Canary Islands. And the Perfect Square is a meditation on art and artists. A Perfect Square, which I reviewed here.