Shirley Rousseau Murphy (author of the Joe Grey series)

[AmyStrange]

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Shirley Rousseau Murphy (author of the Joe Grey series)
2019-02-05 12:12 PM PDT

FROM: the AmyStrange.org and the UNeXpLaiNed BLOG
©Copyrighted by Dave Ayotte (That's me)

OF COURSE, IT MIGHT BE that I just got done writing a novel about one, but now, I'm seeing cats every where. Cats buried in snowbanks, sliding down hills, cleaning houses, listening to music, showing up outside a guy's window during the polar vortex, and even werewolf cats!

I don't know about you, but I think the Criminal might be right, and that someday, cats are gonna take over the world, and we're gonna end up being their food.

I've got no proof. It's just a feeling, but if there's one nearby, just read that last part out loud and see what they do.

That's all the proof I need, but it's not that important anyway, because we'll all be long gone before that happens. Maybe our great, great, great, great grandkids will have to worry about it, but we won't.

Anyway, after I finished my novel, I wondered how many other authors used the talking cat trick, and surprisingly enough, not too many did. The only one I could really remember was the Cheshire Cat from Lewis Carroll's 1865 novel, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

I did a web search and ran across a website, GoodReads.com, that had a webpage listing 118 books about talking cats. The list is called, Forget Meow! - Talking Cats in Fiction."

I haven't had a chance to check them all out, but most of them seemed to be about fantasy worlds where cats can talk. That's called high fantasy, but the kind I was writing about was called low fantasy, and those are usually set in the real world.

A sub-genre of low fantasy is urban or contemporary fantasy, and not only do they take place in the real world, but also in modern or contemporary times. Another sub-genre that my book falls under is known as science fantasy, and that's when science is used to explain a fantasy scenario.

My book does exactly that. It not only uses a thin veil of science to explain a talking cat, but also an RV that can almost turn invisible.

While looking through the Good Reads list, I did find one novel that was more like mine, than all the others. It's called, "Cat Raise the Dead."

I went to the local online library to check it out, and come to find out, it was number three in a series of more than twenty books called the Joe Grey series. I don't really like to read books out of series, so I went looking for the first one, and that was called, "Cat on the Edge."

The author of the Joe Grey series is Shirley Rousseau Murphy, and her mystery stories are amazing. Joe Grey is one of the talking cats, and his girlfriend Dulcie is another. A few books into the series, a talking kitten called Kit joins them.

They're ordinary cats, except they can talk. They also help the local Police Department solve murder mysteries.

What I found the most fascinating about her series was how she worked around some of the problems that I also encountered while writing my own book.

The first is explaining how a cat can talk. While I use science to explain my talking cat, Murphy uses Celtic Mythology and other folklore stories to explain hers. I can't remember the details, but I do remember something about underground cities run by talking cats, and also about them being guardians of the gate to the underworld.

The second problem was who the cats could talk to, and who they couldn't. In a fantasy world where all the cats can talk, that's not much of a problem, but in the real world, that can become a big problem if the wrong people find out.

In my book, the Criminal cat-naps her from the military to save her life, and that adds a whole 'nother layer of problems, besides the usual ones like people stealing her for financial gain, or scientist wanting to cut her open to see what makes her tick.

In the Joe Grey series, Murphy keeps it down to six people who know their secret, and one of them can also turn herself into a talking cat too. There's also an evil black cat that can talk, and a whole feral clowder of them that wander the west coast like gypsies. Some other low lifes know about the talking cat detectives too, but they're not about to say anything. They just want to kill them.

Like I said, the series is amazing, but also funny. What's comical is that the one person who should be in on the secret is the Police Chief, because the cats are always calling him on the phone to give him tips, and he can't figure out how his "snitches" are getting their information. He doesn't even suspect that they're cats. Oh, he's got a weird feeling about it, but he never really gives it a second thought.

What makes it even funnier is his wife is in on it too, but she can't tell him, because she promised the cats. His best friend knows it too, and they're also both afraid to tell him, because they think it'll send him off the deep end.

That brings up another interesting problem, how will people react to a talking cat, and that's actually where I had the most fun while writing my book. Also, I allow the Cat to talk to a Homicide Detective, and that's one of the many ways my book is different from the Joe Grey series.

Another way is how her cats act. She does a damn good job of explaining how the mind of a cat works, and she also has them hunting and killing mice and rabbits too.

My cat, being a product of a genetic modification, was a kind of test-tube kitty, and didn't have a mother to nurture and teach her how to hunt. The result was that she feels sad for the mice that are tortured in front of her, while she's caged up in the "Secret Room".

If you like talking cat stories, and even if you don't, you should definitely check out the Joe Grey series, and if you like those, then you should definitely read my book too.

I know it's a shameless plug, but hey, PART 1 is FREE!

WEREWOLF CATS: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/werewolf-kittens-lykoi_us_564070cde4b0411d307185dc

BLOG INDEX: http://www.amystrange.org/BLG-index.html
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[hermetic]

1. The first talking cat book I read

Half Magic by Edward Eager. I loved that story. Some kids find "a charm that grants exactly half of whatever they wish for–with results that are twice as predictable (and hilarious) as you might expect." My 8-yr-old self thought that was the funniest thing I ever read.

I look forward to reading yours some day and wish you great success with it.

[AmyStrange]

2. Thank you, and...

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now I've got another talking cat book to read.

Yay!
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