Cat Cozy

A Look Inside: Sonnets, Quatrains, Pantoums and Other Poems, offers short descriptions of many styles of poetry, followed by original poems inspired by each of these styles. The author shows us that anything can be the seed of creativity needed to tell a story and share thoughts and opinions. Through writing, we can explore our own point-of-view, or imagine being someone or something else, and wondering how they think and feel.

When ex-sheriff Bud Shumway and his wife, Wilma Jean, decide to vacation in a scenic Colorado town near Aspen, they never guess they’ll soon be immersed in solving the murder of a famous country-western singer. And even though Bud’s bumbling replacement, Sheriff Howie, is far away in the small town of Green River, Utah, he still manages to play havoc with everyone’s peace of mind when his sheriff’s vehicle is stolen and he finds out he’s on the wanted list of Utah’s FBI.

When an old rancher visits Utah Sheriff Bud Shumway with a cryptic message and then immediately dies, Bud has no idea that he’s witnessing the beginning of a series of strange happenings, from an invasion of his little town by rodeo clowns to dealing with a curse from long-gone Natives.

After five years of legal wrangling, Jim Qwilleran has officially inherited his fortune. He looks to seek isolation in the Potato Mountains to contemplate his future, and instead, ends up in the middle of a nasty dispute between roughneck mountain folk and greedy developers. What's worse, one mountain man, Forest Beechum, has been convicted of the murder of millionaire developer J.J. Hawkinfield. Foregoing solitude, Qwill does some investigating of his own. It turns out that Forest may not have done the dirty deed...but who did?

The O’Malleys have fostered dozens of cats in their bookshop over the past several years, but a new arrival named Regular is unlike any of their previous feline guests. This is Regular’s tale, but it is also Mack and Mavis O’Malley’s. It is about two “finds of a lifetime”: Kris, their young apprentice, opens a box to reveal a book that may be so valuable that it could make national headlines, and the O’Malleys discover something even more wonderful that will change their lives forever.

Francie Vespertine has lived all her life in a supernatural town full of powerful witches, but her own magic is lackluster at best. The only place she fits in is the Magical Archives. Head librarian (and bookworm extraordinaire) might be a boring job . . . if it wasn't for the ghosts of fictional characters haunting the shelves.

When a bedraggled Scottish Fold kitten named Fluffy is brought to Silver Circle Rescue clinging to a lone black flip flop, Ellie Rockwell senses there may be more to the situation than meets the eye. Her suspicion is confirmed when the kitten nervously pleads for assistance in locating her owner Lisa, who, according to him, vanished during a swim at the lake.

As the small town of Tablerock, Texas prepares for its annual Cinco de Mayo festival, Ellie and Evie Rockwell were counting on a day filled with tacos, perhaps a pinata or two, and a fiesta of feline fun at Silver Circle Cat Rescue. Instead, they’re served a stiff dose of reality when the town’s eccentric tarot card reader Luna Espinoza is found face-down in her award-winning margarita mix. What’s more, Silver Circle’s newest feline resident, the reader’s mysterious Mexican hairless cat named Mystico, has some chilling messages from Luna in the great beyond.

When cats start getting sick, feline-loving freelance writer Theda Krakow suspects it’s accidental. But Violet, Theda’s shelter-owning rock-music buddy, claims the cats’ kibble was poisoned. When Theda starts looking at politics at the city shelter, she finds a number of people who could have happily committed the heinous crime.

A mysterious portal has opened up in town . . . and for once, Francie isn't the one responsible. It's just a run-of-the-mill portal to an alternate dimension, right? Nothing to worry about. Except when a rare book dealer turns up dead and Lizzie is the number one suspect. Despite an ironclad alibi, there's a hundred witnesses who swear they saw Lizzie at the scene of the crime. Just who—or what—is coming out of that portal? And can Francie stop it before it invites more of its friends to cross over?

Small town librarian (and accidental dark magic user) Francie Vespertine would prefer her new magic to be fueled by rainbows and butterflies, but you can't always get what you want. Neither can her feline familiar, Kongressman Kittles. When his favorite brand of cat litter is discontinued, he's in a mood—and if the cat's not happy, no one's happy. When a visiting author winds up dead at a book signing, Francie's best friend Penny is accused of the crime. Now she's got to find the real killer before they strike again.

When ex-sheriff and watermelon farmer Bud Shumway learns that his job is on the line, he knows that big changes are coming, though he has no idea exactly what kind. And with his wife’s new business running an air-based catering service, he knows she’ll be too busy to help him figure out his now uncertain future. Add in the invasion of his little Utah town by a group of wanna-be Vikings, and his employment woes soon take backstage to solving a murder - one in which the prime suspect is his friend, Sheriff Howie.

Crystal England just wants normalcy. Her world has been turned sideways by a nasty divorce. She's starting over by going back home. With her daughter, Izzie, and her cat, Bonnie Boo, Crystal is working to create a peaceful home and life. But when Bonnie Boo discovers a body in the backyard pool, that dream of normality is shattered.

When Sylvester, aka Psycho Cat, an animal with a sixth sense, discovers a human skeleton inside a trunk in the attic of one of her rental units, landlady and amateur sleuth Beth must return from wintering in Arizona. After only a few days, the investigators are told to put the case on hold. Why? Tracking down the tenants from that time and uncovering evidence won’t be easy, but Beth, for everyone’s sake, vows to identify both the victim and the perpetrator.

Mimi Lee hoped to give Los Angeles animal lovers something to talk about with her pet grooming shop, Hollywoof. She never imagined that the first cat she said hello to would talk back, or be quite so, well, catty - especially about those disastrous dates Mimi’s mother keeps setting up. When Marshmallow exposes local breeder Russ Nolan for mistreating Chihuahuas, Mimi steals some of her cat’s attitude to tell Russ off. The next day, the police show up at Hollywoof. Russ has been found dead, and Mimi’s shouting match with him has secured her top billing as the main suspect.

When Psycho Cat alerts Beth to her step-niece Adrianna's disappearance, the klutzy landlady careens into action. She and her no-nonsense sister question Adrianna's associates. They discover that the police suspect the young woman of embezzling a huge sum of money from the Kansas City construction company where she works.

Mimi Lee is on top of the world. She has a thriving pet grooming business, the sweetest boyfriend, and a talking cat to boot. When she arrives at the elementary school where her sister Alice works, she’s expecting a fun girls’ night out - but instead finds a teacher slumped over in her car, dead.

Becca Colwin is coming home from her job at Charm and Cherish when she sees a tortoiseshell kitten run down an alley—leading to a dead body. As a connection between Becca and that corpse is confirmed, Becca comes under suspicion—and is dragged into a cyberware scandal, thanks to her cheating ex, Jeff. The unfaithful computer geek and his high-powered investor were working on stealth software designed to record and transmit personal data—a new form of spyware that would be of interest to everyone from the police and security agencies to cybercriminals.

Meet Sidney Grace. Quirky journalist, Hesitant witch, Professional butterfingers. Her grandmother believes Sidney’s talent for communicating with the dead makes her the most powerful witch in the family, but Sidney just wants to make it through the day without getting fired.

Urged to solve the Murder on the Tesco Express, Buscemi gets to work at the crack of lunchtime. With the help of sassy streamwise duck Drake, Stanley the deathless guardian of Barnes Bridge, and the irrepressible cocker spaniel puppy Puddles, the forces of darkness don't stand a chance! Except something is wrong. Somehow, Buscemi is tasked with solving a murder which hasn't happened yet... or has it?