Exciting news: the new edition of Cat and Mouse is here!
I wrote the book in 2012, and first published it in 2015. Much like Seventh Son, it needed a makeover, but in this case, the biggest change is the cover. The text of the story hasn’t changed much—just a few edits at the sentence level, and one or two little scenes added. It’s still the same story with the same characters! Even the mice are still all there.
Cat and Mouse starts immediately after Seventh Son—literally the next morning. How is Cat going to cope with her new life in her new world? And why are there mice everywhere?
A silent young boy, a man like a rat, and a plague of mice—Cat has her work cut out for her. It’s hard enough for Catriona, an ordinary modern woman, to get used to living in a magical medieval world, even without having mice pop up at every turn. Good thing Cat isn’t as squeamish about them as her friend Nicky, who has her own issues to cope with back in the regular world. What does the man with the twitchy nose want with Nicky’s ward Ben? And does the mouse plague back in Ruph have anything to do with the new apprentice Cat’s husband has taken on—the boy who won’t speak?
I finally, at long last, finished a book again. (I know, right?) Just to clarify, no, it’s not a Septimus Series book, it’s a standalone. And by “finished” I mean that last week I buckled down and implemented the changes my editor, the intrepid and amazing E. L. Bates, had suggested. So now, I think, the story is finished and is the best that I can make it.
So now what? Actually, one thing I’m considering doing with this book is to send it to publishers, to see if one of them might put it out under their label. And one of those publishers I’m looking at requests in their manuscript submission form that I supply links to my web presence, but only of sites that I use to promote my work. Umm, okay. Then I guess I better do some promoting. The publisher wouldn’t want to just see posts about my cat and my stuffed bear, would they? No matter how handsome Louis and Steve are.
So, yes, in case you were wondering, my books and short stories are still out there to purchase and/or read! There are quite a number of them now. I tend to forget just how many.
The Septimus series is what started it all. It began with a blue pottery bowl:
“Cat was ordinary—until the day a blue bowl whirled her off to a magical medieval world… Catriona, ex-librarian, dumped by her boyfriend, is just trying to restart her life when she gets sucked into and carried off by a blue pottery bowl. Suddenly thrown into a world where she can’t move for mysteries, how is this modern town girl going to cope alone in the woods with a comatose man and a muddy baby? And there’s that hint of something sinister…”
TheTwelve Days of Christmas is the story of a woman whose boyfriend mysteriously vanishes on Christmas Eve, just when some unearthly beautiful people show up in town. Can Mac get Tom back in time before the Twelve Days of Christmas are up?
The Forty-Dollar Christmas is what I call a “here-and-now” story, i.e. contemporary fiction: a tale of how Liz tries to show her neighbour and his little girl that for celebrating Christmas, it’s not the content of your wallet that counts.
Again, both those books are available on Amazon for Kindle and print, and at most other ebook vendors in other ebook formats.
As for short stories, there are quite a number of them out there right now, and most of them are available to read for free! Go overhere and follow the links.
So there you have it, that is Life, the Universe, and A. M. Offenwanger Stories to Enjoy. Get reading!
My very good friend E. L. Bates (aka Louise) advertised my books on Tumblr to someone who was looking for Domestic Fantasy (because she’s that kind of friend). And they went and bought them.
And then they MADE FAN ART ABOUT THEM.
I might have just burst into tears when I saw this… I love it so much.
So of course I had to join Tumblr in order to comment. I’m still kind of lost on that site, but I do think you can click on the image above to go straight to the artist’s page (I didn’t copy and paste, these are just the links to the Tumblr page).
Incidentally, one of the things I love about it is that they made Cat brown-skinned. I hadn’t thought of her that way, but she totally could be. In fact, I think she is.
This is a scene from the end of Cat and Mouse – if you haven’t read it, go check it out.
