When the Cat's Away

 

By Maureen Bonatch 

Are you ready for a vacation? 

 If you’re like most people, you’ll say, yes! Often you might feel that you need a vacation to recover from a vacation. That’s one nice thing about books. It gives you the chance to virtually visit new places while never leaving the comfort of your own home. Or you take the book with you while you’re on vacation to read because reading adds that much more to your escape. 

When I go on vacation (which it’s been so long, it’s hard to remember what that’s like), one thing that’s hard is not getting to see my furry writing assistant while I’m away. Since I’ve been working remotely for the past few years I spend a lot of time with Scruff. 

   Just about every day is a relaxing vacation for Scruff.

I talk to him while I’m working even though he rarely answers more than the occasional stink eye. That’s what makes this cozy mystery collection all the more awesome. 

This limited time collection of cozy mysteries is all about celebrating summer and these stories take their furry companions with them. Check out my story Curses, Cats & Corpses included in When the Cat’s Away 

A black cat travels by tote bag to hijack a Florida vacation 

 Hi, I’m Marissa Hale. I took a summer job as a cocktail waitress at a nightclub in Florida to escape the cold Pennsylvania winter, and to visit Gran. Although staying with Gran at the retirement condo with a bunch of nosey witches becomes the least of my worries when I stumble upon a corpse in the club freezer. 

 My coworker, Burton, is suspect number one. If you met him and looked into his dead eyes you might understand why. Unfortunately, I’m a close second suspect since it appears spelling was involved. My spelling skills might not be up to par—but I’m no killer. 

I can only hope to avoid making this a permanent vacation in the slammer by solving this murder mystery with the help of Gran, a talking cat, and a demon with a real devil-doesn’t-care attitude. 

Pre-order your copy of When the Cat's Away today! 

  https://mollymysteries.com/WTCA_Kindle 

https://mollymysteries.com/WTCA_Apple

https://mollymysteries.com/WTCA_Nook 

https://mollymysteries.com/WTCA_Kobo

What's Your Favorite Vacation Spot?

Just a small-town girl, Maureen Bonatch leads a double life. She lives in a magical world as a novelist, and as a nurse leader in reality. Maureen’s first novella was a paranormal romance published when blogs were a new-fangled thing. She’s since changed her focus to writing paranormal cozy mysteries as M.L. Bonatch and urban fantasy as Maureen Bonatch. 

While she’s not busy writing or doing nurse-things, she’s a mom to her twin daughters, bicycling in the beautiful woods of PA with her hubby, doing the bidding of a feisty Shih Tzu, and dancing as much as possible. She believes music can be paired with every mood, laughter is contagious, and that caffeine and wine are essential for survival.

Find Maureen on her website, Facebook & Twitter. Be the first to know about Maureen’s book sales and new releases by following her on BookBub, Amazon and/or signing up for her newsletter

P.S. Follow me on my brand new Facebook page as M.L. Bonatch

Demonic Adventures in Wichita

So, yesterday, book five of my Monster Haven series came out. Demons in My Driveway is out in the world. Yay!

That’s not what I came to talk about today, though. Oh, by all means—if you’ve been reading this series, go now! Hurry! Grab it! And if you haven’t started the series yet, now is a perfect time to start. The first book, Monster in My Closet, is on sale for $0.99 for another week or so.

Ah. No stress.

Nope. I want to tell you what I did last week. I went away. (It’s okay if you didn’t notice I was gone. I’ve been really quiet lately. It’s cool.) My husband and I went to a town on the outskirts of Wichita, Kansas, and rented an Internet-less cabin in the woods. And we wrote. A lot.

S'mores action shot! Kapow!

I’ve got to turn in book six, Phoenix in My Fortune, in two weeks, you see. I needed a stress-free zone. Most mornings we had coffee on the screened-in porch, overlooking a river on two sides. We named a few of the squirrels, though they didn’t hold still long enough for the names to stick. We rejoiced in our foresight in bringing our binoculars and were filled with regret that we didn’t bring the bird book so we could identify the birds we couldn’t name.

And in the middle of the week, I traipsed off by myself into a strange city to meet a bunch of strangers at night.

A wonderful group of women, the Bitchin’ Book Club of Wichita took me out to dinner. You guys,

This is most of the BBC ladies. And me!

they had presents for me. Really thoughtful presents. I now have a framed, tatted-lace Bruce the pygmy dragon. I have a quilted purse with my book covers on it. Crocheted earrings made around pop tabs. Sparkling wine. Jars of tasty jams. Seriously. I felt so incredibly spoiled and important.

I signed books. I laughed. I ate. And I worried my husband because I got back so late. Are all book clubs that awesome? If they are, I suggest you all find one if you don’t already belong. Aside from being thoroughly spoiled and treated like a celebrity, I snagged a whole lot of excellent book recommendations.

They want me to come back next week. Too bad I still have work to do. I hate that I’m missing roller derby.

Rachel writes stories that drop average people into magical situations filled with heart and quirky humor.

She believes in pixie dust, the power of love, good cheese, lucky socks and putting things off until the last minute. Her home is Disneyland, despite her current location in Kansas. Rachel has one husband, two grown kids and a crazy-catlady starter kit.

Sign up for her newsletter for news, extras, and exclusive stuff: Newsletter
Hang out with her here: Website Blog Facebook Twitter
Buy her books here:  Amazon B&N Carina Press

The Magic of Travel

I left bright and early this morning for a vacation I've been dying to go on for a while. (Somewhere new!) You see, I was raised in a family that started out going somewhere different every year. Then around 1984, my parents developed a love affair with Myrtle Beach, SC, and it became our go-to destination every year.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love it there, but every year? There's too much of the world to see. And I'm not much of a lie-on-the-beach-all-day person. Still, my parents made a point of doing family vacations every year, and that was always important to me.

Fast-forward to having my own kids, and I still think they're important. For a few years, my husband and I got in a rut not so unlike the one my parents made. You see, we're both Disney freaks, and our kids like it too (as most do). So we had been to Disney World three out of the last four vacations. (The one in between was when the kids and I joined hubs on a business trip overseas.)

And we found ourselves talking about doing Disney again. I didn't want to; he did. We finally agreed to leave it up to the kids. Imagine his shock when our kids (7 & 11) announced that they'd rather go someplace new. Then they started talking about our trip to Italy and the funny words and gelato and the Coliseum and a bunch of other things. (I didn't bother mentioning how many of the places we saw that year that had made it into a manuscript.) Hubs was disappointed, but I reminded him that if we take a break, Disney might actually be magical again next year.

So, we are in Florida right now, and I imagine he's pretty antsy to shove us in a car and drive to Orlando, but tomorrow we're boarding the Oasis of the Seas and cruising to the Caribbean so we can swim with dolphins and snorkel with stingrays and see the ruins of Tulum. (Actual activities not yet decided :P) I'll be begging the kids to eat something new, and he'll give me the "I told you so" look. But then we'll see dolphins racing the boat and try out the zipline on the ship, and I'll get to give it right back to him.

Because at the end of the day, vacation for me isn't about the food. (Although, that might not be strictly true of Italy--yum!) It's about seeing and experiencing new things. It's about fun with the people I love.

And, okay, it's about hopefully finding some little tidbits to work into a book. I don't think Disney would like it so much if I used their parks as a major player in one of my books. And really, if you're at Disney World, the park is a character all on its own. So, wish me luck, I'm off to see a man about what would happen if someone skated onto the ship's ice rink in the middle of a show. And then I'm going to ask how many zipline accidents they've had onboard before I use that tiny little wire to try to conquer my fear of heights.

How Adult Is Too Adult?

I'm on vacation with the extended family and had an interesting talk with my (almost) thirteen-year-old niece today. She reads the YA novels I write under my other name, but tonight while we were talking books, she asked what my "Seleste deLaney" books were about.

Pretty sure I went deer in the headlights for a minute there.

You see, I'm the aunt who gets in trouble for answering questions because I believe in honesty. I strive for "age-appropriate honesty" but I don't believe in giving BS answers. For example, I took a different niece to a parent-approved movie, and the word fornication was used in a prayer. She asked me what it meant. Yeah. Rock meet hard place. Needless to say, I got in trouble over that one, even though it's what I would tell my son or daughter if they asked. Basically I said "it's something grown-ups do when they're alone" or something like that. To one parent that's perfectly acceptable. To another...not so much.

So when the thirteen-year-old asked about my "other" books, I was a little leery of answering. But I did it anyway. I didn't talk about the sex, but I did explain the plots. If her mother gets on me about it, so be it. I'll take my lumps, because I realized if I didn't answer her, the easiest way for her to find out would be to just read them.

Now, I'm all for family as fans, but if I thought explaining the plots would get me in trouble, it's nothing compared to the backlash if she read my sex scenes because I wouldn't answer. But the real question is when is a book too adult?

I read my first book with sex scenes in it (that I recognized as such) in sixth grade. Granted, it was much less descriptive than mine, but considering it was coerced sex with a teenaged prisoner for the purpose of impregnation (with an alien baby no less)...I like to think it was "worse" than the sex I write.

What about you? When did you first read books with sex and, if you are a parent, when do you expect your kids will? (And if you want, what is worse? Descriptive sex between consenting adults? Or something like I mentioned above?)