Some Updates, and Saying Goodbye to Angel

Where to begin? I've been pretty godawful sick this last month, which is lousy timing considering my latest Sebastian book, WHERE THE DEAD LIE, was released this month. But I think I'm starting to pull out of it.

My trip to Houston was fun. Thanks to everyone who came to my signing at Murder By the Book. I'll be in Scottsdale, Arizona, this Saturday at the Poisoned Pen, so if you're in the area, do stop by!

I was terrified we were going to lose Angel while I was in Houston, but thankfully he waited until the day after I came home to say goodbye.  He was my mother's cat until she died 7 years ago, and so in a sense it was like losing my last thread to her. But I also loved him dearly for his own sake. He was an exuberantly affectionate cat, sitting on my lap while I wrote and sleeping curled up in the crook of my arm every night. He was 18 years old and had been failing for the last couple of months, but it's still been really, really hard to lose him.

And then there's this complication:

She showed up outside my door the Thursday before Angel died, and was so skinny I called her "My Skeleton." After repeating (over and over again) "I don't need another cat!" and feeding her umpteen cans of food outside (for some reason she can't seem to eat dried) for 12 days without much improvement, I finally scooped her up yesterday and carried her off to the vet. Fortunately her tests for nasty cat diseases were negative, although she was horribly infested with fleas and worms. She's now in isolation until that clears up, and then I'm not sure what I'm doing since I had promised Roscoe and Peanut I was going to let them out of their three-room apartment (Roscoe is a Big Mean Cat who picks on other cats, so I had kept him separated from Angel). This little girl acted virtually feral outside, one of the reasons I hesitated to bring her in (that, plus the old flea collar). But now that she's inside she has surprised me by being very friendly. She really is a pathetic thing, and since Skeleton is an unkind name, she's now Kit-Kat. But she's still a skinny, scruffy mess.

Beyond that, I've turned in the proposal for Sebastian #14, WHO SLAYS THE WICKED. And I've just learned they lost the model they used for the last few covers--he's gone off to be a fireman. So we'll be having a new guy for the cover of WHY KILL THE INNOCENT. Fingers crossed he looks the part!