To the River: Cattarina Mysteries

By Monica Shaughnessy

Every writer has his muse...even Edgar Allan Poe.

It's true that the great Master of Macabre owned (or was owned by) a tortoiseshell cat named Cattarina. But little is known about his feline companion or the circumstances surrounding their introduction. Until now.

From her cottage in Fordham, NY, Cattarina tells of her humble birth beneath the Schuylkill Permanent Bridge, glorious trials as a gutter cat, and the chance meeting with Eddy that changed not one, but two lives.

Told from the perspective of Edgar Allan Poe's cat, "To the River" provides an irresistible feline take on history in this fictionalized short set in 1838 Philadelphia.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jumping Jackalope Press
• Release date: Jan 22, 2015
• ISBN: 9781507011058

Monica Shaughnessy

Monica Shaughnessy has a flair for creating characters and plots larger than her home state of Texas. Most notably, she's the author of the Cattarina Mysteries, a cozy mystery series starring Edgar Allan Poe's real-life cat companion. Ms. Shaughnessy has seven books in print, including two young adult suspense novels, a middle grade superhero novel, an Easter picture book, a cozy mystery novella, and numerous short stories. Customers have praised her work time and again, calling it "unique and creative," "fresh and original," and "very well written." If you're looking for something outside the mainstream, you'll find it in her prose. When she's not slaying adverbs and tightening plots, she's walking her rescue dogs, goofing around with her family, or going back to the grocery store for the hundredth time because she forgot milk. The best way to learn about her books is to join her mailing list, which can be found on her website: www.monicashaughnessy.com. You'll receive advance release notices, special discounts, and the occasional ARC.

Book preview

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Philadelphia, 1838

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EDDY TAUGHT ME HOW to love, but Mr. Osgood taught me how to trust. And what is one without the other? If I’d relied solely on Auntie Sass’s guidance and not my own experience with the proprietors of Osgood’s Odd Goods, I might never have followed Eddy home that summer evening. Lest I omit important details, I should start from the beginning. Mine is a longish, fattish tale, but I have time, now that Sissy has passed and Eddy is temporarily away. Our cottage in Fordham has everything an ordinary man could want. Except my companion is a man of letters, forever wandering, in search of things beyond this old cat’s comprehension. As for me, a sun-warmed porch is enough these days, and this patch by Muddy’s rocking chair makes a nice place from which to tell my story.

Winter kittens always want more, no matter how much they’re given. At least that’s what Auntie Sass told me shortly after she rescued me. I’d arrived in the bleakest of Philadelphia seasons, born to a mother I knew only by smell. She and the rest of my littermates died from exposure before I gained full vision. The cold would have taken me, too, had my feline caretaker not discovered me beneath the Schuylkill Permanent Bridge near the stone piling.

It’s too cold for a kitten to be on her own, she said to me. I will take you home, and you can live with me until spring. Then she grasped me behind the neck with her teeth and carried me to what I later learned was a shipping crate in the alley behind Osgood’s Odd Goods. It had been tipped on its side and lined with a blanket, providing protection against the cold.

I mewed in gratitude, too weak for words.

You may call me Auntie Sass when you are able, she said. And I will call you nothing until you’ve earned your name. That is the way of the cat.

For days, I survived on dishes of warm milk that appeared when I wished for them. I no longer use such methods, preferring to fill my own needs. But oh, how I relied on that fancy!

When my eyesight developed, I beheld Auntie Sass for the first time. At such a tender age, I did not have the vocabulary to describe my savior as I