Guest Blogger - Annette Dashofy

My Slave Master, Kensi Kitty

By Annette Dashofy

USA Today bestselling author Annette Dashofy has spent her entire life in rural Pennsylvania surrounded by cattle and horses. When she wasn’t roaming the family’s farm or playing in the barn, she could be found reading or writing. She spent five years as an EMT on the local ambulance service, dealing with everything from drunks passed out on the sidewalk to mangled bodies in car accidents. These days, she, her husband, and their spoiled cat, Kensi, live on property that was once part of her grandfather’s dairy. Her Zoe Chambers mysteries have received three nominations for the Agatha Award: Best First Novel of 2014 and Best Contemporary Novel of 2015 and 2017. Cry Wolf (Henery Press, September 2018) is the seventh in the series.

I intended to turn over the blog-writing duties today to my cat, Kensi. However, being a typical cat, she blew me off, preferring to sit in the window and watch the birds.

Actually, I think she’s miffed at me. For starters, the suitcase is out. As I write this, I’m preparing to leave for Bouchercon in Florida. Kensi forbids me from traveling. Ever the task-master, she insists I stay tied to my desk writing, since putting out books is what pays for her cat food. In fact, the only time she gives me permission to leave my desk is when she’s hungry and wants fed.

If she had done as I asked and written this blog herself, she would tell you I am a terribly stupid human and very hard to train. She’ll order me to follow her to the kitchen, but I detour into the bathroom or in some other direction.

Kensi gets annoyed with me. Even more so when she suspects I know what she wants but am intentionally ignoring her.

The other reason she’s miffed at me is because I have two cats in my books and neither of them is her.

My protagonist, Zoe Chambers, owns (or is owned by) two orange tabbies, Jade and Merlin. They don’t solve crimes. They do cat stuff—providing soothing feline therapy, demanding food, shedding, causing some characters to have allergy attacks, demanding food…

Jade and Merlin are based on real cats I’ve owned (been owned by) but who have passed on to the Rainbow Bridge. Jade is my sweet Sammie Angel, who was my furry office assistant for years. Merlin is BooBoo Angel Kitty who was the biggest lovebug on the planet. Both of them left this earth shortly before I started writing the series. Putting them in the books has been my way of immortalizing them.

 Boo Boo Angel

Sammie Angel

None of which appeases Kensi.

One other thing has been bugging her lately. The title of my new book. Cry Wolf.

Wolf? WOLF?

In spite of my constant assurance that there are no wolves—four-legged, at least—in this book, Kensi still feels slighted. Yes, she gakked in my bed to punish me. She said I needed to wash my blankets anyway.