The Cat Owner’s Guide to Health Emergencies: Essential Tips to Recognize, Respond, and Prepare for Cat Emergencies
The Cat Owner’s Guide to Health Emergencies is a practical, veterinarian-written manual that tries to do something genuinely difficult: give anxious cat owners enough clarity to act fast without pretending they can replace a clinic. It moves from preparation into crisis, covering emergency planning, the ten most common feline emergencies, the ten toxicities Dr. Gal Chivvis sees as especially important, the signs that distinguish “watch closely” from “go now,” and a final toolkit of checklists and flowcharts meant to steady people when their nerves are likely to fail them. What stayed with me most was how concrete it is. This is a book that doesn’t just say “be prepared.” It asks you to know your nearest ER, keep a carrier ready, think through CPR decisions before panic takes over, and learn what a dangerous breathing pattern or an abnormal bladder actually looks like.
The book is calm without being bland, and authoritative without sliding into that chilly, overconfident tone that a lot of medical guides fall into. Chivvis writes like someone who has seen frightened people arrive at the worst possible hour and understands that information is only useful if it can still be absorbed under stress. The best sections have a sobering vividness. Her explanation of a linear foreign body, where swallowed string can make the intestines “accordion,” is memorable in exactly the right way. So is the repeated insistence not to pull visible string, not to dismiss open-mouth breathing, not to confuse urinary obstruction with constipation, and not to wait for toxicity symptoms before acting. I also appreciated the small humane details, like the note that visitation may sometimes be discouraged while a cat is in oxygen because seeing their owner can worsen distress. Moments like that give the book emotional credibility. It knows the medicine, but it also knows the strange helplessness of loving an animal you can’t fully question or comfort.
The prose is clear and serviceable, and the repetition built into the format can make the middle stretch feel instructional. Each section follows a familiar sequence of signs, causes, what to do, common interventions, and prevention, which is excellent for reference. I found that structure more helpful than limiting. It mirrors the thinking the book wants to teach. Notice. Assess. Don’t improvise recklessly. Call. Go. The ideas themselves are sensible and grounded in lived emergency practice. I especially liked the way the book pairs high-stakes warnings with prevention that feels doable: keeping cats indoors to reduce abscess risk, treating panting as abnormal, managing litter box stress, recognizing the danger of lilies and ibuprofen, and using simple observational tools like resting respiratory rate, hydration checks, and pain scoring. That practical intelligence gives the book its real force.
I found this to be a useful, reassuring, and refreshingly unsentimental guide. It offers preparedness, lucidity, and a steadier hand when things go sideways. I’d recommend it especially for first-time cat owners, multi-cat households, and anyone whose instinct in a crisis is to freeze, second-guess, or start doom-scrolling. It’s a caring and trustworthy book, and in a book about emergencies, that matters most.
Pages: 195 | ISBN : 978-1967320004
Fracture
I found Fracture gripping in the way a good geopolitical thriller ought to be, but what stayed with me most was how steadily it turns a technical crisis into a moral one. It begins with a covert maritime operation, the death of Aslı Green, and a single concealed piece of evidence, then widens into a tense struggle involving Russian covert action, NATO politics, British parliamentary theater, and the strange, chilling power of modern systems warfare. What I admired was the book’s refusal to let any of that remain abstract. The plot keeps expanding, yet it remains anchored to human consequences: grief, obligation, loyalty, and the slow corrosion that comes from seeing too much and acting anyway. By the end, the novel has become something darker than a procedural or a policy thriller. It becomes a story about what happens when a man who still believes in structure realizes he may have to step outside it to answer a killing.
I enjoyed the emotional undertow running beneath all the steel, code, and doctrine. Aslı’s death landed hard for me because the book makes her feel vivid before it takes her away, and that loss becomes the wound the whole story keeps circling. I kept thinking about the image of her sending that coded message just before she’s struck, and later about Katya at Heathrow, stunned by the news and forced to keep moving anyway. Those moments give the novel its pulse. I also found the recurring motifs of hidden objects, invisible systems, and “insurance” especially effective: the fountain pen, the locker, the ghost signals, the data hidden inside procedural noise. The book suggests that the modern battlefield is made of things you can’t quite see until they’ve already ruined lives.
I liked the writing a great deal, especially its clipped confidence and its instinct for pressure. The prose is clean, taut, and often unexpectedly elegant, with a real gift for making rooms, screens, command centers, and city streets feel charged with consequence. There are passages here that genuinely hum. Simms’s “weaponized boredom” in committee is both funny and sharp, and the aerial and maritime sequences have an excellent sense of scale and controlled panic. In the middle stretch, a few explanatory sections feel more like impeccably written briefings than fully dramatized scenes, and some secondary figures can read more as functions of the operation than as fully rounded people. Still, even that struck me as a measured flaw rather than a serious weakness, because the book’s central idea is precisely that institutions shape the people inside them, and the style is often serving that very theme.
Fracture gave me the satisfaction I want from a high-level thriller, but it also left me with something knottier and better: the sense that every strategic victory in this world carries a private cost, and that the line between justice and contamination is never clean once crossed. I’d recommend it to readers who like espionage fiction, military and geopolitical thrillers, and novels that care as much about systems and power as they do about conscience. I finished it feeling that the real fracture in the title isn’t only geopolitical. It’s the break inside a person who learns exactly what the world requires and hates himself a little for being able to meet it.
ISBN : 979-8994158531
Drawn Into The Clash of Cultures
Murder on the Set centers around an amateur sleuth on a movie set in Puerto Vallarta as she dives headfirst into a double murder investigation. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
Murder on the Set is the fourth book in the Amanda Pennyworth Mystery Series. I was inspired to use the idea of a visiting movie company when I recalled a very odd film, NIGHT OF THE IGUANA, based on a Tennessee Williams play and shot in Puerto Vallarta in the early 1960s. The invasion of Hollywood movie stars, a crew of extras, producers and directors was an enormously disruptive event and the perfect setting to stage a murder mystery. There was not only the expected glamour, but the possibility of writing about outsized personalities and the clash between the various cultures: tourists, American expats, local Mexicans, the police, and, of course, Amanda herself.
What do you think makes Amanda different from other mystery protagonists?
Amanda Pennyworth is different, I suppose, because she isn’t really a detective or even an amateur sleuth, but rather, someone who, because of her profession as American Consul to Puerto Vallarta, is inevitably drawn into the clash of cultures, and the troubles that Americans bring on themselves when they visit a foreign country. This means that she stands at the center of everything that happens, whether she wants to or not. What else makes her different is that she must answer to so many different voices: the Foreign Service, The American ambassador, the Expat Community, tourists, the local police, and, of course, to her own ambition.
How much research did you do into film production and Hollywood culture?
I tried to make sure that I understood the various functions of movie makers–the stars, writers, producers and directors and, of course, the extras. I also watched the old film Night of the Iguana, which gave me some ideas for names and characters.
Is there another installment of the Amanda Pennyworth Mystery Series planned? Where will it take readers?
Yes, there will be another Amanda Pennyworth Mystery forthcoming. Again, it will be set in Puerto Vallarta which seems to me to be the perfect situation to place a series that explores the clash of cultures and customs as well as the intrigues of a mystery.
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Almost immediately, an expat who volunteered as an extra on the film is brutally murdered. Then his wife is bludgeoned to death. The police are intimidated and baffled by the Hollywood crew, and Amanda is called upon to help find the killer.
But her own life is complicated: her assignment in this beautiful resort city is ending, and her next posting may be in a dangerous Middle Eastern zone. Everything is suddenly in turmoil. Amanda must catch the killer before he strikes again—and decide what path her career and future will take. All of her ingenuity and daring may not be enough.
A Different Kind of Awareness
In Compass & Grit, you help readers rebuild their lives using two concepts centered around a clear sense of direction and disciplining themselves to keep showing up even when their confidence wanes. Why was this an important book for you to write?
This book, in many ways, came out of my own experience. There was a point where I felt like I was doing everything I was supposed to be doing. I had goals, I had direction on paper, and I was showing up each day and putting in the work. From the outside, it would have looked like things were moving forward in the right way. But underneath that, there was a different feeling that kept coming up. I couldn’t quite ignore the question of what all of it was for. Not in a dramatic sense, but in a quieter, more persistent way. Why this path, why these goals, and where was it all actually leading? There wasn’t a clear answer, and that was the part that stayed with me. It felt less like a problem to solve and more like something you keep returning to over time. A kind of ongoing search rather than something you figure out once and move on from. The more I sat with that, the more I realized that a lot of men experience something similar, even if they don’t always put it into words. That’s where the idea for the book began. I wanted to write something that could meet a man in that space without overwhelming him. Not with big claims or the idea that he needs to start over, but with something steady and practical. A way to think about direction, and a way to keep moving even when the answers aren’t fully clear yet.
The book speaks directly to men in midlife facing loss or disorientation. Why did you choose to focus on that audience?
It’s a stage of life that doesn’t get talked about much, even though many men quietly go through it. When you’re younger, there’s a sense that everything is about discovery. In your twenties, you feel like you know what you want. You set goals, you move toward them, and there’s a kind of forward momentum that feels clear and natural. But as time goes on, that certainty starts to shift. You begin to realise that some of the things you once thought you wanted don’t quite fit anymore. Priorities change, perspectives change, and the path that once felt obvious becomes less defined. Then midlife brings a different kind of awareness. You start to lose people or things that you love. You start to see change happening around you in a more permanent way. And with that comes a clearer sense that time is not unlimited. That’s usually when the questions become harder to ignore. Not just what you’re doing, but why you’re doing it, and whether it still matters in the way you once thought it did.
What I’ve noticed, both in my own life and in the people around me, is that while we may not always know exactly what we want at this stage, we become very clear on what we don’t want. And for many men, one of those things is the feeling of moving through life without a real sense of purpose. It’s something I’ve seen in friends, in colleagues, and in people I’ve known for years. On the surface, everything can look fine. But underneath that, there’s often a quiet question of whether this is all there is. That’s the space I wanted to write into. Not to provide perfect answers, but to give some structure to that experience, and a way to start making sense of it without feeling lost in it.
You emphasize small, concrete actions over grand reinvention. Why is that approach so effective?
I think most people have big goals at some point. You want to make a certain amount of money, get into great shape, travel more, and build something meaningful. There’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, having something to aim for matters. But the challenge is that those goals are often so big that they feel far away. I remember when I was younger, we had to run 2.4 kilometres for a fitness test. That’s six rounds on a standard track. At the start, you feel fine. You go out strong, your energy is high, and everything feels manageable. Then you hit the third round, and it starts to feel different. By the fourth, you’re not just running anymore, you’re thinking about how much further you still have to go. Each stretch feels longer than it actually is. The distance ahead starts to feel heavier than the distance you’ve already covered. And that’s what big goals can feel like. They’re so far out in front of you that your focus shifts from moving forward to thinking about how far away you still are. Small actions change that. Instead of trying to cover the entire distance in your head, you focus on what’s in front of you right now. The next step, the next rep, the next decision. It’s the same with something like getting in shape. You don’t get there all at once. It comes down to what you do each day. What you choose to eat, what you choose to avoid, how consistently you show up, even when it feels routine. Or even something as simple as saving. A small amount, done consistently, builds over time into something meaningful.
These things seem minor on their own, but they add up. And more importantly, they give you a sense of progress that you can actually feel. You begin to see that you can follow through, that you can build something step by step. That creates a different kind of momentum. It no longer feels like a huge leap that you may or may not reach. It becomes a series of manageable steps that you can continue taking. And that shift matters. It gives you a sense of control and a sense that change is not out of reach. It’s something you’re already in the process of doing. In the end, it really does come back to something simple. You begin with one step, and then you take the next.
What is one thing you hope readers take away from Compass & Grit?
If there’s one thing I hope stays with them, it’s that they don’t need to have everything figured out before they begin moving forward. I think a lot of us, myself included, spend a lot of time looking for certainty. We want to know that the step we’re about to take is the right one. That if we do this, it will lead to exactly what we want. That there’s some kind of guarantee behind our decisions. But the truth is, there isn’t. You can feel sure in a moment, but in reality, none of us fully knows how things will turn out. Life doesn’t really work that way. There are too many variables, too many things outside our control. And at some point, especially in midlife, that becomes very clear. You start to realise that time is finite. Things can change without warning. And that waiting for perfect clarity can keep you stuck longer than you expect. So part of what this book is about is learning to move forward even when things feel uncertain. To rebuild your footing, to find your direction again, and to stay with it, even when it’s uncomfortable. Because uncertainty is uncomfortable. Most people don’t like it. But it’s also part of being alive. There’s a kind of discovery in that, if you’re willing to step into it.
On a personal level, I’ve had my own moments of being knocked down, of not knowing what comes next, of having to start again without a clear answer in front of me. And what I’ve come to understand is that it’s not about avoiding those moments. It’s about how you respond to them. You take the hit, and you keep moving forward. You adjust, you learn, you keep going. That’s where direction starts to come back. That’s where you rebuild your sense of self. So if there’s one thing I hope readers take with them, it’s this. You don’t need perfect clarity to begin. You just need to take the next step and be willing to keep going from there.
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You keep showing up. You keep going.
But you are no longer certain where you are heading.
If you have been asking what comes next, without a clear answer, this book was written for you.
Compass & Grit is a grounded guide for men in midlife who feel capable but off course. It is not about motivation or fixing yourself. It is about restoring direction when pushing harder no longer works.
Drawing from lived experience and practical frameworks, this book helps you:
Rebuild discipline in a way that is sustainable
Clear mental noise when life feels crowded
Create simple habits that actually hold
Reconnect with purpose in a way that fits your real life
This is not advice from a finish line.
It is written from the middle, where most men actually are.
If you have been carrying a quiet weight, or moving through your days while sensing that something underneath has shifted, you are not alone. Direction does not return all at once. It returns through steady steps, honest reflection, and consistent action.
This book gives you a place to begin.
Adventure Into the Unknown
The 6th Heaven centers around a plastic surgeon whose life is turned upside down when mysterious tattoos begin to cover his body, and he sets out on a journey to the Amazon jungle to find the key to his curse. Where did the idea for this novel come from?
The idea for the novel grew naturally from the first two books in the 21 Tattoos Series. As Derek’s journey of self-discovery reaches both emotional highs and lows, he becomes increasingly driven to find answers—how the tattoos appeared, what they signify, and whether he can ever be free of them.
Did The 6th Heaven begin as a spiritual story, a psychological one, or an adventure into the unknown?
It started more as an adventure into the unknown. I didn’t know what would happen next to Derek until he made the decision to enter the jungle—then the story began to unfold on its own. As I continued writing, I realized that his struggle in the jungle mirrored the conflict within his own mind, and I expanded on that connection.
Where did you find the inspiration for Derek’s traits and dialogue?
It developed over time. I started writing about a man waking up with tattoos, and he just started to develop in my mind, and as I researched the meaning of tattoos I got to know him. Most of the material relates to experiences in my life.
Can we look forward to another installment in The 21 Tattoos Series soon? Where will it take readers?
My 4th book will be out in September 2026. Already with the publisher.
My 5th book will be out in September 2027. 50% finished.
My 6th and final book of The 21 Tattoos Series will be out in September 2028.
Each book follows Derek and Kendal as their relationship deepens, facing life’s challenges and evolving into the people they’re meant to become.
Author Links: GoodReads | X (Twitter) | Facebook | Website | Amazon
Derek Hollinger has walked a long, hard road since a fateful encounter with an Indigenous shaman woman turned his life upside down. Now married to Kendal, his angel and savior, Derek desperately wants to be the man she deserves. But his obsession with his tattoos-what they mean and how to get rid of them-is tearing down everything they’ve built together.
Paralyzed by depression and self-loathing, Derek is convinced that only one person can help him now: the granddaughter of the shaman whose power inked him from head to toe. Enlisting the aid of his loyal friend and spiritual advisor, Father Mike, Derek treks deep into the heart of the Amazon jungle, where a final reckoning between good and evil awaits.
But God’s plan for Derek isn’t what he expects. And coming back alive-whole in mind, heart, and spirit-will require every ounce of his fortitude and faith.
The 6th Heaven is Book 3 in The 21 Tattoos Series, by Monica Broussard. Read Book 1 (21 Tattoos) and Book 2 (The 7th Dimension) to jump into this saga filled with heart, passion, faith, and fear. Discover how Derek Hollinger’s journey for answers begins.
Finding Purpose
Guard in the Garden follows a wounded dwarven guard who trades dragon fire for garden paths, where he discovers that tending friendships, grief, and love may be the bravest quest he’s ever faced. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
When I first got out of the military, I really struggled to figure out what my new mission and purpose in life were. It took me about 10 years to figure it out. It was a real struggle. And I know I’m not the only veteran who has gone through that experience. So, I thought it would make an excellent story to share, even if it was in a fantasy world.
Felton’s healing feels very incremental and grounded. How did you approach writing recovery in a fantasy setting?
A lot of what Felton goes through, I have experienced myself. Therefore, I was really able to tap into the emotion through reminiscing on my own experiences.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
Some of the most important themes in Guard in the Garden are finding purpose in unexpected circumstances and hope at the end of the day.
Where does the next book in the series take the characters?
Funny enough, Guard in the Garden is in a series called the Fables of Finlestia that explores stand-alone stories in the same world. Even cooler, there are a lot of character crossovers, easter eggs, and cameos between this series and my Stone & Sky series, which also takes place in the world of Finlestia.
Author Links: GoodReads | X (Twitter) | Facebook | Website | Amazon
Embark on a wholesome journey of healing and self-discovery. A cozy fantasy tale of forging new friendships and overcoming fears. A quiet quest of family bonds and budding romance.
From dragon fire to garden flowers …
Felton Holdum spent his entire life training to become one of Galium’s elite dwarven warriors. When a bloody battle leaves him injured, he has no choice but to move into his eccentric twin aunts’ quaint home in the town’s quiet Garome District.
With his life of military service seemingly over, the captain of the city guard gives Felton his only chance at a fresh start in the new life he never wanted.
But when a human woman barges through his front door, the grumpy dwarf starts to wonder if there is more to life than war. The sunshine woman invites him to visit her garden, where Felton gains a new nemesis and a new purpose in life.
Take a walk through the garden and see what magic awaits.
Come enjoy the hospitality of the whimsical Garome District. Meet new friends as you sample new breads at the bakery, play a game of Castle Brick at the tavern, and taste homemade pies during the annual pie baking contest at the Fall Festival.
Realistic Meat Substitute: Poems and Whatever Else
Realistic Meat Substitute is a jagged, feverish collection of poems and hybrid pieces that feel steeped in the fumes of late-stage American life. Across sections like “Uncanny Valley,” “Thoroughly Cooked,” “Frankenstein Complex,” and “Kool-Aid or Hemlock,” author Chris D’Errico writes out of a world saturated by conspiracy, commodification, digital alienation, political hysteria, ecological dread, and a stubborn, battered hunger for something more human.
What stayed with me most was the book’s texture: its collision of the grotesque and the lyrical, the absurd and the mournful. One moment we’re in the carnivalesque overload of “Post-Organic Afterworld” or “The Idiot’s Guide to Coup D’etat,” with their clang of slogans, grift, and synthetic identity, and the next we’re in something unexpectedly tender and elegiac, as in “Rock Formations,” with its dead friend Reggie and its gentle ache of memory, or “Departures,” which softens into grief, time, and farewell.
I admired the momentum of the language. D’Errico has a gift for startling phrasing and hard, memorable turns of image. He can be funny, ugly, and very beautiful in the space of a few lines. “Truth Is a Bust” turns truth into a whole unstable, disreputable character, grubby and theatrical and impossible to domesticate, and that poem captures much of the book’s method at its best: personification pushed until it becomes social diagnosis. Elsewhere, pieces like “NOLA Elegy” and “A Love Supreme” show he can do something looser and more melodic, letting place and music carry emotional weight without losing his edge.
I also loved the recurring fascination with sound, rhythm, performance, and noise, the sense that music is one of the few surviving ways to get back to the body, to breath, to soul. The book’s density occasionally asked a lot of me as a reader. Its mode is often accumulation, barrage, and incantation, which can be exhilarating, though in a few poems I felt the intensity of the language overshadowed some of the deeper emotional or reflective movement.
This is a collection deeply suspicious of false transcendence, macho mythmaking, internet brain-rot, and the various ways people trade complexity for certainty. Again and again, D’Errico returns to the emptiness of slogans and the seduction of ideological theater, whether in “Resist the Fallen World,” “Your Motherboard Doesn’t Love You,” or “The Mirage,” where he cuts through delusion with the plain imperative to go outside, listen to birds, pay attention to rain, traffic, physics, reality. The book is full of contempt for fraudulence, but it isn’t nihilistic. Under all the snarling satire, there’s a real plea for honesty, listening, embodiment, and moral wakefulness. Even the title starts to feel right in that context. So much here is about substitutions: synthetic feeling for feeling, performance for conviction, algorithm for conscience, spectacle for life. And beneath the book’s wild surfaces, I felt a sincere grief over what gets lost when we accept the fake thing as enough.
Realistic Meat Substitute wants to scrape, taunt, lament, and sing, sometimes all at once. That won’t be for everyone, but for readers drawn to politically charged poetry, surreal imagery, beat-inflected verbal riffing, and work that wrestles openly with the psychic junkyard of contemporary life, I think this book has real bite and real feeling. It left me unsettled, impressed, and more moved than I expected. I’d recommend it most to readers who like their poetry feral, intelligent, and unafraid of mess.
Pages: 63 | ISBN : 978-1917272131
