So, I found another publisher, who took the book and reissued it as Sabbath's Gift complete with new cover.
Following that, I wrote and had published, Sabbath's House.
Flash forward: This second publisher turned out to be an embezzler, (no kind way to word what she had done to 15 of her authors) so I got my rights back and went to independent publishing.
New covers. New formatting. But the same character, the magical black cat, Sabbath.
I actually had a black cat, already named Sabbath, when I picked her up at the veterinarians. Truth be told, I did not like cats, but we had a mouse/rat gnawing on the inside of one of my kitchen cabinets, and after trying all kinds of poisons, he persisted. One of my children suggested, "Let's get a cat, Mom. Rats won't come near anyplace with a cat." I was desperate enough to call the vet and they did, indeed, have a cat for adoption.
I couldn't get there fast enough. I was plotting all the while to get rid of the cat as soon as he/she got rid of the rat. No heart, there.
Until the vet's assistant entered the room, with a small black cat clinging to her sweater. The cat looked at me and I melted. "Oh, what a sweet little kitten. What's her name?" I knew someone had left her with the vet because cat's weren't allowed in the apartment complex he/she was moving into.
"Sabbath," the assistant replied.
"Tabitha?" I questioned.
"No, Sabbath." she corrected me.
Meanwhile, Sabbath continued to melt me with her green-gold eyes.
"Did she belong to a witch?" I laughed. "Because she's sure bewitching me."
The details were taken care of, and I left the vet's office with a black cat clinging to me. First stop, pet store for a litter box, a carrier, and cat food.
Mission accomplished, I arrived at home and deposited Sabbath into the kitchen, telling her to "go to work, now".....but my son proudly announced, "The rat died, Mom. One of my poisons killed him."
Well, I had a cat, now. A cat who loved me, and I loved her.
And therein lay the plot for my Sabbath Trilogy.
P.S. Sabbath died in 2000, and I mourned her loss for about a year before getting another cat from the city shelter. I chose another black, short haired cat, whom I named Cleopatra, thinking she would be regal and graceful, as a queen should be. Forget that. Her nickname, Cleo, or Crazy Cat, suits her just fine, for regal, she is not, and although she's no Sabbath reincarnation, I love her for who she is.
Sabbath's ashes are in a beautiful pine box on my bookcase.
Sabbath’s Gift
$8.99
Book One of the Sabbath Trilogy
When New
York writer, Joanna Elliott, flees her abusive husband to the Texas Hill
Country, she and her six-year old son, Jason, unwittingly become a killer's
prey. Despite Realtor Tommy Joe Greenleaf's warning that Wanda and Ralph
Spencer had mysteriously disappeared from the remote farmhouse ten years
earlier, Joanna moves in, and makes the sunroom into her office. Joanna adopts
a cat from the local veterinarian, Jim Kelly, who tells her that Sabbath
"had belonged to a witch." Immediately, unexplained events unfold:
Joanna is locked overnight inside the storage shed, footprints appear under the
sun room windows, and Jason's dog, Mournful, is found poisoned.
Sheriff
Judson Pollard investigates. He is
puzzled by Wilma Foulkes’ indifference to her sister’s fate, the activities of
an itinerate evangelist, Brother Adam, and Joanna’s former husband has arrived
in town.
Book Two of the Sabbath Trilogy
Sabbath’s House $8.99
Best selling author Joanna Elliott and her growing family
are looking for another house because, quite frankly, finding bodies in the
cellar and a psychotic old woman kidnapping her son were not events conducive
to bringing her new child into the world.
She discovers a charming old Victorian mansion owned only by
women of the Emily Harris family, but the remaining heiress has no descendants
to inherit.
Once the family moves in, however, psychic black cat Sabbath
encounters spirits determined to continue the legend, once again putting the
family in peril,
Kindle Link:
Coming Soon: Book Three
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