April 2025 Book Club: Waifs and Strays (The Cat Lady Chronicles #1) by Helen Harper

  

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Content: Nothing I can remember

 

Nobody is just a cat lady.

Kit McCafferty's life is quiet, unremarkable and filled with cat hair. In the magical city of Coldstream, located on the border between Scotland and England, Kit is viewed as little more than mildly eccentric and mostly harmless. She passes her days caring for her family of five cats, feeding the local feral moggies, and maintaining relatively good relations with her neighbours.

All that changes, however, when a teenage werewolf shows up at her door in the desperate hope of renting out a nearby vacant flat. Kit knows that the smart move is to tell him to leave. The last thing she needs is to become embroiled in complicated shapeshifter politics. But something about the secretive young werewolf tugs at her heartstrings.

It's not long before Kit ends up caught in a maelstrom of mysterious crime and magical wrong-doing. Fortunately, there's far more to Kit McCafferty than meets the eye and she has a few dark secrets of her own.

Of course, anyone with an ounce of intelligence knows that you underestimate a cat lady at your own peril. 

 

I liked this but didn't love it. It was a fun, light read with an urban fantasy setup but with a cozier feel. I like that the author included all the normal urban fantasy species in this book; vampires, werewolves, etc., and I liked the different take on a few things. I found the cats to be the best part of the book, but then I always like cats in books. The main character's ability was different from other things I've read, and what she does to trigger this ability made me laugh even though it was also a little gross. 

Where I think the book fell short is the same place I think a lot of other self-published urban fantasies fall short, and that's a lack of depth in the characters and plot. I thought the characters where interesting but a little dull. I thought the world was interesting but the plot was a bit bland and predictable. I did enjoy the reveal at the end and it let me mildly interested in the next book, but I'm not sure if I'll continue.

 

This book was an easy one to draw inspiration from for book club snacks. My husband and I had a really fun time coming up with foods to serve this time around. He had the idea for the 'cat food' and I think he did a great job of making something that looked like cat food but wasn't gross. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I decided to make sugar cookies shaped like cats and found cute cat cookie cutters.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you've read the book then you'll know why I made 'cat hair' and 'hairball' treats beyond just those things relating to cats, there's something significant about them in the book. I used cotton candy for the cat hair and made coconut haystacks for the hairballs.