Please welcome Kristan Higgins!

Apologies for being a bit late, all. Had trouble with Blogger today!!

Please welcome one of my favorite people in the WHOLE WORLD, my friend and amazing author Kristan Higgins!

Saving Cats

Hello again! It’s so nice to be back here with you lovely people! Thank you to the inimitable Cindy Gerard for having me back…all it took was a little blackmail. I am one of the few who knows about that tattoo, after all. (Ahem! It’s not where you think!)

At any rate, when thinking about what to write today, I went to my favorite subject. Men. Yep. I love men. That’s it in a nutshell, gang. I love romantic heroes. Just off the top of my head, here are some of my favorites: Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird. We all love him, don’t we? The way he still sits on his side of the porch swing, unconsciously leaving room for his late wife?

Oh, man! Bud White from L.A. Confidential. Nothing like a thug trying to make good, know what I’m saying? Mm-mm! Tony Stark from Iron Man (or any role Robert Downey Jr. plays, because I am in love with him!).

Usher. He’s not really a romantic hero, but that smile could launch a thousand ships.

There are so many things to love about men…their hands. Their smiles. Their arms. Their inability to make a bed. But one of the things I love best about a hero is when he saves the cat.

This is a term I first heard a few years ago when I took a class given by the very lovely and much-missed Blake Snyder, a screenwriting guru and a wonderful speaker. Blake’s book is, in fact, called Save the Cat, and to the best of my knowledge, he invented the term. In essence, “save the cat” is the moment in a movie or book when a character reveals the reason we’ll love him—a small gesture that says, “Hey, reader. Great guy in here, waiting to be discovered. I may have just firebombed this empty house, but I saved Fluffy on my way out, so there’s proof.”

Sometimes, saving the cat can be more subtle…when we first meet Mark Darcy in Bridget Jones’s Diary, he’s snooty, superior and bored…but he’s also clad in the ridiculous reindeer sweater his mom gave him, and he’s wearing it to make her happy.

Aw! Come on! I’m helpless for that kind of thing. In fact, my own sainted husband saved the cat for me on our first date—he may have been a Bono-lookalike with his green eyes and black hair, and yes, he was the king of cool (back then, anyway), wearing his leather jacket…but he held the door for me, even if he was an Irish thug. And you know what? He had actually saved a cat…back then, McIrish lived in a grimy part of Brooklyn. One night, there was a terrible thunderstorm. He heard a small mew, looked around, saw a tiny, bedraggled kitten, opened the door and said, “If you come inside, you can be my cat.” I don’t know if McIrish was aware of the effect that story would have, but when he told it to me (on our very first date), I immediately started naming our children.

In my latest book, All I Ever Wanted, Ian McFarland is rather cold (it seems). He doesn’t seem to like the heroine at all (it seems). He’s better than the rest of us sloppy humans (it seems). But he saves the cat in the very scene, and hopefully, readers will pause and say… “Hey. That was kinda…sweet.”

So tell me—have you come across those little instances where the hero saves the cat in your favorite books or movies? Is it the heroine who rescues poor Fluffy? Has your honey ever flashed you a little cat-saving mojo? Do tell! I’ll send a signed copy of All I Ever Wanted to a commenter. Can’t wait to hear your stories!

Kristan

www.kristanhiggins.com

Life at the petting zoo!

So, this is the week my DH and his 4 brothers converge at our house from various corners of the Midwest and make their annual pilgrimage to our cabin in Northern Minnesota. Once there, they fish, commune with nature (and wine and beer), eat, and in general, do what brothers do when they get together which mostly consists of giving each other a hard time, reliving childhood memories (Mom always liked you best!) and laughing. A lot. I love that they are able to have this time together each year … but it doesn’t happen without a little ‘volunteering’ on my part.

Since two of the boys are bachelors, and both of them have dogs that means they have to board them somewhere, right? This is where I come in. “Sure, I’ll take Fuji (a yellow lab) and Babe (a Brittany Spaniel). Bring them down.” Which was followed by grateful thanks and a, “Do you suppose I could bring the horses, too?” from brother John.

Huh?

Okay. It’s not that odd – considering we also have 5 horses of our own and, yes, they, too, have to eat when “Dad is gone.” And in the general scheme of things, what’s 2 more ½ ton mouths to feed anyway?

So, I am the zoo keeper this week – and did I mention we also have our own dog, Margaret, a Brittany Spaniel and Buddy and Sly, our two house cats. For anyone who’s counting, that’s 12 critters total – not counting the barn cats who are as wild as march hares and won’t hold still long enough for me to count. Whew. (that's house guest, Babe, BTW, making herself at home on the loveseat in my office as I type this)

All I need is a monkey and a goat and … well, I really DON’T need any more furry creatures. These guys demand all of my time that I can spare (petting, petting, petting) and frankly, I need to be writing a book.

Speaking of books - you may all remember that RISK NO SECRETS, book 5 of my Black Ops Inc. series has been out on the shelves now since mid-May. SECRETS features Wyatt – Papa Bear – Savage, former CIA operative, current BOI team member and a hot, hunky alpha hero (who’s also a southern gentleman). The book is set in hot, dangerous El Salvador, features a kidnapping, a deviant Mara Salvatrucha gang leader and a romance that has been hanging fire for too many years. And just as a reminder, I’ve posted both a video book trailer and an excerpt on my website if you want to check them out – http://www.cindygerard.com/books.html . In the meantime, thanks to everyone who has already gone out and bought the book and placed it at the #9 spot on the New York Times best seller list and #8 on Publisher’s Weekly! Woo Woo!

Okay, back to the zoo. So tell me – are you ‘critter oriented’ at your house? If so, do you sometimes feel like they are letting you stay in their digs as opposed to you letting them stay in yours? Margaret – yes, that's our dog's name – has a lot of idiosyncrasies. For instance, if you sit, she must sit beside you and you must pet her or ‘the paw’ will drive you nuts. The cats, on the other hand, can take it or leave it when it comes to ‘lap status’. Unless I’m in the bathroom. THEN, if I’m on the throne, THEY MUST be on my lap. What’s up with that?

Any critter stories you’d care to share? Any thoughts on books? What you like? What you don’t like? What you think about authors who miss their deadlines and don’t get the books on the shelves when they’re supposed to – which might just happen to me if I don’t get back to work on THE BOOK that is due … yikes … really soon now.

(photo caption - Sly: Attitude. I gots it!)

Okay. I’d better get back to work. But first, oh, geez, it looks like I’d better pet someone … such sad eyes ….