Cupid Cats – Katie MacAlister, Vicki Lewis Thompson & Connie Brockway
Penguin Signet, 2010
400 pages
RRP: US$7.99
ISBN: 9780451230720

Reviewed by Liz Grzyb

Cupid Cats is a collection of three novellas centred around kitties from the “Cupid Cats” shelter, who true to their name, help to bring a little romance and a hint (or more) of the paranormal into the protagonists’ lives. Each author’s Cupid Cats refuge is different, which is a bit disconcerting, but as long as the reader doesn’t compare the stories’ worlds, each works well.

Katie MacAlister has created a story in her Dark Ones universe as her offering, “Unleashed”. Dark One Avery is turned into a were-jaguar and left at Cupid Cats, where the local wildlife officer Jacintha is called in to take charge of him. This story is squarely in the paranormal romance genre, with were-creatures as well as vampires (sorry, Dark Ones) populating the landscape. While there is a lot of plot in this story, it works as a novella rather than being padded out to novel length, as the story stays self-contained and exciting. Like all of MacAlister’s work, it is amusing and keeps the reader turning the page.

Connie Brockway’s “Cat Scratch Fever” is a lovely gentle romance where Jim, a single father takes her little girl to the cat refuge to choose a new cat, and she picks an old kitty who refuses to go with them, who also bears a striking resemblance to her late mother’s old cat. The relationship that springs up between Jim and Edie, a scientist at his work who also runs Cupid Cats in this story, is believable and heartwarming.

“A Cat’s Game” from Vicki Lewis Thompson was probably the weakest story in the collection. While the characters and the premise were initially interesting, being about a movie star meeting his small-town highschool ex-girlfriend, the continuation of the story was a bit on the cheesy side. I couldn’t really sympathise with Kate’s reasons for not wanting a relationship with Jon, as she seemed to ignore them until it was convenient for them to rear their head again. This story also had the least reliance on the “Cupid Cat” idea as well. A light read but not the best I’ve read from Thompson.

As a collection, these stories work well together, but the two first stories are the better two. Fans of these three authors will enjoy adding Cupid Cats to their collection, and it will also appeal to romance readers who might like to visit the slightly paranormal side of the genre.