The spacefaring Barque Cats are valued members of every vessel's crew, thanks to their special bond with humans. Then Pshaw-Ra, a mysterious cat with highly advanced knowledge, gives the felines the power of telepathy. When panic over a virulent plague drives the government to exterminate animals, Pshaw-Ra guides the cats and humans of the starship "Ranzo" to safety on his home planet, Mau. But Pshaw-Ra has a hidden agenda. His ultimate goal? Mate the Barque Cats with their godlike counterparts who rule on Mau and create a superior race to conquer the universe. His plans, however, may be doomed by his daughters' battle royal to become queen, by a suspicious Barque Cat with an equally curious human friend--and by something stirring deep beneath the city with a hunger to devour all life . . . and an undying hatred for cats.

What you see (at first) is not what you get in this collection of nine previously published tales of shape shifting and transformation. An Alaskan student of wildlife biology finds it difficult to write convincingly about what she knows. A proud and beautiful princess loses her popularity when cursed (in a way probably familiar to many readers) by a wicked enchanter. A lonely Cajun fiddler has a close encounter with his royal but scaly ancestor. In the secret story of the railroad that transformed the American West, Chinese and Irish workers compete to complete the job with a little help from supernatural friends. A lowly jeweler creates a wondrous bauble for the sultan's favorite, but his reward, an exalted royal elephant, eats him out of house and home until he unlocks her secret. An Irish nurse discovers the identity of the lone fiddler who plays at the bedside of a critically ill patient. A middle-aged woman, suddenly invisible, improves her love and social life during Mardi Gras. And a predatory bill collector meets his match in a story so dark that the author even changed her name. In these shifty stories, you'll be wondering who happens next

The Tour Bus of Doom rolls into a small coastal town, spewing zombies to rampage down the main street. To the beat of eerie drum music, they loot, kidnap, and zombie-fy innocent citizens. Spam the cat, self-appointed feline defender of the town, watches in horror from the rooftops. When the zombies abduct Spam's jeweler friend and take over the nursing home, Spam is certain they are also responsible for the disappearance of his next-door neighbor Mr. Barker, partner of retired police dog, Officer Bubba. Then Marigold, Spam's half sister, reports that her human family, who went missing while on a mission of mercy to earthquake ravaged Haiti, has finally returned home, just long enough to take their valuables. And They. Don't. Even. Recognize. Her. All of that is dire enough, but then the zombies go too far and take over the bodies of the owner and server at Spam's favorite fish'n'chips place. Searching for help from his vampire friend Maddog, Spam meets a new cat in town, the sinuous Havana Brown Erzullie, who arrived with the zombies. Aided (sort of) by her, Renfrew the raccoon, the urban deer cat taxi service, Rocky the vampcat, and his half-siblings Marigold and Mat, the heroic feline must investigate, before the zombie apocalyps-o destroys not only his town, but his home and his beloved Darcy. Just when he thinks he may have the situation well in paw, the zombie hunters from Seattle arrive, responding to a bounty on the heads of the zombies. What they don't realize is that they have the wrong brand of zombies, the un-plagued un-dead, who could revive as long as they keep their heads.

Spam the cat thought he'd seen a lot of the world in his nine months of life. After all, he was the foremost vampire hunter of Port Deception, WA. (SPAM VS THE VAMPIRE) This was his first Christmas, however, and from what he'd heard on TV, on Christmas all was supposed to be calm, all was supposed to be bright. The deer and Renfrew the raccoon had other ideas however. In an attempt to keep Renfrew, aka "The UPS Bandit" from ruining a lot of Christmases, Spam begins a task that leads to his being the sole protection of a new mother and child, and a less-than-warm-and-fuzzy reunion with his feral father. Altogether, his first Christmas eve is a less than Silent Night. The proceeds of this book from whatever source will be donated to the Humane Society of Jefferson County for the benefit of the animal shelter.

A PURRANORMAL MYSTERY Spam and the other cats at website designer Darcy Dupres' house are frantic with worry. Darcy walked out the door two (missed) wet meals ago and didn't return or send anyone else to look after her beloved furry friends. The other cats think she has abandoned them, but her office cat and (unbeknownst to her) protege, Spam, suspects darker forces are at work. Darcy's last project was helping a suspicious character who called himself Marcel deMontreal with a dating website for vampires and the women who dig them. Darcy thought Marcel was playing and besides, he paid her a lot of kitty litter to design the site. But before she can finish, the self-proclaimed vampire announces that he is coming to visit, and Darcy disappears. That and the-duh-black billowy figure with the white face and red eyes peering through the window seem like a dead giveaway to Spam. U

In these stories, a parade of fascinating felines tell tales of their lives. Guinevere s cat, Gray Jane, tells what really happened at Camelot from her cat s eye view atop the queen s canopy bed. An Egyptologist s cat, Shuttle, wards off a vengeful mummy by doing a favor for Bastet, the cat goddess. A Scottish cat, Tinkler Tam, stalks body snatchers through a gothic Edinburgh. Mu Mao the Magnificent, a bodhisattva cat who is the last tomcat in the world, searches for a mate in one story while in three others he assists his fellow felines during the transition to their next incarnations. A murdered cat named Mustard returns to avenge himself on his killer and protect his former household. The old soldier hero of a fairy tale discovers the secret of the 12 dancing princesses with the help of his trusty cat companion, Captain Shadow. These are the stories mother cats tell their kittens to provide them with role models, inspiring them to hold their heads and tails high.

Pilot, engineer, doctor--ship's cat? Since the early days of interstellar travel, the so-called Barque Cats have become essential to the well-staffed space vessel. Assisted by humans--Cat Persons--with whom they share a deep and loving bond, the Barque Cats are responsible for keeping spacecraft free of vermin, for alerting crews to environmental hazards, and for acting as morale officers.
But a widespread epidemic affecting livestock on numerous planets throws the felines' future into doubt. Suddenly the galactic government announces a plan to impound and possibly destroy all exposed animals, including the Barque Cats. With the clock racing against them, a handful of very special kittens and their humans will join forces to save the Barque Cats, and quite possibly the universe as they know it, from total destruction.