Fresh, funny and for anyone who’s ever felt astray, Cat Lady will help you belong because a woman always lands on her feet.
Cat Lady is Dawn O’Porter’s latest witty creation. Her bold new fiction will have readers in stitches. This frank, fresh approach that marks her writing tells the story of a woman who, cat-like, defies labels, becomes independent, free and cannot be tamed but lands on her feet in the end. Thought-provoking and addictive, this is a story of one woman’s journey after a life of playing the part people expect.
Mia is a good wife to Tristan and a doting stepmother who makes a choice after a shocking event shatters her conventional life. Forging new friendships in her quest for a new life, Mia decides to live for herself rather than for a society that is all too quick to judge. An independent woman in her forties with a cat, Pigeon, the world had better watch out for her.
Dedicated to her pets, past and present, Dawn O’Porter writes about how animals provide “a lesson to us all on how to live for nothing but pure love”. She follows with an astute insight into human nature, stating that “everyone is playing a part”. Her novel is divided into five parts, each representing a specific role played/lived as a mother, career woman and wife. As she reminds her husband of all she does: food shopping, the admin, washing and putting away the clothes, teaching his child to read, and amazingly putting up with his intolerable ex-wife Belinda, it is little wonder why Mia chooses the cat!
Written in the first person, present tense, Mia tells her story with humour and sarcasm as she depicts society and the people around her. As Mia describes one dinner party she is hosting for Tristan with all his friends, including his ex-wife, she is astutely aware that she is the “odd one out” and that they all secretly hope she will “silently exit out of the cat flap”. It is this realism and insight into human nature that is so poignant and which resonates with O’Porter’s readers.
Cat Lady reminds us all to live our lives our way and that, “The kindness of strangers can get you to the next place you are supposed to be.” As Mia reflects on her marriage as a “facade”, she acknowledges, “But was I sad because I had lost love? No, I was sad because I lost myself trying to find it.”
The back cover of the novel states, “We’ve all known a cat lady and we’ve probably all judged her too. But behind the label, what if there’s a story worth nine lives?” Never has a truer word been spoken!
About the author
Dawn O’Porter is a British writer, director, and television presenter. Dawn Porter first came to widespread public attention when she attempted to slim down to a size zero by using drastic dieting regimes for the BBC documentary Super Slim Me. A career as a TV presenter followed and she established her own TV production company, Hot Patootie TV. In 2006, she published Diaries of an Internet Lover. In May 2013, she released her first fictional novel, Paper Aeroplanes, the tale of an intense female friendship loosely inspired by her own childhood in Guernsey.
In August 2012, Porter married Hollywood actor Chris O’Dowd and changed her name to Dawn O’Porter. She now lives in LA with her husband, two sons and a cat!
