Book Summary:
For fans of Before the Coffee Gets Cold and How to Stop Time, a charming novel by TikTok sensation Alex Howard that follows a cat through his nine lives in Edinburgh, moving through the ever-changing city and its inhabitants over centuries.
Early morning, 1902. In a gloomy Edinburgh tenement, Eilidh the charlady tips coal into a fire grate and sets it alight. Overhearing, a cat ambles over to curl up against the welcome heat.
This is to be the cat’s last day on earth. But he is going to return… as The Ghost Cat, a spirit-feline destined to live out his ghostly existence according to the medieval proverb of “The Cat with Nine Lives” – For Three He Plays, For Three He Strays, For Three He Stays.
Follow The Ghost Cat as he witnesses the changes of the next two centuries as he purrs, shuffles and sniffs his way through the fashion, politics and technological advances of the modern era alongside the ever-changing inhabitants of an Edinburgh tenement.
As we follow our new spirit-feline friend, this unique story unearths some startling revelations about the mystery of existence and the human condition and provides a feel-good read full of charm for any fan of history, humour and fur-ridden fun.
Purchase ‘The Ghost Cat’ at HarperCollins, BookShop.org, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon
About the Author:
Alex Howard is an editor and theatre professional from Edinburgh. His TikTok page, Housedoctoralex, has nearly 300,000 followers and his been featured on television and in the national press. A doctoral graduate of English literature, Alex wrote his first book Library Cat (B&W Publishing) while completing his PhD. It won the People’s Book Prize in 2017, and has been translated into French, Korean
Author Alex Howard – photo provided by Hanover Press
Italian. He also writes poetry, which has been published in New Writing Scotland, Gutter and The London Magazine, among others, and his academic book Larkin’s Travelling Spirit was published in 2021 by Palgrave McMillan.
Read an exclusive excerpt from ‘The Ghost Cat’:
