Customer Reviews

A Curious Affair

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Three years have passed since her spouse died, but Jillian Marsh has not moved on; she still grieves her loss and questions whether life is worth living. However, last Halloween, lightning hit Jillian. The only after effect is she can communicate with cats like a Dr. Doolittle.

Finally, on a rainy March night in the Sierras (that is an oxymoron for that season and locale) Jillian considers suicide as she never got the chance to apologize to her husband for doing him wrong and she suffers from TMJ (temporomandibular joint disorder); the third Seconal and fourth Drambuie add to her melancholy. However before she takes her life, Atherton the cat, whom she never met, arrives to inform her that a murder just occurred. Jillian informs new sheriff Tyler Murphy. As he tries to keep her out of his inquiry, she refuses to stay on the sidelines. Meanwhile the townsfolk refuse to assist the sheriff on his investigation; so Jillian turns to the feline population as they are determined to see the killer pay and expect the woman who can understand them to take care of justice for them.

This whimsical whodunit second chance at love is stolen by the feline crowd especially Atherton, who fits TS Eliot's quote (at the beginning of the tale of the tail): "When a Cat adopts you there is nothing to be done about it except to put up with it until the wind changes." Although a bit padded with too much cat litter at times, fans will enjoy this lighthearted frolic in which cats serves as witnesses to the crime and as matchmakers.

Harriet Klausner

The crime is almost incidental to the character study of a mature women dealing with loss via a realistic combination of despair, hope, humor and finally passion. The talking cats are a welcome entry to the paranormal-hope to hear more from them some day. Nice to read about someone that's not a teenager and still manages to survive, prosper and provide a few chuckles too.

This book is wonderfully written. The story and the mood are dark. Her descriptive ability is amazing. The feeling of depression being forced out of the lady by romance is beautifully done.

A Curious Affair may look and be categorized as paranormal romance, but it's much more Gothic--and more towards noir or *almost* horror than paranormal romance. Think Barbara Michaels style; modern setting but all kinds of Wuthering Heights type atmosphere. The romance is definitely happier than Wuthering, but the whole book has noir overtones. The heroine is getting over the loss of her husband. Well, she's trying to and not doing a good job of it. She's all wounds and rough edges with occasional glimmers of hope. The book, like Barbara Michaels' work is a mystery and that really gives the story purpose and keeps the book moving. Some of the descriptions and atmosphere went on a bit long. I only need about one sentence, maybe a paragraph to have a feel for setting, so I skipped over spots that were building up the tension as the heroine was about to discover...things or was getting herself into trouble.

There's definitely a paranormal element to the book because the heroine can talk to cats due to a freak accident (hit by lightning). There's humor there as well, some of it quite subtle, usually to do with the cats. Of course, I happen to HAVE cats and like them, so that struck a cord. The cats *almost* always act like cats and there were some well-developed "characters" in the cat personalities.

Overall it was a good read although I'm not a big fan of Gothic. I'd definitely recommend it to Barbara Michaels' fans or maybe even Cherie Priest (Four and Twenty Blackbirds) fans. It has that surreal, very atmospheric quality, but with lighter moments.

The only reason I finished this book is because I knew that if I didn't, I'd hang on to it forever on the off chance that I might finish reading it someday. This book seemed like a study on the mental state of a grieving widow with a very shaky plot hovering in the background. Extremely slow reading with a weak (really, unbelievable) relationship between the main characters.

In A CURIOUS AFFAIR, Melanie Jackson's prose is smooth and her description of a present-day Gold Country backroads town is well detailed. However, there is almost no plot. Description dominates, pace is glacial, and suspense almost non-existent. The gimmick of a woman struck by lightning [before the story starts] who gains the ability to hear cats talking to her is interesting, but it's all that is unique in the book. A slow sleepy read, with no suspect but the man she believes is guilty, though I liked the cats.

I also only read 3 chapter and found I couldn't read any more. As I have never left a bad review and wrote many this was bad. But like I said I only read 3 chapter.