(No, I will not apologize for that post title. ZERO REGRETS.)

Tomorrow we celebrate the release of Covenant (Immortal Soulless Book Four)*. It’s been a wild ride so far, and I’ve met lots of characters I’ve fallen completely in love with, many of them unexpected guests at this particular party. But there’s one who has a very special place in my heart.

The series takes place in Newfoundland, though it’s a darker and more dangerous version of the island than what you see in the tourism videos. I use a mixture of real and invented locations, but every character save for one is entirely made-up. And that one character is fictional… but also not.

Is that confusing? Let me start over with the story of how a blotchy-faced kitten from the SPCA ended up on the pages of a book (and with his claws sunk firmly into the author’s heart).

It all started with a Facebook post. Two kittens alone in the wild, brought in to a shelter. Brothers. Adorable, as kittens tend to be. I saw the post and immediately wanted to adopt the one they were calling “Jiggy”, though it seemed obvious to me that that wasn’t his name. I sent the post to my husband, half-jokingly saying that we could name the black-and-white kitten Rorschach.

WOOKIT DEM.

Was it unfair to play to his comic book-loving heart with a reference to Watchmen? Maybe. But in my defence I knew we weren’t going to adopt him. We already had two cats and two dogs, and a half-wild kitten seemed like a huge challenge we didn’t need. It was just a cute joke.

But I couldn’t forget that odd little face.

At the time I was in the process of revising Resurrection, book one of the Immortal Soulless series. And suddenly there he was. This kitten I’d seen in that Facebook post was transported to a fictional version of St. John’s. He escorted my protagonist into a diner, jumped up onto the counter, and made himself at home.

Now, the version in the story wasn’t exactly the kitten I’d seen in the photo. Rory (as he’s known in the story) was an older cat. He wasn’t rescued as a kitten and offered a good home. No, this guy was older and larger. Wiser. Tougher. Beat-up. A bit like this, looking like he should have a tiny cigar hanging out of his mouth:

Sketchy character, that one

A cat who’s seen a lot, who’s suspicious of strangers, especially those who look human but aren’t quite what they seem.

I liked having him in the book. He fit. It worked.

And then my in-laws adopted his brother, and Jiggy the hard-to-rehome kitten was left ALONE AT THE SPCA.

Long story short: I drove out a few days later and came home with the kitten who’d already found his way onto the pages of my book.

But here’s where it gets funny.

That big, battle-scarred, streetwise cat from the book? He’s still entirely fictional in everything but his coat markings.

Because here’s what we ended up with:

“BONJOUR, HOOMAN!”

Maybe he was the runt of the litter, or maybe I spoiled him so hard that he decided to stay a kitten forever. Whatever the case, Rorschach never went through the “huge feet, long legs” stage, and he never got particularly big for a male cat. He’s almost two years old now and isn’t nearly as large as his brother.

And he’s… different.

The kitten we never expected to come out of his shell now follows me around and talks to me when I get up in the morning. He hollers for me if he can’t find me in the evening. He likes odd foods and will try to steal your blueberry muffin if you don’t keep a close eye on it. He doesn’t blink much, which makes him look a bit nutty. He races around the house making strange noises, and if he escapes out the back door he inevitably freaks out and ends up stuck under the back deck.

Not exactly the cat who ended up in that first book, but an entertaining one nonetheless.

Rory only appeared in Resurrection once, and then only on a few pages. I honestly expected that to be the end of him. But if you’ve been reading the series you know that Imogen (the diner waitress who’s “his” human) showed up again at the end of Atonement. That was a surprise for me, but not as much of a surprise as what came next.

Imogen came back again in Covanant, and she turned out to be far more than she seemed at first glance. And Rory? Well, I can’t say he’s been thrilled about it, but he’s come along for the ride, and he even played a part in unravelling the mystery that plays out on the pages of Covenant.

…which means that a chance encounter with an SPCA Facebook post affected the course of this book series.

Does the real Rorschach know or care? I doubt it. I’ve told him, but I don’t think he was listening. He was too busy knocking stuff off the mantel and bothering his big sisters.

He may have had a rough start in life, but the real-life counterpart of a badass fictional feline seems quite pleased with his own happy ending.

*knocks sea glass onto floor*

Resurrection is available for a limited time for 99 cents in ebook! Click here for links.

Since the night of Aviva’s murder she’s been forced to accept a new reality—burned by sunlight, dependent on the blood of the living, searching for her place in a dark world she didn’t believe existed until she awoke as a vampire. When rogue vampires arrive in her clan’s territory and threaten the uneasy peace of the supernatural world, Aviva finds strength in darkness and discovers gifts that are considered shameful in the eyes of vampire society. Powers like hers are dangerous, but they might be her only hope of standing between a pack of ruthless killers and the unsuspecting humans they prey on.  

*I think most of you know by now that Tanith Frost is my pen name. It’s not much of a secret.