Cats are sailors’ best friends. Have been for hundreds of years.

Not only were cats welcome aboard British vessels to hunt mice, but sailors generally thought  a black cat in particular would bring good luck and ensure a safe return home.

A few of these kitties have been enshrined in maritime history. Tiddles traveled more than 30,000 miles during his time with the Royal Navy. His favorite pastime was playing with the capstan’s bell-rope.

I’m not surprised at these facts. My partially black cat, Smoky, who has some white and is called a ‘tuxedo’ cat because the white makes  him resemble a cat wearing a tuxedo, is a fairly normal cat. (Except that he’s a total coward, but that’s another story.)

He’s a welcome addition to the family. He’s my first cat ever and he’s taught me a lot about cats in general. Like the fact that they know exactly what they want and also know that they deserve whatever that is. That they like laps. And windows. And naps. And sometimes other cats and dogs and household pets in general. And that they don’t age like dogs. They don’t go gray and the only sign of old age — Smoky is 11 years old — is that they don’t jump quite so high as they used to.

Just like Little Guy, the cat hero of my latest clean small-town romance, who not only knows what he wants, he goes after it in the most polite but dogged manner possible. Of course he does. He’s a cat.

Check it out. A Very Black Cat is available now on Amazon.  http://www.Amazon.com/dp/B07BTGN58M