I received an Advance Listening Copy of this book thanks to the publisher and Libro.fm. All opinions are my own. This book is available now.
One of the lovely things about using audiobooks and being able to have great access to them through Libro.fm is that I have found myself trying books I might not normally pick up. Agnes Aubert’s Mystical Cat Shelter definitely falls into that category. I’m not that into whimsical stories of magic and I’m more of a dog person than a cat person. But I was happy to give it a shot and while, in the end, it wasn’t really a book for me, I do think it will find its audience.
Agnes Aubert is our main character and narrator. She’s a young widow, living in Montreal, and operating a shelter for stray cats. She takes in cats, cares for them, and tries to find them new homes, operating her shelter as a charity. When the story opens, Agnes is searching for a new location for the shelter because her current spot has a hole blasted in the wall by duelling magicians. She’s having trouble finding a place because most people think her cat shelter is a crazy idea but, following a tip, she finds a terrific spot for cheap. Of course, there is a catch, and it isn’t long before she realizes that her landlord is Havelock Renard, the witch king himself.
Fawcett does a great job of establishing both Agnes and the rules of the world (well, most of them, but more on that in a moment) in this initial set-up. Agnes is spunky and independent and her cats are the most important thing to her. We learn that she hates magicians, that her husband died a few years before, and that the shelter is struggling.
What we don’t learn (and that I found frustrating) was what era this story is set in. Fawcett has chosen to set her story in the very real city of Montreal and, overall, I really appreciated this choice. She adds little touches of that French Canadian quality. But the timeframe was super confusing to me. The blurb told me that the story was set in the 1920s. But Agnes, as a widow, has so much freedom that I found myself wondering if I got that wrong and we were in the 2020s. Then, no, she moves to her new location via horse and cart. But she has electricity. Then she sends a telegram. I had finally settled on it being the 1920s but Agnes being an anomaly when she casually drops that a business down the street is run by a gay couple. Ok, so we’re in a fictional version of 1920s Montreal. Which might seem obvious because magic exists and wizards are running around but I felt like Fawcett needed to do more to set the tone for this at the beginning of the book.
Probably the fact that I’m focusing this much on such an aspect demonstrates my level of engagement with the story overall. I found it both charming and predictable. It’s not a spoiler that Agnes’ opinion on magicians begins to change over the course of her interactions with Havelock. There is, of course, an opposing magician and wicked forces and all kinds of things that conspire to push Agnes and Havelock together. More time than you might expect is spent on Agnes organizing things.
I realize I’m not really selling this book well but it is very charming. There’s lots of warm pastries and cozy cats. Agnes has a sweet relationship with her sister and the wintery setting of Montreal is lovely. The cats work as their own little characters and each have personality and a role to play. I definitely think this book has its readers out there and I hope it finds them.
Karissa Reads Books 
Holy moly, you read a cozy, lol. All the nonsense about being unable to establish a time period would irritate the crap out of me. I know Bill from Australia would be in fits if he read something like this. I’m not sure how it works, though, when we’re talking about times during which the LGBT community had to hide in plain sight. I mean, they existed 100 years ago, obviously, but what would that look like? How are such characters written into modern stories in a convincing way? A book like The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith might have been a lesson for this cozy magic author.
Hahaha, I have read a few here and there but, yeah, not my usual fare. Yes, the LGBT community has obviously always existed, it was more the way it was so casually thrown out that these two characters were gay and ran a business together and everyone in the neighbourhood was aware and fine with it. That just doesn’t fit with my understanding of real life in the 1920s in Canada. If it had been the case that only the main character knew they were romantically involved and everyone else thought they were roommates or whatever, I could have accepted that. Or if it had been firmly established that this was an alternate version of 1920s Montreal. But, really, why even set the story in the 1920s when it’s not relevant to the plot and you’re not using that actually time in reality?
I recall Jeanette Winterson’s famous book Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit in which two women down the road have always lived together. The reader gets that they’re lesbians, but even the characters don’t. Something like that would have fit better in your novel, I think.
Yes, that seems much more appropriate for the timeframe. I’m even reading a book right now with two female characters like that and even those around them kind of get that they’re lesbians but no one comes out and says that.
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