Review: A Christmas Feral by Mary Matthews
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 11 30, 2012
This review was originally posted on Big Al's Books and Pals review blog on November 19, 2012This is a charming re-telling of the Charles Dickens classic, A Christmas Carol. Judge Scrooge is presented with a case for the legal extermination of feral cats in his town on Christmas Eve.Judge Scrooge is a bitter man. His love of money, his turning his back on family, and walking away from the woman he loved has had a caustic effect on his life. I liked the way She (Scrooge's lost love) was introduced (that is the way he refers to Her). She is an attorney that presents cases in front of Judge Scrooge regularly. He decides to make a ruling for the legal extermination of feral cats in their area solely based on who She is, but defers his ruling until the day after Christmas. This sets the stage for the visit of Tatania, our magical cat, who has a Cheshire cousin.This is a cute premise, but the story missed the mark, in my opinion. I tended to get lost when the story changed scenes, they were not as well defined as I felt like they could have been, and this threw me out of the story. The moral of the story includes the significance of the balance of nature with all living things as well as the joy of the spirit of Christmas. I found no significant errors.FYI:Tatania, Grace, and Jack are characters from Mary Matthews' Splendid Summer series.**Originally written for "Books and Pals" book blog. May have received a free review copy. **