The Role of Cats in My Writing
by Sharon Marchisello
Cats have been in my life since I was four years old, when I got my first pet. They’re great confidantes and companions. But they haven’t played a big role in my writing, apart from climbing on my keyboard to divert attention from my WIP.
However, in my new series—the DeeLo Myer cat rescue mysteries from Level Best Books—cats take center stage.
Besides being a cat servant, I’ve volunteered for the Fayette Humane Society (FHS) for twenty years. I started out fostering felines, then worked cat adoptions. I’m also the grant writer and serve on the Board of Directors. Rescue work is not without drama, and I figured I’d someday work it into a novel.
Before joining FHS, I assumed all cats were potential house pets. I didn’t realize there are millions of unowned, unsocialized cats calling the outdoors their home. My town, like most communities around the world, supports multiple colonies of free-roaming cats. They populate wooded areas, trailer parks, and business centers, especially those containing restaurants. Free-roaming cats might be lost pets, strays, or truly feral felines, born outdoors and never socialized to humans. Unfortunately, they reproduce exponentially. A kitten can have a litter before she’s six months old, sometimes as early as four months. And most of her surviving kittens will have litters of their own within a year. In a state like Georgia, where winters are mild, cats breed year-round; a couple of unaltered pets can quickly grow into a huge colony.
We used to refer to “kitten season” as late spring and early summer, when litters were plentiful. Now, in the South, kitten season never stops. Our group’s mission is to educate the public on the importance of neutering their pets to help control overpopulation and reduce the number of healthy, adoptable cats and dogs killed in shelters every year simply because they don’t have homes.
Another way rescue groups like FHS combat cat overpopulation is by practicing Trap-Neuter-Vaccinate-Return (TNVR). They set humane traps to catch free-roaming cats, transport them to a low-cost clinic to be sterilized and vaccinated, then return the unsocialized ones to their outdoor homes, where they can live out their natural lives without reproducing. While the cat is under anesthesia, the veterinarian clips a corner from the left ear; if the animal gets trapped again, the ear tip saves everyone another trip to the clinic.
Since feral cats are mostly nocturnal, trapper volunteers work at night, usually in deserted locations. A perfect set-up for danger… or finding a dead body.
Hence, the premise for the first book in my series, Trap, Neuter, Die.
I figured most readers would be as clueless about TNVR as I was before I joined FHS. But how could I educate them on the program without a big info dump?
Our organization has a revolving door for volunteers, and we get many short-timers who must perform court-ordered community service. I decided to make my protagonist, thirty-year-old divorcee DeeLo Myer, a new community service volunteer. Thus, the reader learns about TNVR along with the heroine.
The story opens with DeeLo’s first night on duty. A newcomer to the fictitious Georgia town of Pecan Point, she’s paired with seasoned trapper Catherine Foster, who unapologetically prefers feral cats to human beings. And she’s particularly intolerant of DeeLo when she finds out the reason for her community service. Needless to say, their working relationship gets off to a rocky start.
The night gets even worse when they discover a murdered corpse. And Catherine won’t let DeeLo call 9-1-1.
From my involvement with FHS, I learned that many communities, including the county where I live, have animal ordinances that do not support TNVR, so volunteers operate in the shadows. These ordinances treat free-roaming cats the same as pets, with leash laws as well as ownership and abandonment restrictions designed for pet owners, not feral cat caretakers or rescue volunteers. Several years ago, FHS volunteers attempted to work with the Fayette County Board of Commissioners to get the animal ordinance updated—let’s just say there was lots of drama and hidden political agendas. Maybe fodder for a novel…
These draconian ordinances are rarely enforced; in fact, most people don’t know what’s on the books. But in my story, a cop with a grudge against Catherine Foster has read the county’s ordinance and found the loophole giving him the authority to arrest her for practicing TNVR.
When DeeLo sees Catherine arrested (and subsequently detained under suspicion of murder), she’s amazed at the law’s stupidity and vows to change it. How hard could it be? She enlists the help of her boyfriend, owner of the law firm where she works.
Getting a county ordinance changed turns out to be harder than DeeLo anticipated. But she perseveres, and it becomes her mission throughout the three-book series. Oh, and there are a few murders along the way.
Trap, Neuter, Die was published in November 2024, and Trapped and Tested was just released. In Trapped and Tested, the victim is the CEO of a company that tests its products on cats. When I recounted the plot to one of my rescue colleagues, she remarked, “Oh, a revenge story!”
What do I hope to accomplish with this series? To create awareness about the tragedy of pet overpopulation and show how some people are working to help solve it. And of course, give readers an entertaining mystery.
TRAPPED AND TESTED
When DeeLo’s niece, Demi Myer, tries to find her father on an ancestry site, she meets Kwintone, a half-brother with a few secrets. After getting a speeding ticket, Kwintone is assigned to community service in the Pecan Point Humane Society’s Trap, Neuter, Vaccinate, Return program—trapping cats with DeeLo on the new Oakwood Studios lot. The disinterested trainee leaves abruptly on his first night, and later DeeLo finds his car abandoned beside the road, phone on the seat.
Where is Kwintone, and is he connected to the stabbing of the CEO of Neuroscience Laboratories—a medical research facility that tests its products on cats?
DeeLo is still determined to change the county’s animal ordinance to support TNVR, but is the newcomer candidate she backs for the open commissioner slot involved in a murder?
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/trapped-and-tested-sharon-marchisello/1149265160
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Sharon Marchisello is the author of the DeeLo Myer cat rescue mysteries from Level Best Books. Trap, Neuter, Die was published in 2024; Trapped and Tested in January 2026. Her other mysteries were published by Sunbury Press: Going Home (2014), Secrets of the Galapagos (2019), and Murder at Leisure Dreams – Galapagos (2025). Sharon has also written a nonfiction book about personal finance (Live Well, Grow Wealth – 2018), travel articles, a blog, book reviews, and short stories, one of which was a Derringer finalist. She earned a Master’s in Professional Writing from the University of Southern California and is active in Sisters in Crime, the Atlanta Writers Club, and several critique groups. She lives in Peachtree City, GA, and serves on the boards of the Fayette Humane Society, Hometown Novel Writers Association, and the Friends of the Peachtree City Library. Sharon fosters cats for the Fayette Humane Society when she isn’t traveling the world.
Website: https://smarchisello.wordpress.com/
Social Media Links:
https://www.facebook.com/SLMarchisello
https://twitter.com/slmarchisello
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4297807.Sharon_Marchisello
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharonmarchisello
https://www.instagram.com/slmarchisello/
https://www.bookbub.com/profile/sharon-marchisello
https://www.amazon.com/stores/-/author/B00NH6N4WK?
Category: On Writing
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