Today I'm hosting one of my favorite Londonders (Londonites?) :-), the beautiful Vickie Johnstone. You may remember Vickie from some of our previous interviews. We've even had a chat with Kiwi, the main character of her Kiwi Series.
Please have a look at these previous interviews here:
Vickie Johstone
Kiwi
And here's a couple reviews for:
Kiwi in Cat City
Kiwi and the Missing Magic
Vickie has been kind enough to share an excerpt of Kiwi in Cat City, the first of the Kiwi Series. Also, be sure to check out the other stops on the tour AND enter the Rafflecopter following the excerpt for your chance to win!!!
Excerpt from Kiwi in Cat City by
Vickie Johnstone
Chapter 1: Follow, follow
Amy awoke and saw
her black cat sitting perched on the end of her bed, studying the gleaming
moon. She rubbed her eyes and sat up just in time to see Kiwi leap out of the window
and on to the ledge below. Amy crept out of bed and peered outside. The cat was
standing perfectly balanced on the wooden garden fence, calm and still, her
tail perked up. A dark silhouette staring up at the moon. I wonder where she’s
going, thought Amy. She crept into her brother James’ room where he was
sleeping soundly, and prodded his arm until he woke with a jump.
“What?” he gasped,
wiping the sleep from his eyes. “I was dreaming. You really scared me.”
“Come and look.”
“Eh?” He stumbled
out of bed and, like a zombie, followed his sister to the window. Gazing out,
they could see the black cat still sitting on the fence.
“She has been
sitting there for ages,” said Amy.
“Maybe she’s
stretching,” he shrugged.
They watched, but
Kiwi didn’t stretch. Instead she leapt off the fence and stood on the path,
looking up at the moon.
“Now that’s weird.
That’s what I’m talking about,” said Amy. “She’s thinking about something.”
“I wonder where
she goes at night,” James mused.
“Hunting mice,”
grinned Amy.
“Yuk, she
wouldn’t. Would she?”
“Tell you what,
I’m going to follow her and see…”
“You’re crazy,”
gasped James. “It’s 1am and mum will kill you.”
“I want to see
what she has for breakfast,” Amy laughed. “Don’t you?”
“Yuk! That’s
grim,” said James, screwing up his face.
Amy wandered back
to her room with her little brother following, half-asleep and a bit confused.
“So you’re coming
then?” asked Amy, putting on her shoes and jacket.
“Errm,” he
murmured as his sister crept out of the room on tiptoes. “Okay, but if she
catches anything I’m not touching it…”
James slid on his
trainers, jeans and jacket, and crept down the stairs after his sister, being
careful not to make a sound. He could hear his dad snoring like a sleeping
dragon. The sound echoed off of every wall. They tiptoed to the back door and
slowly opened it on its creaky hinges. It was so loud. Ahh.
Kiwi was still
sitting in the middle of the garden, staring up at the moon. Holding their
breath they slowly closed the door without a sound. Turning around, they were
just in time to see Kiwi plunge over the fence in a single bound. The two
children looked at one another, raised eyebrows, and ran to the bottom of the
garden to the gate. Out they went, giggling. It was a warm summer night without
a breeze. In the field beyond the gate, trees soared up against the night sky,
jagged and spectre-like. Without the shine of the moon it would have been
completely dark. James shivered, but he had already decided that he was not
going to look scared, even if he was.
“There she goes,”
pointed Amy, as they bounded across the field towards the black tail that
bobbed above the grass in the distance.
They chased and
chased. The black cat ran and ran. They swerved between trees and the black cat
just kept running. The children started to puff and pant. “Kiwi!” they yelled.
Suddenly, the
cat’s ears pricked up and she stopped with a jump. Caught unawares, the little
black cat turned around, her yellow eyes wide and enquiring. “Are you two
following me?”
Amy and James
stopped dead in their tracks. James sat down on the grass with a bump, his
mouth wide open. Amy wanted to say something, but she couldn’t speak.
“Well, are you?”
asked Kiwi, standing up straight and resting one paw on her hip. “It’s a bit
late to be out playing you know.”
Kiwi grinned the
biggest, widest grin and flicked her tail. She sat down and started washing,
knowing that she had just given her two playmates the biggest shock of their
lives. She carried on washing her paw, flicked out a claw, and waited for a
reply. It was a long time coming.
The children were
transfixed, rooted to the spot. Cold fingers of air travelled up their spines
and made all of the hairs on their necks stand up. Amy gulped. Was she
dreaming?
“What’s wrong?”
laughed Kiwi. “Cat got your tongue?”
“Ahhhhhhhhhhh!”
Amy sat down with a thump.
“Yooouuuu
taaaallllkkkkk,” James stuttered.
“Well, what were
you expecting? Sign language?” asked Kiwi matter-of-factly.
“But, we can
understand you,” mumbled Amy, pinching her arm. Ouch. She wasn’t dreaming.
Could this be real after all?
“Well, I know
several languages,” explained Kiwi. “It comes in handy. So you WERE following
me? Ha ha!”
“Sort of,” said
James. “We were wondering what you ate for breakfast.”
“Like mice?” asked
Kiwi, grinning.
“Well yes.”
Kiwi laughed. “I
have more important things to do. And mice taste funny. Errr. Not good. And
mice have feelings too. They’re very intelligent you know. I have several good
friends who are mice…” Kiwi stopped talking as the two children sat
open-mouthed in shock, blinking oddly.
“Ok, well, enough
of that,” she carried on. Best to change the subject. “I was joking. I don’t
have any mouse friends! Well, you see that moon up there? See how it’s really
bright and glowing?”
The kids nodded.
“And see how it’s
shaped like a cat’s claw?”
“I guess…” said
James.
“Well, nights like
these are not ordinary nights,” said the cat, looking straight at the boy.
James shivered.
“Why?” He wasn’t sure if he wanted to know the answer. Was Kiwi going to eat
them?
“Well,” said Kiwi
slowly, “if you really want to know… why don’t you follow me some more?”
It was a
challenge. The cat was grinning from ear to ear now. Amy was cold and scared.
She could only stare awkwardly as though hypnotised while her brother chatted
to the cat… the cat… THE CAT! She felt dizzy.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Kiwi
in Cat City
Book blurb:
One dark night, Amy
cannot sleep and she looks out of the window into the garden to see her cat,
Kiwi, transfixed by the moon, which is glowing brightly like a cat's claw.
Waking her brother, James, Amy suggests they follow Kiwi to see where she
goes... whether it involves a hunt for mice or something else. Little do they
know that, with a flick of her tail, Kiwi is going to magically change them
into kittens and lead them on the adventure of their lives to a land they never
knew existed in their wildest dreams. In the blue-lit world of Cat City, the
budding detectives help Inspector Furrball to solve the mystery of the missing
catizens and find out what happened to Madame Purrfect.
For children aged 9+,
teens and adults. This book is the first in the Kiwi Series. So far, there are
six books.
Buy
links:
Ebook price: $0.99/77p
Paperback price: $7.50/£4.86
Vickie Johnstone lives in London, UK,
where she works as a freelance sub-editor on magazines and an editor on indie
books. She has a thing about fluffy cats and also loves reading, writing,
films, the sea, rock music, art, nature, Milky Bar, Baileys and travelling.
Vickie has self-published the following
books:
Kaleidoscope (poetry)
Travelling Light
(poetry)
Life’s Rhythms (haiku)
3 Heads and a Tail (comedy romance)
Kiwi in Cat City (magical cat series for
middle grade readers)
Kiwi and the
Missing Magic
Kiwi and the Living Nightmare
Kiwi and the Serpent of the Isle
Kiwi in the Realm of Ra
Kiwi’s Christmas Tail
Day of the Living Pizza (comedy
detective series for middle grade readers)
Day of the Pesky Shadow.
The Kiwi Series is illustrated by Nikki
McBroom.
Author links:
