Today is my stop on the Blog Tour for What Happened To Us by Faith Hogan where I've a guest piece about animals and to list her favourite 3 animals. I was thrilled to be asked by Faith Hogan herself to take part along with some other fab book bloggers. You can find out who else is taking part in this fabulous Blog Tour at the end of the review so without further ado, here it is:
Dog Days Indeed...
If you’ve spotted ‘What Happened to Us?’ floating about the internet, you can’t have not noticed the gorgeous dog in the foreground of the cover. I’m delighted to introduce this gorgeous character called Teddy to you today!
As you’re reading this, it will be almost a year since I talked Mr H into getting a family dog. Prior to this, we’ve had cats. We’ve had white cats, grey cats, red cats, fat cats and thin cats. Their personalities have run the gamut from clever cats to grumpy cats and everything in between. Basically, any cat that managed to walk into the garden has been offered refuge. Our very own cat was called Norris, an overweight, huge personality of a cat who managed to worm his way into the affections of everyone, even the decidedly non pet lover Mr H.
Unfortunately, at the end of last year, our darling Norris, met his bumpy end on the nearby busy road, so it was time to welcome a new personality into our home. There was no replacing Norris, so another cat was out of the question.
pic courtesy of Keith Heneghan.
Enter Penny! A Labrador puppy who fills up our home and hearts as if she has always been part of us. I’ve always been a dog person, but it’s interesting to watch Mr H come to terms with the fact that he’s not getting much of a choice around loving Penny. She has managed, with her gorgeous brown eyes and happy personality to win over even the most reluctant fan.
If you’ve read The Girl I Used To Know, you’ll probably remember a cat who managed to play some small part in making life better for more than just one character. In What Happened To Us? a small scrap of a dog manages to make his way into the lives of the main characters and just like life, I think he works his own special type of magic on the story!
It’s made me think about animals in fiction – the fact that cats and dogs are so prevalent and I thought it might be fun to list my favourite three....
Number 1 has to be Elsa:
We grew up with born free and recently watched it again on Netflix. My daughter, who is just nine loved every second of it and you know, I thoroughly enjoyed it too, with this gorgeous big cat at the centre of the story. (if Mr H is reading this, don’t panic dear, I have no intention of looking for a Lion!)
Number 2 – this spot must go to Timmy:
The dog we all grew up with, even if you weren’t allowed to have a dog when you were growing up, you couldn’t help but understand the love of one solitary little girl for her dog. In Enid Blyton’s hands, Timmy ended up not just saving George and her cousins from danger, he actually connected them to start. It was when George realised how much he liked her cousins and they him, that she actually conceded, they might just be friends as well as cousins.
Number 3 – Orangey - the winner of two Patsy’s (the animal kingdoms Oscars!)
Orangey symbolizes everything that’s wrong in Holly Golightly’s life – but don’t we all just want to cry when she finally sees the light and rescues him in the lashing rain?
And that’s it, the list could go on forever, but the thing is, cats, dogs, lions, it doesn’t really matter, there’s no getting away from the fact that in fiction, as much as in real life, the world is a better place if you have room in your heart for an animal to care about.
No comments :
Post a Comment