The Ghost Cat is a charming novel perfect for readers looking for something cozy and steeped in magical realism. Told entirely from the point of view of Grimalkin, a tomcat born in Victorian era Scotland, it takes us from Grimalkin’s last day on Earth in 1902 through his remaining eight lives as a ghost to his last haunting in 2022.
Each ghostly life granted to him by the great Cat-sith of the feline afterlife must follow a certain set of rules: three lives to stay, three to stray, and three to play. Absolutely brimming with historical tidbits, each life Grimalkin awakens to brings the reader to a different era in the same house in Edinburgh where he lived his first life.
As Grimalkin awakens to world wars, scientific breakthroughs, and moon-landings, we see not only how quickly and profoundly the world can change, but also how constant and enduring the human spirit remains through the trials and travails of the consistent march of time. This is one of the only books to make me cry, and my only complaint is that it ended far too soon.