Gerry Coneybear is back from vacation and settling in for the last three months of her pregnancy -- or trying to settle. She's busy with her work as a cartoonist and children's book author; looking after the twenty cats her aunt bequeathed her along with the big old house on the Ottawa River; and trying to blend her solitary life with her cats with that of her boyfriend Doug and his three almost adult sons.

Gerry is nervous about navigating motherhood for the first time without her mom but finds support from her new friends at her prenatal yoga class. Baby showers, candy-making, and prepping the nursery fill her free time -- but things take a dark turn when Gerry stumbles upon a body at a local archeological dig site, soon followed by news of the suspicious suicide of her new friend's husband.

As a massive winter storm brews, Gerry -- now almost nine months pregnant -- finds herself snowed in, with a missing cat and a couple of ghosts. With danger lurking close to home, can Gerry piece together the clues before her due date?

Born in Montreal and raised in Hudson, Quebec, Louise Carson studied music in Montreal and Toronto, played jazz piano and sang in the chorus of the Canadian Opera Company. Carson has published fourteen books: Rope, a blend of poetry and prose; Mermaid Road, a lyrical novella; A Clearing, a collection of poetry; Executor, a mystery set in China and Toronto; Dog Poems, a collection of poetry; The Last Unsuitable Man, a thriller set in the Sunshine Coast; her historical fiction Deasil Widdy series: In Which, Measured, and Third Circle; and her Maples Mysteries series: The Cat Among Us, The Cat Vanishes, The Cat Between, The Cat Possessed, and A Clutter of Cats.

Her poems appear in literary magazines, chapbooks and anthologies from coast to coast, including The Best Canadian Poetry 2013. She's been short-listed in FreeFall Magazine's annual contest three times, and one poem won a Manitoba Magazine Award. Her novel In Which was shortlisted for a Quebec Writers' Federation award in 2019. She has presented her work in many public forums, including Hudson's Storyfest 2015, as well as in Montreal, Ottawa, Kingston, Toronto, Saskatoon and New York City.

She lives in St-Lazare, Quebec, where she writes, teaches music and gardens.

Louise Carson's profile page