Carried Away – a Review

Cat lovers, once you read this book, you will never look at your precious kitties the same way again.

Sparrow, on vacation in Sicily, witnesses a guy stepping out in front of a truck. Of course, the guy ends up being hit. When Sparrow returns to his hotel room, he discovers the couple in the room across from him have tried to commit suicide. Something weird is definitely going on.

Pandemonium fills the city. Headaches, massive mood swings, suicide attempts, and reckless conduct are running rampant. It starts with a headache. If you don’t commit suicide, you end up in a coma. The doctors are calling it MMV, short for Mediterranean Mood Variance.

While at the hospital checking on the couple from his hotel, Sparrow meets Carrie, the girlfriend of the guy who stepped in front of a truck, and Cruz. He shelters at Cruz’s apartment along with Carrie and her cat. After a few weeks, Sparrow and Cruz set out on their own to head to Vicenza; Carrie elects to stay quarantined in the apartment with her cat. When she finally ventures outside again to take her cat to the vet because he has been acting strangely, she is in for a shock.

Meanwhile, cats are following and stalking Sparrow and Cruz through the deserted city of Vicenza. They are now fighting for their lives. The cat dropped a human finger that it was holding in its mouth and let out a low keening howl that broke the silence of the night. One by one, the other cats joined in, combining their voices in a ghastly mournful chorus.

Eventually, they figure out to jump in the river to escape the cat. Cats don’t like water, right? While in the river, they meet the cat version of the Crocodile Hunter, Dave Irwin. According to him, cats are the world’s deadliest hunters, a claim he backs up with evidence.

With the Cat Hunter capturing all the cats he can and the doctors working on a cure, will anyone finally come up with a way to rid the world of MMV? Will Sparrow, Carrie, Cruz, and the Cat Hunter succeed in remaining uninfected?

Did I enjoy this book? Oh, yes. The entire book was thrilling and kept me on the edge of my seat. I couldn’t read the pages fast enough. And then the book ended, but it didn’t really end. A sequel is on the way, and it promises to be just as thrilling. I highly recommend this book, especially if you, like me, are a cat lover.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. If you would like to purchase your own copy, I’ve provided an Amazon link for you below.

Amazon Link: Carried Away

Recommended Articles:

The Dangers of Getting Carried Away – Guest Post by E.L. Haines

Episodic Sleep Disorders – a Review

Cats – Egyptians, a Pope, & the Middle Ages

Favorite Sentences:

He firmly believed that he was the alpha male in that neighborhood, and he carried that presumption around like a badge of arrogance.

He could lead the news to the truth, but he couldn’t make them publish it.

Sometimes I look back on that night and wonder exactly what advantages our species has over the common cat.

Once we had cleared the approaching mob of cat-nibbled neighbors, the rest of the route home had been clear.

New Words Learned:

Ahabian – obsessed with something just as Captain Ahab was obsessed with killing the whale that once injured him

Belgian Malinois – any of a breed of working dogs closely related to the Belgian sheepdog and having relatively short straight fawn or reddish-brown hair with black tips and a dense undercoat

bogan – a person whose speech, clothing, attitude, and behavior are considered unrefined or unsophisticated

cane toad – a large brown toad native to tropical America. It has been introduced elsewhere as a pest control agent but can become a serious pest itself, partly because animals eating it are killed by its toxins.

dag – an amusing, unusual person

immolating – sacrificing

moka – a stovetop or electric coffee maker that brews coffee by passing boiling water pressurized by steam through ground coffee

yobbos – hooligans

Cat Breeds Mentioned:

Many different breeds of cat are mentioned in Carried Away. Below are most of them (I might have become so wrapped up in the story that I overlooked a few) and enough about each of them so you can tell them apart.

Bombay – This type of short-haired cat was developed by breeding sable Burmese and black American Shorthair cats to produce a cat of mostly Burmese type but with a sleek panther-like black coat. They are named after the exotic port of Bombay in India.

Burmese – This U.S.-developed breed of slender short-haired cats have gold eyes and a usually dark brown coat are highly vocal. They make a noise that resembles a rumble rather than a meow.

Egyptian Mau – This breed of short-haired domestic cats originated in Egypt and is characterized by a spotted coat and light green or amber eyes. The Egyptian Mau is also known as the Pharaoh Cat.

Maine Coon – This breed of large long-haired domestic cats have a very full tapered tail. Because of their size and loving disposition, these cats are known as gentle giants.

Manx – The Manx is a short-haired tailless variety of cat, believed to have originated on the Isle of Man. A Manx is mottled is marked with spots of different colors. Manx cats love to hop when they walk.

Siamese – The Siamese cat is a breed of slender blue-eyed short-haired domestic cats of Asian origin with pale fawn or gray body and darker ears, paws, tail, and face and a long wedge-shaped head. Many Siamese are lactose intolerant.

Siberian – This ancient semi-longhaired domestic breed originated in and is the national cat of Russia. They have water-repellant coats and actually enjoy water.

About the Author:

Ethan reads all the time, and writes so that you can read. He travels the world, ignoring the usual boundaries of space and time, collecting stories, which he loves to tell almost as much as Sparrow himself does.