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Bloodlines #1
Touch Not the Cat
When American homicide detective, Cathy Macpherson, reluctantly agrees to join her husband on a genealogy trip to Scotland, she does not expect to solve a mystery set in motion by her own ancestors.Switching back and forth between Victorian times and 2011, Bloodlines - Touch Not the Cat, reveals what forced Alexander Stewart to emigrate to America in 1895 and what moved laird Gordon Macpherson to protect his Highland values.Women's suffrage, racism and social division are at the heart of this gripping mystery. All bloodlines and events come together at a clan gathering in Scotland, where a family skeleton has a story to tell.
309 pages, Paperback
First published November 11, 2011
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33 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
August 20, 2013
For a first book, this sucked me in from the beginning and was a very good read. I liked the development of the stories along side each other 1895 and 2011. The writers did this very well IMO. I appreciated the notes at the end of places, events and the train especially....research or writer exploration of area. Perhaps just me, but I could not get involved with the 2011 Cathy....she was cold and perhaps a bit American stereotyped. Having said that, IMO spot on! The mystery was fun. I found this a very good read and recommend it. Perhaps having roots myself as a Canadian living in Europe, may have also added some interest for me.
August 8, 2012
Full page behind the scenes review on Bloodlines Touch Not the Cat: http://www.innertapestry.org/reviews/...
Somebody asked us the other day if Tom (McKerley) and I,(Ingrid Schippers) had read the book since we wrote it.
The answer to that is: yes; that is to say, we read each other from the book to pick up edits and listen to sentence structures and so on.
Sometimes this results in new upload for the printer with (minor) edits.
To write a review about your own book however is an entirely different matter.
I will therefore use two reviews we had in the May/June 2012 edition of Scottish Field and Scotland magazine.
More reviews can be found on amazon.com; .uk & .de, as well as on our website.
Ballindalloch Castle, ancestral home of the Macpersons, is the setting for a long ago tragedy to be revealed. A compelling read.
The Scotland Magazine, May/June 2012 edition.
This gripping mystery slips easily between past and present, drawing the reader into a rich, multi-layered tale that focuses on the fascinating family history of Ballindalloch Castle. The gripping dual narrative follows Cathy from North Carolina on her journey to the Scottish Highlands as she fights to uncover a family mystery, interspersed with flashbacks to the life of Alexander Stewart in 1895. It’s a page-turning combination of mystery and romance, history and genealogy that will appeal to fans of both detective fiction and family history.
Scottish Field, May 2012 edition
“Cover to Cover” review of Bloodlines – Touch Not the Cat: 4 out of 5 stars.
Somebody asked us the other day if Tom (McKerley) and I,(Ingrid Schippers) had read the book since we wrote it.
The answer to that is: yes; that is to say, we read each other from the book to pick up edits and listen to sentence structures and so on.
Sometimes this results in new upload for the printer with (minor) edits.
To write a review about your own book however is an entirely different matter.
I will therefore use two reviews we had in the May/June 2012 edition of Scottish Field and Scotland magazine.
More reviews can be found on amazon.com; .uk & .de, as well as on our website.
Ballindalloch Castle, ancestral home of the Macpersons, is the setting for a long ago tragedy to be revealed. A compelling read.
The Scotland Magazine, May/June 2012 edition.
This gripping mystery slips easily between past and present, drawing the reader into a rich, multi-layered tale that focuses on the fascinating family history of Ballindalloch Castle. The gripping dual narrative follows Cathy from North Carolina on her journey to the Scottish Highlands as she fights to uncover a family mystery, interspersed with flashbacks to the life of Alexander Stewart in 1895. It’s a page-turning combination of mystery and romance, history and genealogy that will appeal to fans of both detective fiction and family history.
Scottish Field, May 2012 edition
“Cover to Cover” review of Bloodlines – Touch Not the Cat: 4 out of 5 stars.
September 27, 2012
The unusual structure book worked well, although the final two or three sections seemed short on detail of reactions and how things were resolved.
There were also a few loose ends on the historical side; this is the lead into to the sequel.
There were also a few loose ends on the historical side; this is the lead into to the sequel.
September 28, 2017
I had a chunk of time to mainline the majority of this book, so that’s what I did – and from some combination of being able to disconnect from the world in favor of the book and being pulled into the book, it absorbed me. This is not the type of mystery novel I was expecting, with a character actively pursuing facts for a recently-discovered mystery; rather, it was more laid back, with Cathy, our primary protagonist, finding the mystery popping up around her and then deciding to figure it out. Interspersed between the contemporary chapters with Cathy’s experience leading up to and including her time at Ballindalloch Castle in Scotland was the thread of her husband’s ancestor’s history, for one Alexander Stewart.
Cathy is a “typical”, roots-denying American, and she claims no interest in her husband’s passion to learn about their genealogy. She’s a cop, and still recovering psychologically from being shot the year prior and almost dying. Her husband David contacts Ballindalloch Castle in Scotland (ancestral home of the Macpherson-Grants) to try and learn more about his ancestor Alexander Stewart, which results in an invitation to their upcoming Highland games for him and Cathy. Cathy resists the idea of going at first, but finds herself sucked into the idea of going, and after discussing the opportunity first with pretty much anyone who is not her husband, she decides to make the trip. David will join her later, as he has to do research for the tour guide he is writing on the Speyside whisky trail. The more time she spends in Scotland, the more active she ends up becoming, instead of just letting events and conversations float around her.
Back in the 1890s, we learn about Alexander Stewart’s youth, how he was taken in with the Macpherson family, how he was closest to the only Macpherson daughter, Katherine. Personally, I rather enjoyed these forays into history, much more than the contemporary chapters. This is likely because more “happened” in the past than the present, at least until the last few chapters when Cathy took an active role in uncovering the skeletons in her cousins’ castle.
While reading, I did have a few questions:
Page 154 – Alexander declares under oath allegiance to the USA – is that all it took to become a US citizen upon arriving in Ellis Island in 1895?
Pg 236- Is that really a view Scots have of Americans, that we are loud and demanding?
This annoyed David so much that he walked up to the reception desk and cancelled his breakfast booking. – Page 291 – Really, he couldn’t wait 25 minutes for the time he had requested the night before for taking breakfast? Is this a common attitude with American tourists or something?
The result is that the historical research seemed rather solid, and made me curious to learn more. However, it also made me wonder just how negative a view Scots (or others) might have of American tourists – how much of it is primarily stereotypical, and how much is based on the author’s personal experiences with Americans or their recorded first-person accounts from others. So, I hope that these instances are nothing but a waning fashion of American tourists abroad, because that sort of behavior in my opinion is just shameful (and I’m an Amerian).
Now, this review would not be complete without me voicing my main gripe of the whole story: some very, very bizarre punctuation-stylistic choices, which are detailed below in the “typos” section. For the first 1/3 of the book I kept track of just about everything, but as there were just so many instances to note, I stopped doing so – which also meant that my enjoyment of the book increased, as I was no longer taking tedious notes of extraneous commas pervading the text. I did continue to note other types of typos, which I have also listed below. There were just enough that the collective effect pulled me out of the story far more frequently than I would have liked, which results in me being inclined to give this 3.5 stars but rounded down.
All in all, not what I expected of a mystery novel going into this, but enjoyable nonetheless, and with a good dash of history in it. Even a bit of the fantastic, with Cathy’s intuition and the ghost of Gordon Macpherson haunting Ballindalloch Castle.
Typos:
The authors had a habit of non-standard comma usage, specifically the “pausing comma” as described here:
“Pausing commas really add nothing to the clarity of sentences, yet some people are fond of inserting them between the subject and verb –
The more experienced members of the party, gave warning that the weather
conditions were about to deteriorate. (Pointless comma)
A pausing comma was once used to precede that clauses, but the practice is now obsolete”
(Source)
That said, here are pretty much all the instances of non-standard comma (and semi-colon) usage to page 121; I stopped keeping track after that, it was just too tedious.
Now, on to the other typos:
Cathy is a “typical”, roots-denying American, and she claims no interest in her husband’s passion to learn about their genealogy. She’s a cop, and still recovering psychologically from being shot the year prior and almost dying. Her husband David contacts Ballindalloch Castle in Scotland (ancestral home of the Macpherson-Grants) to try and learn more about his ancestor Alexander Stewart, which results in an invitation to their upcoming Highland games for him and Cathy. Cathy resists the idea of going at first, but finds herself sucked into the idea of going, and after discussing the opportunity first with pretty much anyone who is not her husband, she decides to make the trip. David will join her later, as he has to do research for the tour guide he is writing on the Speyside whisky trail. The more time she spends in Scotland, the more active she ends up becoming, instead of just letting events and conversations float around her.
Back in the 1890s, we learn about Alexander Stewart’s youth, how he was taken in with the Macpherson family, how he was closest to the only Macpherson daughter, Katherine. Personally, I rather enjoyed these forays into history, much more than the contemporary chapters. This is likely because more “happened” in the past than the present, at least until the last few chapters when Cathy took an active role in uncovering the skeletons in her cousins’ castle.
While reading, I did have a few questions:
Page 154 – Alexander declares under oath allegiance to the USA – is that all it took to become a US citizen upon arriving in Ellis Island in 1895?
Pg 236- Is that really a view Scots have of Americans, that we are loud and demanding?
This annoyed David so much that he walked up to the reception desk and cancelled his breakfast booking. – Page 291 – Really, he couldn’t wait 25 minutes for the time he had requested the night before for taking breakfast? Is this a common attitude with American tourists or something?
The result is that the historical research seemed rather solid, and made me curious to learn more. However, it also made me wonder just how negative a view Scots (or others) might have of American tourists – how much of it is primarily stereotypical, and how much is based on the author’s personal experiences with Americans or their recorded first-person accounts from others. So, I hope that these instances are nothing but a waning fashion of American tourists abroad, because that sort of behavior in my opinion is just shameful (and I’m an Amerian).
Now, this review would not be complete without me voicing my main gripe of the whole story: some very, very bizarre punctuation-stylistic choices, which are detailed below in the “typos” section. For the first 1/3 of the book I kept track of just about everything, but as there were just so many instances to note, I stopped doing so – which also meant that my enjoyment of the book increased, as I was no longer taking tedious notes of extraneous commas pervading the text. I did continue to note other types of typos, which I have also listed below. There were just enough that the collective effect pulled me out of the story far more frequently than I would have liked, which results in me being inclined to give this 3.5 stars but rounded down.
All in all, not what I expected of a mystery novel going into this, but enjoyable nonetheless, and with a good dash of history in it. Even a bit of the fantastic, with Cathy’s intuition and the ghost of Gordon Macpherson haunting Ballindalloch Castle.
Typos:
The authors had a habit of non-standard comma usage, specifically the “pausing comma” as described here:
“Pausing commas really add nothing to the clarity of sentences, yet some people are fond of inserting them between the subject and verb –
The more experienced members of the party, gave warning that the weather
conditions were about to deteriorate. (Pointless comma)
A pausing comma was once used to precede that clauses, but the practice is now obsolete”
(Source)
That said, here are pretty much all the instances of non-standard comma (and semi-colon) usage to page 121; I stopped keeping track after that, it was just too tedious.
Now, on to the other typos:
January 2, 2013
This book was quite awful, abounding in cliches with a main character who starts off with no interest in her Scottish roots and then goes amuck with a JCB to dig up (literally not metaphorically) an old family skeleton. There's even a sequel, which I most certainly wont be reading. The only good thing may be the book's potentially postive effect on Speyside tourism.
April 26, 2015
Started and finished in one day, could not put it down. Enjoyed the plot with most questions being answered bar a few which will be followed up in the sequel. Loved the linking back and forward to the past and present.
January 20, 2014
I was a little disappointed in the ending but I guess it sets it up for the sequel.
January 28, 2014
Loved this book
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews