Author(s): Helen Brown

Biography & Memoir

Some say your previous cat chooses their successor. If so, what in cat heaven's name was Helen Brown's beloved Cleo thinking when she sent a crazy kitten like Jonah? When Cleo died, Helen Brown swore she'd never get another kitten. But after she was diagnosed with breast cancer an unscheduled visit to a pet shop resulted in the explosive arrival of a feisty kitten called Jonah. Like Cleo, Jonah possessed great energy and charm. But unlike Cleo, he often morphed into a highly strung and capricious escape artist. Still, as Helen recovered from a mastectomy, he also proved to be a healer in his own right. While struggling to deal with her own mortality, Helen helped arrange her son Rob's wedding, completed her international best-seller, Cleo, and was confronted with her eldest daughter Lydia's determination to abandon university studies to embark on a spiritual life. Lydia's desire to become a Buddhist nun in war-torn Sri Lanka was matched only by Jonah's yearning to be an outdoor cat in a decidedly indoor-cat neighbourhood...After Cleo Came Jonah is a warm, wise and often funny account of the highs and lows of mother-daughter relationships, the impact of a potentially life-threatening illness, and an often kooky - some might say deranged - cat called Jonah.