I wrote this book after an extremely traumatic summer . . . My cat Jet went missing while we were away on holiday! When we came back, my friend (also, strangely, called Cat!) who had been feeding her told me she was very worried as she had not seen Jet for days and days.

In the past Jet had taken off for a short time to do some hunting, but she had always come home. This time it looked as though she had gone for good.

Eventually I discovered that the naughty cat had made herself comfortable at someone else's house! A family had moved in up the road and found Jet nosing around their garden. They assumed she was a stray and took her in. Unfortunately they fed her on rather more tasty cat food than we did, so she decided she was better off at their house! It took a lot of persuasion to get her to come home . . .

KITTEN SMITTEN is loosely based on what happened that summer.