Tessa Calder used to make liars look respectable.

As a London crisis PR consultant, Tessa could polish a scandal, bury a headline, and turn disaster into a carefully worded statement.

Then one client went too far.

Now disgraced, unemployed, and spectacularly low on options, Tessa inherits The Velvet Paw: a rain-swept cat café in the seaside town of Morrowmere-on-Sea. The will comes with one irritating condition. She must run the café for ninety days before she can sell it.

Simple.

Until she walks in on five cats holding a staff meeting.

The Velvet Paw is no ordinary café. The resident cats run the place, judge its human owner, and know far more about Tessa’s late great-aunt than they are willing to admit. Worse, when customers bring in their own cats, the animals reveal the secret selves their owners are desperate to hide.

A sweet baker’s cat snarls with buried rage.

A nervous solicitor’s cat hides imaginary paperwork.

A polished councillor’s cat sits perfectly still.

Then local benefactor Victor Strake drops dead over blackcurrant cake during the café’s famous Purrsonality Evening, and suspicion lands straight on the young baker whose furious cat has just exposed a very public grudge.

But Tessa knows how stories are shaped.

She knows how blame gets redirected.

And she knows when someone is trying to make an accusation look inevitable.

Because someone wants The Velvet Paw. Someone wants Tessa gone. And in a town where every cat reveals the truth, the deadliest clue may be the one that refuses to make a sound.

A witty, clean paranormal cat café cozy mystery full of secrets, seaside charm, suspicious pastries, and cats who know exactly what everyone is hiding.