Winner: Feathered Quill Book Award for Animal - Children's and YA (3rd) (2024)
Finalist: American Book Fest Best 'Book Award' for YA Fiction (2023)
Finalist: National Indie Excellence Awards for Teen Fiction (2024)
“Tim Cummings manages to couple the writing of an angel with the imagination of the devil. Alice the Cat slinked inside me, furtively, magnificently. My heart ached for Tess—so much loss. My heart thundered for her too—so much sass and courage. I could not stop reading. This book is nothing short of bliss.”
– Caroline Thompson, writer of The Nightmare Before Christmas, and Edward Scissorhands.
On the verge of her thirteenth birthday, Tess’s life is falling apart. Her mother is dead. Her father is like a zombie. And now her beloved cat, Alice, has started rushing into the street when cars go by, trying to get run over. The only thing Tess can think of that might help? Running away. As she ventures from home, Tess stumbles upon a crew of manga-loving goth kids hiding out in the local haunted house performing séances. There, she discovers that the house’s ghostly entity desperately wants a cat to care for in the afterlife, and it has its sights set on Alice. With the help of an unexpected friend and the brilliant, adorkable kid who has a huge crush on her, Tess will do whatever it takes to save Alice the cat, help the ghost, heal her dad, and survive the summer in one piece.
Age range: 11+
TW: Death, body talk, mental health, illness of a pet, cancer
