Excellent book - leaves you wanting more! ~ Review by Michelle
Once I started to read this book, I found that I could not put it down.
Wet & Wild is series of vignettes that revolve around a pet shop of the same name. The book is exceptionally well written and the author does a great job of bringing the unique pets (and equally unique customers) to life in each story. While not a comedy, there is a distinct humor that runs through the book that I enjoyed.
Definitely worth your time to stop and read this one.
*****
Since I love to share excerpts to give a taste of the story and the way the author writes…it is worth noting that this is great writing and very entertaining. I love the humour. (yes that is the spelling in Canada)
David Ellis introduces his stories with some facts about pets in Britain households - 6.6 million dogs, 7.7 million cats, 18 million goldfish.
“This book takes as its starting point a fairly traditional pet shop – the sort where one would go with one’s children to buy a puppy or a kitten – but then adds a “what if?” to the equation.” ~ David Ellis
About the book – The Blurb!
Wet & Wild is a pet shop unlike any you’ve ever known. Run by resting actor Roderick and his ‘Doctor Dolittle’ assistant Brian, customers tend to get more than they bargained for, particularly when they forget to care for their unusual pets.
But the customers are hardly run-of-the-mill either. There’s Mikey with his over-the-top designer penthouse, softie Sara Jane and her infatuation with Tales of the City, the Roberts family with their horror of a daughter, and the handsome Markus who’s otherwise known as DJ Mista Mixa.
So, please enter Roderick’s exotic pet emporium and meet Ebenezer the goldfish, Jeff the electric eel and Cyril the cat, to name but a few, and let the adventures begin!
Excerpt ~ Chapter 1: Brian
(Kindle Locations 82-107)
The Elliott family are mostly sitting down to a meal in the kitchen of their council house in North London. As usual, Mr Elliott is disgruntled by the behaviour of Brian, aged 10, the youngest of the four children.
“Brian, you little shit, come and sit down at the table!” ordered his father.
Brian was sitting in the corner staring at the cat. He didn’t respond.
“Brian, listen to what your father is saying!” instructed his mother.
He still didn’t respond.
“He’s playing with that frigging cat again!” exclaimed his father.
Brian was interacting with the cat but he didn’t regard it as playing; in fact, this was a full-on pow-wow to plan a strategy for world domination. A cat’s gaze was inscrutable for good reason, as time and patience is required for the transfer of data to complete. The conversion of ideas and thoughts between species couldn’t be rushed or else it became a meaningless jumble.
Brian returned reluctantly to the table and tentatively applied a knife and fork to the lump of meat that passed for supper in their household. Unfortunately, he’d known its owner and even barely touching something so dead and overcooked felt like stabbing his best friend in the back. Not that he had a best friend – of the human kind, anyway.
“Dad, Brian’s not eating his food. Can I have it?”
The inquiry was coming from the first in line to the family misfortune. She was an overweight girl of 15 who went by the name of Julie and was generally reckoned by her peers to be easy with her virtues. And she was a pig. Brian had once tried communicating with her in the way he would with the real thing. He actually detected a glimmer of response and noticed that her food intake had increased massively ever since.
He’d always suspected there was something strange about his father and this had confirmed it. His taunts of “oink, oink” when he was in his dad’s earshot had no effect, however.
Excerpt of Review by R. Coker ~ Fun, Imaginative & Engaging
“The writing is offbeat, lush, vivid and engaging... drawing you into the adventures to be had within the oddly charming wall so this unique pet shop.”
Wet & Wild is available on Amazon!
