Roses for Lily: A Small Cat with a Very Big Story

Some stories begin with a carefully constructed outline.

Roses for Lily began with a kitten.

Lily Rose entered the world tiny, vulnerable, and entirely dependent on the people willing to stop, notice, and help. Like so many community cats, her life could easily have gone unseen. Instead, she became the heart of a story about rescue, grief, love, and the quiet ways one small life can change many others.

Told through Lily’s eyes, Roses for Lily follows a cat who understands far more than the humans around her realize. She watches them carry their private sorrows. She sees the kindness they sometimes fail to recognize in themselves. And, in the wonderfully uncomplicated way of cats, she knows that love does not become less important simply because it cannot last forever.

This is not only a story about losing an animal. It is about what remains afterward.

Anyone who has loved a cat knows they never simply occupy a house. They claim a particular chair, establish firm opinions about closed doors, and quietly rearrange the emotional architecture of a family. They leave fur in impossible places and memories in places even harder to reach.

Lily’s story also carries a larger purpose. Roses for Lily was written in support of trap-neuter-return efforts and the people who care for feral and community cats. These volunteers work behind the scenes, often with limited resources, to prevent suffering and give vulnerable animals a chance at safer, healthier lives.

October 16. The release date for Roses for Lily is National Feral Cat Day. It felt like the right day to send Lily’s story into the world: a day devoted to the cats who are frequently overlooked and to the people determined not to overlook them.

The book will be available in paperback, ebook, and audiobook. The audiobook holds an especially tender place in my heart because it is the first one I have narrated myself. Recording Lily’s story was not always easy. Some passages required several attempts. Not because the words were difficult, but because getting through them without crying was.

Apparently, “author” and “emotionally compromised narrator” can appear on the same résumé.

At its heart, Roses for Lily is a reminder that the size of a life does not determine the size of its meaning. Sometimes the smallest creatures leave the deepest marks.

And sometimes love returns to us in unexpected ways. Soft-footed, bright-eyed, and asking to be let in.

Roses for Lily releases October 16, 2026, in honor of National Feral Cat Day.