A CHILDHOOD on a Wrexham farm and a Latin class have become the unexpected perfect combination for a debut novelist.
Retired journalist Sarah Bayliss, who still lives in Wrexham, has recently published her, The Taming of Tigris.
It features a group of international IT savvy cats who learn how to email. The pivot of the story is Tigris, a lonely Wrexham cat who emails three cats living on the Pacific Coast of the United States of America. Emails between the UK and the American cats flourish, and Tigris joins a cruise ship to meet his new friends. But it proves to be a long and unpredictable journey during which Tigris falls in love, endures rejection and comes to blows with a team of mousing cats also on board.
The story is authored jointly with American Diane Smart who gives the US cats an authentic voice. The creative pair met in an online Latin class.
Sarah, a member of Wrexham Authors where she is currently author of the month, said: "My inspiration for the cat book probably goes back to childhood. I grew up on a farm near Holt where we always had cats and they have continued to play a part in my life, although I don't have one now.
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"The idea of a fantastic world where cats could email each other had been in my mind for years but I worried about how I could make the American cats sound authentic and I needed that to contrast with the British cats.
"Then I joined an online Latin class where I met Diane, who was as keen about cats as she was about classics."
• The Taming of Tigris is a tale full of humour and pathos, with a dramatic closing scene in a British feline court. It is published by Amazon, available in paperback and Kindle versions.
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