Welcome to my website. My name is Kirsten Bett and I have written My Name is Wilma, a book in the genre cat fiction based on our real life emigration to New Zealand and, 10 years later, back to the Netherlands. I have written a special page in Dutch about Wilma een Wereldkat.
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I am still reading Marti M. McNair's Island of Ruin when I start this review. To be precise, I am on page 226 of 232. I don't dare finish it. It's been a harrowing read so far and I highly recommend this rollercoaster ride. The reason why I don't want to finish it is I am scared something bad will happen to the main characters. Then I realise this is part one so hopefully they will make it through to part two. And I return to the book.
Wilma, star of hiding in full view, was a tabby. In Wilma's Tulip Field Days the main character has to find six different cats, one of them a tabby. Time to talk cat fur patterns.
The prequel to My Name is Wilma, which I will be publishing as a free ebook is surprising even me. In it we meet the perfectly nice Suzanna who transforms into Stragna Woman, when she feels she has no option. She is one of a kind.
I just finished The Running Grave by Robert Galbraith and I have come up for air. It's had a huge impact on me. I am guttered I have finished it but don't crave for the next instalment in the Strike and Robin series just yet. Recovery is on the menu first, and I mean that in the best possible way. I can't even move on to the next book on my reading list before I have digested all that's happened. So I decided to blog about it, hoping that might help. This number one world bestseller does not need my help, but for those of you who haven't read the series yet, do! Don't worry about spoilers here, I am a no-spoilers-book blogger.
This is my second review in a row on a book with the word 'secret' in the title. And no, I am not giving anything away this time either, I wouldn't want to put my foot in it...
Wilma een Wereldkat is receiving a lot of love. It was published this summer so readers quite often sent their short reviews from holiday destinations or their sunny back gardens. We had a fantastic summer over here, didn't we?
No, I won't tell you what Hunter's secret is, even though I know now. Even though my lips are burning, no way am I going to spoil it for you. What I will tell you is that this was my first read of Val Penny's series about D.I. Hunter. A small spoiler alert; it won't be my last.
If you are going from Copenhagen to Amsterdam and contemplating a rail journey, leave it till 2025. That is when there will be a direct trainline between Amsterdam and Copenhagen. Great news if you like choosing an alternative to flying between European cities.
Heck yeah. Swimming clears the mind or lets you focus on your plot or characters with no interruptions. And if it is in a swimming pool like this one at the CPH hotel in Copenhagen... As you can see it is not your average hotel swimming hole. I couldn't believe it. I hadn't even realised there would be a swimming pool in the hotel - I love my swim - when I encountered this beauty on our trip to Copenhagen in September. We were there for only two nights so I only got to swim twice; we did want to see something of the gorgeous city as well. We have been back for two weeks and I still miss it and am completely resolved to start swimming again in Leeuwarden.
I don't know about you but I love Facebook memories popping up, even if they are not the happiest ones. They can be inspiring for a project I am working, on inspire new stories or just provide a nostalgic place for a while.
If you take a train in the Netherlands, say from The Hague in the southwest to Leeuwarden in the north of the country where I live, the good news is that there is a direct line. It takes more than two-and-a-half hours on this 160k track though, so you might need to visit the toilet on your train journey. Quick word of advice: don't.
A Gentle Nudge , an especially apt title for me on this book blog tour I must admit with some hesitation and a lot of embarrassment.
Have you ever dreamt of doing it all differently? Maybe starting over in a new country? Cat Wilma has not. On the contrary, she is happy to have found a real home when her humans decide to uproot and move them all to New Zealand. Ten years later they move back to the Netherlands and globetrotter Wilma thinks it's time to tell her story. You can now enjoy her adventures, her opinions of what her humans are up to and the wise words of her mentor Kapitein.
My name is Kirsten Bett, I was born in Auckland on the first of July 1962 and started writing as soon as I could read until I moved to the Netherlands at the tender age of 10 and lost myself in a language full of guttural tones and complicated grammar.
In 2007 my partner Wim and I took our cats Sailor and Wilma and emigrated to New Zealand where we lived and worked for a decade. I also gained a Diploma in creative writing. My first book My name is Wilma was published in 2021 as an ebook. I edited and translated it into Wilma een Wereldkat for Dutch readers, which I published as a paperback in July 2023.
