When I came across this post of mine from EXACTLY ten years ago to the day, I couldn’t resist a reblog. I know many of you are sick of winter about now, but I thought Vivian and Maisie might brighten your day a little. And there’s another reason. We still miss these two so much, it brightens our day as well.
Hey, everyone, I’m back!!
Vivian K. Perry here, to tell you all about the
snowstorm forecast for most of the island of Newfoundland tonight and tomorrow.
We’re well acquainted with winter storms in this neck of the woods, but I think we are in for a mother of a blizzard this time, with 30 to 50 centimeters and high winds promised for central, and for us, before it’s all over!
Here are Maisie and I, first this morning, and second, how we will weather the storm:
Besides all of this, there is still work to be done. Please watch this little video clip below of me in Paul’s office. He puts me in a bed on top of his printer when I get lonely for his company. Be sure to turn up your volume so you can hear me purr.
Stay warm and see you all next time after we dig out!
… Life used to be so hard … now everything is easy ’cause of you.” 💕
💙🐾 🐾 🐾 🐾 🐾 🐾💙
I know, I know. Lou and Gord don’t go out in the yard. They are indoor cats. However, we are considering buying leashes and harnesses to take them outside when summer comes. We’ll see!
*Our House, a song by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
Hello, Friends & Followers! I’m sharing with you my favourite reviews for my latest novel today. These critiques come from Amazon and Goodreads.
D. W. Peach – 5 stars
Can women rule better than men?
The future looks bleak for most of humankind. Almost 200 years from now, climate change has devastated the world—destroying food sources, breaking down societal norms, and allowing disease to spread. One part of the world is managing better than most – the island of Newfoundland in Canada.
There, a matriarchal society dominates, relegating men (called peons) to manual labor or to roles as consorts for breeding purposes. Once a day, they’re fed a serum that tempers their masculine natures. Women are fully in charge, allowing men few rights, chemically controlling them, and expecting full compliance.
Katrina (Kat) is eighteen and grew up believing that men are reckless, violent, and the cause of the world’s collapse. Then she meets a “rogue,” a man who slipped onto the island, seeking a cure for his three-year-old son’s disease. She must decide whether to turn him in or defy her community and help him. Kat and Marc (the rogue) are the most nuanced characters with the richest personalities and emotional backstories. They share the POV.
The plot is straightforward, and the story moves at a clip with some slower moments to get to know the characters and the island society, which includes a complete dismantling of the family unit. What I found most interesting was the author’s attention to gender-based power structures, including the obvious role reversals. Women, for so long treated as second class citizens and victimized by men, are now the oppressors.
Perhaps out of necessity, the elders of Wild Cove also exercise rigid control over the community’s girls and women, including Kat, who are assigned tasks and career placements with little or no input. To address a rise in infant mortality, teens are coerced into breeding. The female elders seem to think this is all for the good of humankind’s survival, and I’m curious to see how this plays out as the series continues.
Highly recommended to readers who enjoy post-apocalyptic and dystopian thrillers that raise some interesting questions about human nature, power, and control.
Atlanta Reader – 4 stars
A timely book – a dystopian future triggered by runaway global warming
This take on how global warming could wipe out civilizations around the world is a bleak one that should make us try harder to save our precious planet. The novel focuses on a community in Newfoundland, in northern Canada, where there’s a ray of hope far from the equator. That’s where a matriarchal society is struggling to survive with the “help” of men who are kept as well-treated slaves for their labor and breeding services. It’s an interesting depiction of how even well-intentioned leaders can set up a government that tramples the rights of the many. Besides the oppressed male population, this also includes all the communally-raised girls who are told what they can and cannot do, with precious little room for personal choice. It’s a system ripe for revolution.
18-year-old Kat is something of a rebel who secretly helps Marcus, a “rogue” who arrives from farther inland, even though she’s been taught that men are evil. Will Kat risk her community’s welfare and go against lifelong anti-male indoctrination to help him? Will Marcus succeed in his urgent mission to find medicine to take back to his dying family? The story is told in an unhurried fashion so it takes a while to learn the answers. And the ending leaves open the possibility that the story could continue.
A novel for readers who enjoy dystopian fiction and the “what ifs” that hang like storm clouds over the increasing threat of runaway climate change.
Carrie – 5 stars Great read
This dystopian novel is an ambitious book that delivers on all fronts. I easily got lost in its pages. Great world-building, vivid descriptions, and dimensional characters who are easy to root for. I loved the feminist bent as well, along with the Eastern Canadian setting. All in all a great read!
Bruce – 5 stars Great read start to finish!
This author, J. Kelland Perry, has a style that makes you keep the pages turning and want to find out more of this world in the future. A story of a “What if” scenario that is filled with rich details of survival and growth by a matriarchal society on an isolated island. I would love to see this book turned into a movie.
Amelia – 5 stars
The Women of Wild Cove by Jennifer Kelland Perry is a striking and imaginative post collapse novel that redefines the dynamics of survival and power. Set on a matriarchal island off Newfoundland’s coast, the story fuses speculative world building with intimate emotional depth. Perry crafts a society led by women, sustained by cooperation and communal caregiving then boldly explores what happens when that balance begins to falter.
Through Kat’s journey, readers are drawn into a moral crossroads where compassion and conformity collide.
Her secret encounter with Marcus, a wounded outsider, forces her to question the ethics of her people’s rule and the boundaries of love, freedom, and sacrifice. The novel’s tension between idealism and control between nurturing and domination gives it rare philosophical resonance.
Perry’s prose captures both the serenity and volatility of her world, reflecting the beauty and fragility of a civilization rebuilt on principles of equality. The Women of Wild Cove is both a compelling survival tale and a reflective social allegory one that lingers as a meditation on what humanity must protect to endure.
While I was writing my novel The Women of Wild Cove, I visualized what my beloved island of Newfoundland would look like in the year 2203. Following the science of sea level rise—due to melting glaciers, ice sheets, and the thermal expansion of water—I imagined it would appear something like this.
My husband Paul drew the map for me. I wanted it to show the renaming of some communities, and where my fictional Wild Cove is located (there are two other actual Wild Coves in the province). But more importantly, I wanted to show how this large island had shrunk from over 40,000 square miles to nearly half that, with peninsulas reduced to archipelagos, tiny islands and shoals. (By the way, Red Indian Lake had a name change after this map was made. It was changed to Beothuk Lake.)
A friend wondered to me why sea level is rising while many lakes are now showing lower levels. So I asked Google: “Yes, you can have sea level rise and low water levels in lakes simultaneously, because they are different phenomena influenced by different, though sometimes connected, factors. Sea levels are rising globally due to climate change, while individual lake levels fluctuate based on local factors like precipitation, evaporation, snowmelt, and water usage, and can also be impacted indirectly by rising sea levels.”
And of course, science tells us sea level rise is due to human activity.
Have you noticed changes in water levels in your neck of the woods? Do you think there is any possibility of a reversal at this point?
Happy October, Friends and Followers! It’s been a busy few weeks for me lately, but I didn’t want the date of September 27 to go unnoticed here on my blog, as it marked the first anniversary of our adoption of Louie and Gordie.
Gord and Lou in the first months
In some ways, their Gotcha Day seems like only yesterday. But then I think of how much these two little darlings have flourished in the space of a year. Remembering how Gordie was so skittish and food insecure, and how at first he didn’t know how to use the little flap door to his litter box, it seems like eons ago.
And then there was Louie’s behaviour when we first brought him home, hiding under my treadmill or the spare bed until he felt more comfortable with us.
Nowadays, they are both well adapted to life here with us on Perry’s Point. And we can’t imagine a single day or night without them!
They are still young cats at ages two and four, so we look forward to many more years—and anniversaries—together.
Hey there, friends and felines! Lou and Gordon Purry here, delighted to be back on WordPress to spend a part of International Cat Day with you all.
To commemorate the occasion, Jennifer asked us to share some of her favourite cat quotes on her blog today, as well as some of her much-loved photos of us.
So here goes!
“One cat just leads to another.” – Ernest Hemingway
“I have lived with several Zen masters—all of them cats.” –Eckhart Tolle
“Perhaps one reason we are fascinated by cats is because such a small animal can contain so much independence, dignity, and freedom of spirit.” – Lloyd Alexander
“I’m not spoiled, my human is just well trained.” – Unknown
“Cats: the original supermodels.” – Unknown
“There’s no need for a piece of sculpture in a home that has a cat.” – Wesley Bates
“Heaven will never be Paradise unless my cats are there waiting for me.” – Unknown
🩷 🐾 💙 🐾. 🩷 🐾. 💙 🐾. 🩷 🐾. 💙 🐾. 🩷
If you are spending part of today with a fellow feline, please give him or her some love!
Hello friends, followers, and my fellow book lovers. I am pleased to share some news. My latest novel, The Women of Wild Cove, will be published on September 1st.
Publisher: Running Wild Press
A short synopsis:
After global collapse, the island of Newfoundland in the warming waters of the North Atlantic has survived under female rule. Children are raised by a network of caregivers, guided by the principles of “It Takes a Village.” But the civilization is threatened when its birth rate suddenly stagnates.
THE WOMEN OF WILD COVE is a survival tale of divided loyalties, love and sacrifice, gender equality, and uneasy alliances in a climate-changed world.
At this time, the book is available for pre-order in e-book form only. Here’s the Amazon link.
When the book is officially released on September 1st, the paperback will then become available.
About the Author:
Jennifer Kelland Perry is a Canadian blogger, writer, avid reader and animal lover. Born in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, she left the city behind in 2010 to enjoy rural life beside the ocean with her husband and two spoiled cats. Jennifer is the author of Calmer Girls, a two-book coming-of-age series, and a proud member of WritersNL. Visit her writing and photography blog at: jenniferkellandperry.com
By the way, if you are a member of LibraryThing, their April 2025 Batch is now available for Early Reviewers! Hit the link and scroll down to my book if you’d like a chance to review my new novel for free.
Hi Folks and Felines! Louie here, finally getting my turn to guest blog on Jennifer’s Journal.
Louie Reed Purry
Gordie really let me have it on his guest post last time, didn’t he? Well, guess what? I’m here to spill the tea on him! You see, my new brother for the last six months is not as innocent as he would have you believe.
Gordon Downie Purry
It all happened last fall on Thanksgiving Sunday. After Jennifer and Paul had their meal of roast turkey with all the trimmings, they were about to relax in the living room and leave the turkey, covered in foil, on the counter to finish cooling before putting it in the refrigerator.
pexels photo
But knowing how hungry Gordie seemed to act all the time, Paul suggested putting it back in the oven with the door just ajar.
Lo and behold, when Jennifer came out to get a drink, what did she see? My brother Gordie SITTING ON THE OVEN DOOR, FACE INTO THE TURKEY! He had torn the foil neatly away and had taken a perfect circle of bites out of the drumstick. He looked at her as if to say “Nothing to see here!” All Jennifer could do was laugh.
You see, as was explained to me, Gordon had a somewhat severe case of what is known as food insecurity. Because he had been a runaway stray for a long period of time before his adoption, he was overly anxious about when he would get his next meal. He isn’t as bad as that anymore, thank goodness. The worst he’s done since is grab a pack of deli ham off the counter where it was defrosting. Jennifer found his unsuccessful attempt to open it on the floor with a few tooth marks in it.
I’ve grown to love my silly sibling, even though he does weird things sometimes—just like me.
Oh, I almost forgot: look what Jennifer’s daughter included with her and Paul’s Christmas presents:
🐾 Kitty-approved! 🐾
Aren’t we cute? These socks were made specially by soxos.ca, a proudly Canadian company. 🇨🇦
Thanks, Jennifer, for letting me share my two cents on your blog. Purrs and nose bumps to all, love Louie. 🐾
Hi there, friends! My name is Gordon—aka Gordie, and that’s Louie cuddled in behind me. I’m guest posting for Jennifer today, who has had so much existential dread lately that she can’t seem to get up the gumption to blog like she used to. Fear not, though. I’m sure she’ll be back on track soon.
I wanted to share with you some pics of what my silly “brother by another mother” has been up to since we moved in with Jennifer and Paul back in September. Because I’m three and he is only one, I’ve been trying to have the upper hand, you know, to keep him in line.
But Louie is simply beyond my ability to control. He is always into something! Here are a few examples:
He jumped up to this chandelier until he finally succeeded to grab this:
Then he turned his attention to these starfish on the wall:
…but was unsuccessful because Jennifer scolded him so many times.
But he did manage to make off with this whatchamacallit from the bathroom in the middle of the night (tore it right off the chain!):
Then Louie decided to grab a couple of things that weren’t nailed on, such as this thingamabob:
…and this doohickey from the wall:
In spite of all his antics, we do have lots of fun together…
Every February seems to try my patience. In spite of the beautiful blues these photos depict, the shortest month always feels like the longest to me.
Speaking of patience, I’ve always loved this poet’s pen name, as well as her positive sentiment here:
While it is February, one can taste the full joys of anticipation. Spring stands at the gate with her finger on the latch. ~ Patience Strong (Winifred Emma May)
To my friends and followers in the northern climes—do you find this month as long and bleak as I do? And we’re only ten days in. Brrrr!
Jennifer's Journal 