Who could possibly resist the cover of this book? And then the synopsis, too? I am a big fan of plague novels, having cut my teeth on The Stand in the mid-90s. Where this particular book excels is in the science. It's very compelling, and Artie's little lab family is an interesting group. I wasn't very concerned in Artie's extracurricular activities, and love life, though. Artie is depicted as the ultimate woman; a beautiful, intelligent, compelling female specimen. I could have done without that. Cat Zero would have benefitted from some length editing, and keeping a tight focus on the development of the virus.

This was a seriously clever concept! Working in the veterinary field, it had me engrossed with what it's. Unique plot, and a range of characters that really made the story. There were a few elements that seemed unnecessary, but they didn't detract from my overall enjoyment. This was a book I found myself discussing with colleagues, and thinking about long after I'd finished.

Artie is a lovely female research professor who is studying cat viruses. She is in the process of a divorce, when a strange mutation appears in a cat virus that can also spread to humans. Her handsome post doc, Mark, is eager to help with her research and her personal life. When Artie decides to try and befriend the mysterious and creepy mathematicians who work nearby in the basement, she winds up in a situation that could be catastrophic.

Artemis "Artie" Marshall is a genius scientist studying feline viruses in a stuffy university. As she struggles to be taken seriously by many of her peers, a mysterious and virulent new virus surfaces; a virus so strong, it kills both cats and humans in a matter of days. It's a race against time to find a treatment or cure even if it risks her own life in the face of a deeper conspiracy.

The best parts of this book are when Artemis and her team are actively working on the disease. Outside of her intellectual pursuits, Artemis comes off as too perfect. She's just the prettiest, everyone wants to be her friend, no man can resist her charms, blah, blah, blah... Those scenes made me want there to be more dire circumstances around the virus so there would be no time for the side stories. I thought this would be a Contagion-like medical thriller but it all just fizzled out. More attention was paid to Artie's anxiety about being alone - good character development, yes, but it didn't play into the medical parts of the plot enough for me to feel like my time reading about it was invested wisely. In the end, I felt cheated despite how compelling the blurb and the premise are. 3 out of 5.

With a really appealing heroine, a supporting cast of eccentrics, and an intriguing medical problems, this book is a winning combination, I really loved it.

While classified as a "thriller," instead of nerve-wracking, as thrillers often are, I found it to be very intriguing. I couldn't put it down.

And I can't wait to see more from this author!

Cat Zero weaves together the complicated, sometimes archaic, social hierarchies of researchers with the thrill of a new scientific discovery. But you don’t have to know anything about science to follow along with the mysteries in this book: Why are cats falling ill in Kent? What’s going on with Artie’s strange colleagues down the hall? And will she hook up with her postdoc - or should she stay away? At the end of the book, we have some answers. But like real scientific discovery, the end is just the start of a whole new set of possibilities.

Ahoy there me mateys! I received this sci-fi eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. So here be me honest musings . . .

cat zero (Jennifer Rohn)

Title: cat zero

Author: Jennifer Rohn

Publisher: Biting Duck Press

Publication Date: January 2, 2018 (paperback)

ISBN: 978-1938463662

Source: NetGalley

Well me mateys, while this be an enjoyable read, it certainly wasn't what I was expectin'. If ye read the blurb, ye get an idea that this is going to be a post-apocalyptic tale about a virus killin' off both cats and humanity with a scientist racin' to find a cure as quickly as possible. This is not the case. I kept waiting for the human death count to spiral out of control. The first confirmed human death didn't even arrive until around the 60% mark and there was never another. And the solution to the problem was certainly not a real rush. So if ye be expectin' that kind of tale then this is not fer ye.

This book was is what the author calls "lab-lit." Her amazon page says that it "is a small but growing genre of mainstream fiction about scientists and science as a profession." Her website explains more about the ramifications of the term. Amazon also says that Jennifer Rohn "leads a research lab at University College London in the United Kingdom, studying how bacteria subvert human cells during infection." Cool!

So while this book did not end up being what I thought, I still very much enjoyed it for both the science and characters. I have no scientific background except fer some chemistry classes back in the day and a best mate who is a vet. This story takes us through a mini-crash course of virology specifically concerning VSN RNA and feline leukemia (FeLV). I could follow along fairly well. The science part of the plot involves trying to figure out what the virus is and how it is evolving. Ye spend the majority of the time in the lab hearing about the day-to-day life, experiments, and politics. Oh and there is some stuff about epidemiologists and mathematical modeling. The math stuff did go over me head.

The characterizations were where much of the tension in the book came from. All of the main characters suffering from mental illness of some kind - autism, phobias, etc. The scientists were a quirky bunch. Artemis, the main protagonist, finds herself in complication relationships with the three other male scientists that are working on the problem with her. There are so many secrets and complicated issues that she is not sure who to trust. And of course one of those men happens to be both her post-doc and odd love interest. So add sexual tension in there. Oh and Aremis is trying to go through a divorce too. More sexual tension and angst.

I would normally find all these science and relationship elements to be overwhelming but instead I found meself pondering how it would all resolve. This kept me readin'. The answers for both the epidemic and relationships where a little underwhelming but nicely wrapped up. It ended up being a pleasant read. So if ye like lots of science in detail and crazy people doing crazy things then this read might be for ye.

So lastly . . .

Thank you Biting Duck Press!

Netgalley's website has this to say about the novel:

Artie Marshall is a scientist. She is perpetually underfunded, relegated to a damp basement, and besieged on all sides by sexist colleagues. Added to that she is immersed in a messy divorce. But she’s never been happier: she recently landed her own lab, based in an eclectic think-tank housed in the leafy suburbs of North London.

Artie spends her days studying an obscure cat virus that nobody else in the world seems to have heard of – or cares about. But her arcane little research problem suddenly becomes worryingly relevant as local cats start dropping dead overnight. Matters get worse when people start getting infected too.

Working with her right-hand man Mark, her vet friends and her street-smart technician, Artie races to get to the bottom of the ballooning epidemic. Unexpected assistance arrives in the form of two basement-dwelling mathematicians – a sociopathic recluse and his scary, otherworldly savant mentor. When their mathematical models suggest that the cat plague might actually be more sinister than it first appears, Artie gets drawn into a web of secrets and lies that threatens to blow apart her lab family, undermine her sanity – and endanger her own life.

To visit the author’s website go to:

Jennifer Rohn - Author

To buy the novel go to:

cat zero - Book

To add to Goodreads go to:

Yer Ports for Plunder List

Princess Fuzzypants here:
With a title like Cat Zero, I was expecting a lot of cats in the story. It turns out there are very few but it did not detract from the enjoyment of reading the book. While my eyes glazed over when the scientist and mathematicians were talking details about DNA or viruses or extrapolations of findings, I was able to follow along and get deeply involved in the story.
Artie, a seemingly perfect woman on the surface, and a phobic underneath. runs a lab in North London where she studies cat viruses. Unless, you are a cat, like me, it is probably not a really glam job. However, she suspects and is proven right that there is a current virus that can leap from feline to human and if it is not identified and stopped, it could wipe out the entire cat population of the UK...not to mention a number of humans along the way.
Her staff work well with her but she needs to team up with a rather odd duo who work in a lab down the hall. The older of the two is autistic with aspergers. He is brilliant but needs his assistant to interface with the world. That is until the day he meets Artie. She turns the long standing routine these two have established on its ear. As a team, they are able to discover things that would have been impossible alone. BUt as stimulating as the collaboration might seem, there are some very real dangers involved.
The story works best when the suspense and mystery deepens and the final chapters are absolute emotional roller coasters. I could not put the book down. I had to know how it ended. But I am not telling. You will have to find out for yourself.
I give it five purrs and two paws up.

Cat Zero is a thriller following Artis a scientist studying an epidemic to the spread of a killer feline virus.
I unfortunately didn't enjoy Cat Zero as much as I would have liked to.I enjoyed the plot idea but it just didn't work for me in the end.
I felt Artis was a little too unrelatable which lead me to be disconnected and not find her the protagonist I wanted her to be.
I also felt with the ending rounding up neatly it seemed a little to convenient for me.
I will say I appreciate that the scientific writings was well done and although I didn't understand a lot of it not being in that area of work it was good that the writer put the effort into writing that up.

I honestly tried getting to read this book.
The synopsis really looked interesting.
However i couldn't get into the story.
The story did not seem to start and i couldn't get a connection to the main character.
The story buildup is very slow and did not pull me in.

i think other people can appreciate the story but for me it wasn't possible.

Disclaimer: I received an ARC copy through NetGalley for an honest review.

It's not often that I am so into a story that I can't put it down but that quickly happened with this story. It started slowly for me with the background of our main character, Artie - a scientist researching viruses in cats. But after only a couple of chapters, I couldn't put it down. A virus is making cats sick but it doesn't match anything on record - not perfectly at least. As a cat owner myself, the idea of this potentially happening is what drew me to keep reading until the mystery of the virus was solved. I am recommending this to all my friends. Artie was a well-developed character and we learned what drove her to research and about her fears that seemed to have been partially the reason she chose her field of study. The potential romance between Artie and her post-doc mark was well done and I liked the resolution of the relationships, not only with Mark but with her colleagues as well. I particularly liked that Artie seemed to grow as a person and develop a better working relationship with other women at the male-dominated facility.

I’m still not sure what I think about this book. It’s not a thriller, even if it’s supposedly about a feline epidemic that can cross over into human populations. It’s mostly about a woman trying to do science in a heavily male establishment, dealing with men, her own view of male/female relations (which changes in a way that made me breathe a sigh of relief, because I try to let myself judge only how a woman treats other women in the choices she makes to deal with patriarchy), and a lot of science. I mean, a lot. If you wanted a short course in virology, it’s pretty much in here. There’s also some mental illness, and its interaction with various forms of privilege given to smart white men. It was different, but not necessarily in a good way.

I confess to not having known that LabLit (i.e. science-y fiction which is not necessarily scifi) was a thing. I am happy I do now! I got this book via Net Galley and stuck through the really weird cover to a thick book I very much enjoyed. it’s about science but you don’t really have to be a scientist to follow it. I admit there were a few places I glossed over the more science-y explanations, but you can still follow the plot and the interplay of a lot of interesting and (mostly) likeable characters through a scientific mystery that is sort of layered on top of an interpersonal one.

Unlike some other books I’ve read recently (ahem ARTEMIS) this book has a smart female lead who is also believable in her strengths and weaknesses. She studies a very “unsexy” topic (FLV) and has a sort of crummy basement lab along with some other oddballs. Then she thinks she’s on to something. Then she tries to figure it out. This book got me continuing to pick it up to figure out what was going on and I liked the ups and downs of her character and the others. It was evocative without being flowery. Scientific without being either dull or didactic. Also, a minor concern, there is only one dead cat in evidence and it’s dealt with humanely and efficiently so if you’re someone with injured-animal-squeamishness (in which case may I suggest DoesTheDogDie.com) this book is still okay to read.

This book is not quite for the layman (or laywoman the case may be) when it comes to a viral outbreak of the cat variety. Fortunately, I'm familiar with some aspects of biology but I'm terrible at statistics so pretty much skimmed those scenes. Doughnuts and lilies mean nothing to me.
It deals a lot of issues such as are we fated to be our genes through her bipolar mother and the autistic professor. Then there is the place of women in academia or feminism in general.
The ending was a little disappointing for me as it did leave everything too neatly resolved.

Artemins Marshall (or Artis for short) is a scientist who is researching FIV. This quickly leads to an unexpected outbreak on a small island that quickly causes a few cats deaths and one owner. Could this be a natural phenomenon or is it bioterrorism? Artie decides to enlist some mathematics help so they can create a data set and create an algorithm that will estimate the chances of it spreading, where it will spread and if/when it will die out.

This novel really intrigued me as I love cats, scientific novels (fiction and nonfiction) and apocalyptic novels. However, this novel fell flat rather quickly as it was trying to be too much all at once. Cat Zero was trying to be a thriller (is the unknown virus boomerism or is it natural), an in-depth look into the scientific community, a character’s personal self-discovery (Artie is a very complex character who fears her genetic history but also has marriage issues) and a revenge story.

Artie as a character was unrelatable. She was intelligent, charming and tough (she made it far in the academic world even though she was at a disadvantage since she was a woman – she even states that herself). Yet she is constantly crying and falling apart for no reason (in my opinion). The only reason I can see for her falling apart is so the author can have Artie go through some mental issues to overcome. I also did not like how Artie was mean to other female scientists, I feel she should have stood by their sides more instead of feeling that since Artie made it on her own every other female scientist will be okay.

I also did not like the writing style. The science was well written and quite in depth (I don’t know enough about biology to comment on its authenticity). I found the writing too poetic and descriptive, what could be said in one or two sentences took two paragraphs. An example is “the black rumbling though the long tunnel underneath the Thames then, sometime later, shooting out into the light and sliding though Kent’s dreamy greenness.”

The ending was also out of the blue and to me it seemed out of character for Simon. Maybe to create more drama if a sequel was written?

I got this novel for free from NetGalley.

I was expecting a thriller novel, with scientists racing to identify a pathogen that has killed several cats and may have jumped into humans. Instead, Cat Zero is slower paced, mixing lab politics with personal anguish (a messy divorce for the heroine) and sexual tension. There are elements of Gothic romance, with an unpleasant postdoc caretaker of a mysterious, possibly dangerous, professor in the basement. The search for the cat-killing virus is replete with authentic-feeling details of lab work, reminiscent of Hope Jahren's excellent memoir Lab Girl. The heroine's view of sexism in science shifts exactly as mine did, as she encounters obstacles based on gender. This was an enjoyable read, once I abandoned my expectations and read the novel on its own merit.

I found this book to be very suspenseful in its treatment of a virus outbreak, and could emotionally relate to the urgency of keeping the virus contained. The story was well-done, with characters who seemed like real people, complete with preconceptions and biases that affected the work at-hand. I foresee this book especially appealing to people who like medical thrillers.

The best parts of the story, for me, were when Artie and the other researchers attempted to piece together information and solve the mystery of the virus, and I kept waiting for the moment when someone would connect the lethal virus affecting cats, to the contagion spreading among humans. (That link was depicted in the story's opening pages, so I don't think this insight is a spoiler.)