Mrs. O'Leary's Boarding House

Mrs. O'Leary runs a boarding house in Chicago in the late 1860s. She only takes in special boarders. Aliens. Really aliens. This is a collection of five short stories about Mrs. O'Leary's boarding house. In A Problem Guest Mrs. O'Leary ponders how to deal with a cockroach who is behind in his rent. Actually that is the least of his problems. Mrs. O'Leary learns all is not as it seems in Illusions when a handsome human-looking guest arrives. He is just a little fuzzy around the edges and then there is all those accidents that keep happening. A Cat comes to stay at Mrs. O'Leary's in Lost and Found. Cats are highly sought after as guests in most of the universe. They are graceful, witty and elegant. This Cat also knows more ways to kill than most people can count. The Cat is looking for something in the back alleys of Chicago. If it can't find it, there will be interstellar war. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but when beauty becomes an obsession, what is the cost? In Not in My House, Mrs. O'Leary learns there are definite problems to having a deposed emperor in her house, especially one that looks like an octopus and lives in her second bathroom.