Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Cat by Freya North Cat — Freya North. Click on any of the links above to see more books like this one. EDITIONS. FictionDB is committed to providing the best possible fiction reference information. If you have any issues with the site, please don't hesitate to contact us. More about us. Popular Features. Contact & Support. Keep in Touch. Find us on social media. FictionDB © 2021. All Rights Reserved. This page may contain affiliate links and advertising. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. See the full disclosure. Cat by Freya North. She’s in for the ride of her life. Her career is stuck in a rut. Her love life has been a tangle. But fortune favours the brave… When journalist Cat McCabe lands a job reporting on the Tour de France she’s confident it might give her stuttering career the boost it needs and provide a welcome distraction from a messy break-up. Or so she hopes. She quickly realizes Le Tour is not just all about the bikes. Large bulges, huge egos, lashings of Lycra and plenty of sexy shenanigans play their part and, soon enough, her own life starts to mirror the high peaks and perilous lows of the race as she battles for more than just a scoop. Whatever happens, it’s going to be the ride of her life. With sex, drugs, large bulges and larger egos, the soap opera that is the Tour de France unfolds, with Cat’s life frequently mirroring the peaks and perils of the race. Buy now from: Purchase Paperback from: Purchase E-Book from: A Personal Note from Freya. Though this was my 4th novel, it was this book that really drummed home to me that I WAS AN AUTHOR. I had long been a fan of the Tour de France – from the comfort of my sofa…and now, my writing credentials enabled me to bag an access-all-areas pass. Bizarrely, life imitated art rather than vice versa – and I followed in Cat’s footsteps, spending my time on the Tour masquerading as a journalist, writing for the Times, for radio and for cycling magazines. The first Tour I went on was 1998 – which was the one with all the huge drug scandals. It was won by the inimitable Marco Pantani – who later died from a drugs overdose. The next Tour was won by Lance Armstrong. Many of the real riders, all of whom were very kind and welcoming, traded anecdotes or rides in their team cars for a cameo appearance in the book! Reviews. ‘An original, direct, funny new voice’ Independent on Sunday. ‘Very racy indeed … Jilly Cooper on wheels’ Woman’s Own. ‘Foxy, feelgood air’ She. What happened next to Cat. Cat and Ben have spent four exciting years in Boulder, Colorado (setting up home together – and flying the Union Jack from their porch). Their careers have provided ample opportunity for travel – Cat furthering her career as a sports journalist, Ben continuing as team doctor to professional racing team, Megapac.. Rachel, however, has retired as soigneur and moved to a gorgeous town in Colorado, half an hour from Cat and Ben. She now works at a spa as a masseuse making more money for shorter hours than at any time during her working life. Her relationship with Andre the mechanic did not last but there’s a reflexologist at the spa with whom a tentative dalliance is in its infancy. Jawlensky and Ducasse continue to compete for the sports most coveted titles and karma seems to dictate an equal number of trophies for the arch rivals. Josh and Alex still hold court in the salle de presse, driving like lunatics from Stage to Stage and bickering amongst themselves like an elderly married couple. Luca Jones’s career is colourful as ever with lucrative advertising and sponsorship deals giving him the sort of income that the bimbos love. Consequently, his life off the bike is one of fast motorbikes, faster cars and fast women. Cat teases him, which bolsters his ego no end. Ben chides him, worries about him, which secretly quite touches the rider. However, Luca will have to start looking after himself a little more as Ben has just decided not to renew his contract with Megapac. And Cat has handed in her notice at Maillot – she’s loved being assistant editor on the magazine but it’s time to move on. Perhaps she’ll go freelance. At the moment she’s not sure. She’s not even sure that she’s doing the right thing going back to the UK. But she has Ben by her side and her sisters Fen and Pip will welcome her home. Django will probably prepare a Spread in her honour. Cat, by Freya North. It's Valentine's Day on Monday. Stuck for a last-minute gift idea and know you'll get slaughtered if you bring home another bunch of forecourt flowers or suggest going to see Never Let Me Go ? Do we have the gift for you! Title: Cat Author: Freya North Publisher: William Heinemann Year: 1999 Pages: 427 Order: Random House What it is: A Tour de France bonk- buster. Strengths: Lashings of lycra! Silky smooth shaven legs! Biiiiig silky smooth shaven legs! Did I mention the silky smooth shaven legs yet? Weaknesses: Should only be taken as part of a properly balanced reading diet. Catriona McCabe's mother once ran off with a cowboy from Denver. She only had to do it the once as she never came back. It was an important event in the life of young Cat, for it led to her and her two sisters, Pip and Fen, being raised by their uncle Django. (Crazy name? Crazy guy. Don't try his damson and ouzo jam. Or his pizza, which may contain damson and ouzo jam). Now aged twenty-eight, Cat's landed a freelance gig with the Guardian , covering the Tour de France. She's not just a fan with a typewriter, she's officially a cycling journaliste ("please emphasise the eeste - jounaliste sounds so much more delicious, much more prestigious than journalist"). At the end of this gig is the hope of a full-time editorial spot with Maillot magazine. Cat's trip to the Tour is also her chance to join the Foreign Legion and learn to forget. Forget what? The reason she fell in love with cycling in the first place: she fell in love with a cyclist. Some people collect football scarves by which they can remember their exes. Cat probably has a collection of back issues of The Comic . Five years of em. But now her Mr-d'Arcy-in-lycra has ridden off into the sunset. He's out of her life. But always on her mind. The Tour is a chance to wash that man right out of her head. Three weeks may not be enough to find Mr Right but surely there's a pretty good chance of finding a Mr Right Now? Most of the novel then is your bog-standard story of girl meets boy, boy rams his tongue down girl's throat, girl wants to show boy that she too has a tongue like an electric eel and can do more than tickle his tonsils with it. They go at it like wild animals. Only for a cycle of misunderstandings to ensue. Girl thinks boy is a promiscuous slut doing a George Hincapie with a podium girl. Break up. Girl realises boy is not a wanton tramp after all and there's an innocent explanation for his interest in podium girls (no, he's not a closet cross-dresser with a penchant for frou-frou skirts). Make up. They go at it like wild animals. Boy gets the hump when he thinks girl is two-timing him with a boyfriend back home. Break up. Resolution. Make up. They go at it like wild animals. Ah, the dialectics of love. It's not just our heroine and her beau who are engaged in vigorous exchanges of bodily fluids. North's is a testosterone-fuelled peloton . That peloton is one of the cute things about Cat , in that it mixes an imagined bunch of riders with real ones. You have stars of the calibre of Mario Cipollini and Stu O'Grady and (pre-sainthood) David Millar and Tyler Hamilton (not the real Tyler Hamilton as he seems to complete the race without nearly dying of sun-stroke or breaking any bones or eating his own teeth) all putting in appearances alongside North's own creations. Let's have a look at those synthetic cyclists. There's the Système Vipère boys, ruled over by the most aptly named directeur sportif in the history of cycling, Jules le Grand. He has hopes for all three jerseys being won by his riders. They're lead by GC contender Fabian Ducasse, winner of the Dauphiné, twenty-nine, six-foot and oozing hottitude: "swarthy, handsome, smelling of Calvin Klein scent and looking very much like someone who might advertise their wares if he weren't a professional cyclist." He should have won the last Tour but for a tragic défaillance . He's joined by team-mate and KOM candidate, Carlos Jesu Valasquez, aka the Pocket Rocket, the Cicada, the Little Lion. Rounding the team out is their star sprinter, MSR winner and maillot vert contender, Jesper Lomers, aka the Blond Bomb, the Rotterdam Rocket. Système Vipère's main rivals are the boys from Zucca MV, lead by defending champ Vasily Jawlesnsky (that's Jaw with a with a y and a v, or Yav for short).