Catherine has always been a writer. She can recall writing stories for her classmates in Grade Three. Much later, her short stories and poems were published in a number of small Canadian presses. The day after retiring from education, she started finishing her books.
The Emily Taylor Mysteries (The Bridgeman, Victim, Legacy, Seventh Fire) centre around an elementary school principal who becomes a reluctant sleuth through various circumstances. She has a dark past, the details of which are not revealed until Book Four. Catherine’s standalone novel is Sweet Karoline, a psychological suspense in the vein of “Gone Girl”.
Reviewer Don Graves said this about the series and Catherine’s writing: “When I reviewed your novel, Victim, I told my readers that I had discovered an exciting writer with a poignant capacity to tell a story full of energy and passion. Description, dialogue, plotting, all developed with the skill of a seasoned mystery writer. Victim made my top 10 books for 2007. I recently read Legacy. It solidified my feeling that you are a writer in for the long haul.”
Catherine continues to write short stories as well. In 2012, she won the prestigious Arthur Ellis Award for Best Crime Short Story in Canada, for “What Kelly Did.” She’s also a Brampton Arts Award winner. In 2018, she won the Arthur Ellis Award again for the short story, “The Outlier,” published in the Mesdames of Mayhem anthology, Thirteen Claws.
Catherine is a Past President of Crime Writers of Canada (CWC), a member of Sisters in Crime (Toronto) and International Thriller Writers. She’s a recipient of the Derrick Murdoch Award for service to CWC.
**New Release!
Auntie Beers, Carrick Publishing, 2024.
Auntie Beers is an amalgam of tales told to the author by her mother, as well as a mystery that she couldn’t resist sharing.
Witty, raw and often poignant, these are tales for the ages by one of Canada’s leading story-tellers.
Reminiscent of Alice Munro–these stories are heart-wrenching, authentic, and luminous.
~ Ginger Bolton, author of the Deputy Donut Mysteries
Mesdames of Mayhem 