ABOUT CATHY
If you’d like to access a variety of press-ready biographical notes about Cathy, scroll down to the bottom of the page…otherwise, read on…
BIG NEWS FOR CATHY…Her Cait Morgan Mysteries have been optioned for TV by the UK production company Free@Last TV, which is responsible for the hit TV series based on MC Beaton’s Agatha Raisin books. The same company has optioned The Wrong Boy, with plans for it to be broadcast as a three-part miniseries, in Welsh and English.
Cathy Ace loves crime! It’s true – she discovered Nancy Drew in her local library, then found Agatha Christie on her mum’s bookshelves, and she never looked back. Cathy happily admits that the characters she met between the book-covers as a child have influenced her writing. “Nancy Drew was plucky, strong and independent, and Agatha Christie’s puzzles engaged me every time. I love the sort of book that mixes intricate plotting with a dash of danger, and that’s what I’ve tried to create with my Cait Morgan Mystery Series. With my series featuring the women of the WISE Enquiries Agency, I've also been able to indulge my love of stately homes, village life and the interplay between characters that can take place in that sort of setting. In The Wrong Boy - a psychological suspense novel, set in Wales - I have ‘gone to the dark side’, while still featuring women as my central characters.”
Born and raised in Swansea, South Wales, Cathy is, like her heroine Cait Morgan, now a Canadian citizen. “Cait’s Welsh Canadian, as am I. They say ‘write what you know’, so a short, plus-sized Welsh woman, who’s quite bossy, fits the bill! But Cait and I are not one and the same: she’s got skills and talents I don’t possess, and I’m delighted to say that I don’t usually encounter corpses wherever I go. I’ve burrowed even deeper into my roots by creating a cast of characters in the WISE women who come from all four corners of the United Kingdom, and work in a uniquely British setting – a ducal estate set in the rolling Welsh countryside of the Wye Valley in Powys, where I spent a good deal of time when I was young. In a recent interview I was asked how much of me is in The Wrong Boy and I answered honestly - a great deal...and I took the chance to set a book in Rhossili, on the Gower peninsula in South Wales - one of the most beautiful places on earth, and one of my habitual haunts in my younger life.”
CATHY ACE - YES, SHE'S AVAILABLE FOR YOUR READINGS, PERSONAL APPEARANCES, VISITS TO BOOK CLUBS (VIRTUAL, VIA SKYPE/ZOOM etc)
THE ONLY SILVER CUP CATHY ACE HAS EVER WON IN HER LIFE WAS FOR TALKING!
People say Cathy’s an entertaining speaker; over the years she’s chatted engagingly, made complex Powerpoint presentations, and read her work or hosted and been MC for various events. She’s done this at venues as diverse as a plant nursery in Canada, a dazzling Livery Hall in the City of London, and a grade 12 schoolroom. Having run her own post-graduate marketing communications training company in the UK for a decade, and having traveled the world as a management trainer, she’s now able to take all that experience and be an “edu-taining” speaker who is funny, insightful, knows her stuff and can speak about topics ranging from the broad base of The History of Mystery, to more intimate and personal topics such as how she plans, plots and writes her bestselling mysteries.
If you’d like to find out more, or invite Cathy Ace to join you/your group at an event, please write to: ace@cathyace.com