Cathy Ace Books In Order

Publication Order of Cait Morgan Books

Publication Order of WISE Enquiries Agency Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Short Story Collections

Publication Order of Anthologies

Born and bred in Swansea, South Wales, author Cathy Ace attended the old Llwyn-y-Bryn Girl’s School which was where she discovered her passion for writing, and realised her dreams of becoming an author. After graduating from Cardiff University she moved to London and spent over ten years working in the field of marketing communications, even running her own post-graduate college in the United Kingdom and traveling the world as a management trainer.

Cathy’s writing career began with preparing business reports, advertising copy, press releases, and articles, but it wasn’t until after her success in developing training courses and publishing text books that her love of writing took her back into fiction writing. After writing her first short fiction story in 1989, she began writing regularly again while teaching at the University in British Columbia. It wasn’t until 2007, at the age of 51, when she was approached by British actor Martin Jarvis about producing one of her short stories.

She had happened upon the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories books as a youngster at her local library, and later novels by Agatha Christie in her mom’s collection of books. Hooked on the complex plot lines accompanied by the mystery and danger,the soon to be best selling author took inspiration from her favourite novelists, incorporating these styles into her own masterpieces. Cathy writes both the Cait Morgan Mysteries and the WISE Enquiries Agency Mysteries, the latter of which showcases characters who live and work in the Wye Valley area of Powys in the Welsh countryside – an area Cathy frequented in her younger years.

Cathy settled in Canada in 2000 and resides with her husband and two chocolate Labrador Retrievers in Vancouver, British Columbia where she writes and works in her gardens on three of her five acres of land. She serves as the Chair of Crime Writers of Canada, and is also a member of Sisters in Crime, the Crime Writer’s Association, and Mystery Writers of America. Cathy also contributes to a couple of different blogs and makes appearances at speaking engagements of all kinds.

Cathy Ace writes two series of traditional mysteries. Both are free from on the page gore, sex or violence. Her Cait Morgan Mysteries (TouchWood Editions) character is a middle-aged criminal psychology professor foodie sleuth who specializes in victim profiling. She, together with her husband Bud, encounter corpses with different colored bodily features (a silver tongue, a golden nose, an emerald thumb, platinum hair, and sapphire eyes) on their world travels. Each book is then titled using the description of the body that is discovered, and, each is set in a different country.

‘The Corpse with the Garnet Face’ for instance, takes place in Amsterdam. In this novel, her husband Bud receives a shock when he is informed of an estranged Uncle Jonas who has met a grisly death. Despite his mothers reassurances that Jonas was the black sheep of the family, Bud starts to receive eerie messages from his Uncle Jonas who convinces his nephew to dig into the life he built in a distant city amongst his passion for art – and other secrets. This novel follows Bud and Cait, equipped with only an old iron key as their clue as they travel to Amsterdam to, hopefully, complete Jonas’s final wishes.

Cathy Ace is able to incorporate her own extensive knowledge of world cultures, history, food and art into these works. Ace’s second series is Severn House Publishers, told in the third person and spotlights four private investigators, the case-solving women of the WISE Enquiries Agency. The name stems for the nationality of the characters, one is Welsh, one Irish, the third Scottish and the last, English. The murder mystery novels are set in their office amongst stately homes and quaint villages like the fictional Anwen-by-Wye in the countryside in Wales. The Case of the Dotty Dowager is the first book in the WISE series. In this book, Althea, Dowager Duchess of Chillingworth, is awoken during the night by a noise in her dining room. She is horrified to discover a body lying on the dining room floor. By the time her son, Henry Twyst, arrives from the main residence, the body has mysteriously disappeared. Fearing that his mother may be losing her marbles, Henry turns to the WISE Enquires Agency for their help in discreetly investigating the matter.

Cathy Ace takes inspiration for her writing from her own life and the people in it. The Cait Morgan character is Welsh Canadian, much like herself. Luckily though, Ace does not happen upon corpses when she ventures out. The books are written in the first person. In 2015, ‘ The Corpse with the Platinum Hair’, fourth in the Cait Morgan Mysteries won an award in the category of Best Canadian Light Mystery. One of her main characters, Annie Parker, was based on a friend of Cathy’s and first introduced in a novella Ace wrote back in 2007. Other characters are loosely based on former flatmates, neighbors and coworkers.

Cathy’s short stories entitled “Dear George” and “Domestic Violence” were produced as “Afternoon Reading” broadcasts on BBC Radio 4 by Jarvis & Ayres Productions.
“Dear George” was read for the radio broadcast by Hollywood actress Glenne Headley. The novel was written during a time when Cathy Ace was awaiting the overdue arrival of her sister’s flight at the airport. Grabbing a magazine, which was unlike Cathy, she answered an ad for short story submissions featuring a strong central character. Ace penned the work from a car parked on Baker Street, home of fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. Holmes author, Arthur Conan Doyle might have inspired this short story, which is part of a 312 page collection entitled Murder: Month by Month along with eleven other tales. ”Domestic Violence”, is a short story that tells of a woman’s search for the perfect husband. Married several times previously, but finding that none of the men quite fitted her needs, she found that unfortunately divorce was not an option.

It wasn’t until Cathy realized the success of her short stories after their featuring on BBC Radio that she decided to try her hand at writing novels that would, eventually, lead to her becoming a best selling author and the creator of a much loved series of books.

Born and raised in Swansea, a town in South Wales, United Kingdom, Cathy had this burning passion to write crime from a young age. For decades she worked with marketing communications and migrated to Canada in 2000. She discloses that Nancy Drew being independent, plucky, and Agatha Christie’s mysteries kept her engaged all the time. She got hooked on to books that combines complicated plots with a dash of danger, which eventually gave birth to her series of traditional mystery works – The Cait Morgan Series and Wise Enquiries Agency.

Her successful career in marketing actually paved way to bring out the writer in her when she was given opportunities to write training textbooks and courses. The passion to write was always in her. In fact, she did start to write when she was 28. If you ask her who inspired her, she’ll probably credit Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, and her sister. It wasn’t until one fine day when Cathy was waiting with her sister at the airport to see her off, things took a turn. She flipped through a magazine while waiting for the delayed flight and came across an article inviting short story submissions. She decided to pen something down and came up with “Dear George”. As fate would have it, the story was immediately published, and from there, there was no turning back for her.

Her Works

Cathy loves village life and stately homes. She’s fascinated about murder plots, mysteries, and solving them. Her stories are mostly a mixture of all these ingredients together.

British Actor Martin Jarvis’s Jarvis and Ayres Productions were so impressed with her works, that they decided to produce her short stories “Domestic Violence” and “Dear George” for BBC Radio 4’s Afternoon Reading’ broadcast.

“Dear George” was, in fact, part of UK’s O Level English Language syllabus.

Cathy started late as an author in her career. In 2007, she started with Stand Alone series of crime read called Murder: Month by Month’. The series was about twelve murder tales linked to each month of a year. It engages the reader to turn pages from one murderous month to another. In 2008, she published Murder: Season by Season’ which describes murders with a seasonal twist.

In 2012, when Ace turned 51, she published her first novel from the Cait Morgan Mystery Series called the The Corpse with the Silver Tongue’. The story is set in south of France, where a certain man who is admired socially, drops dead at a party. Each guest becomes a suspect, including Cait Morgan. The plot needs to be solved and Cait needs to find the killer before she falls victim to the killer.

To make up for lost time, she has since written nine books till date, as part her famous works in the Cait Morgan Mystery Series’, and Wise Enquiries Agency Mystery’ series. Her books have continued to inspire many lives all over the world with her unique and captivating writing style.

Ace’s best-selling works

Ace’s Cait Morgan Mystery Series’, is about Cait Morgan, a Welsh Canadian, whom she compares to herself. A plus-sized woman who is short and quite bossy, but with different talents. Cait Morgan is a criminology professor sleuth and an ardent foodie, travels various locales around the world, tripping over corpses, and ends up solving these close-circled mysteries. Each book features Cait’s retired homicide detective partner in crime and life, and is set in a different country every time. You will get to read a lot about the culture, history, food habits, art, and of course, murder, pertaining to that country, which is quite fascinating.

The new series – The Wise Enquiry Agency Series’, unlike the Cait Morgan Mystery Series’, is a completely different read for readers, and was a different writing experience for Ace. The series is completely different because the stories are told in third person. Unlike Morgan, who is an amateur investigator, the women in the Wise Enquiry Agency Series’ are professionals. It’s about four women investigators out there solving British cases from a Welsh stately home. One is English, who is in her fifties, one Scottish who is a nurse retired from the army, one Irish who in her twenties is single smart and attractive, and the last one Welsh who is happily married in her thirties.

Ace’s Engagements

Cathy is an insightful, funny and entertaining speaker. She has held numerous PowerPoint presentations, hosted and even read her works at events. She has also been an MC for various events. For almost a decade, she ran her own post-graduate marketing communications college in the UK. She has travelled the world as a management trainer and knows her work really well. With all this experience, she has been able to speak about a whole gamut of topics ranging from Management and Marketing to Mystery and even on how she comes out with a bestselling mystery book.

Memberships

Cathy is the chairperson of Crime Writers of Canada’. Apart from this, she is also a member of Sisters in Crime’, the Mystery Writers of America’ and the Crime Writers Association. As is seen, she is still trying to pursue some worthy goals in society despite the fact that she is not writing anymore.
Awards

Cait has many notable awards and honors to her name. The Bony Blithe Award for the Best Canadian Light Mystery of the year was award to Cathy in the year 2015. She won the award for her work The Corpse with the Platinum Hair’, the fourth book in her Cait Morgan Mystery series’ work.

She now lives with her husband in British Columbia after migrating to Canada in 2000. Having travelled the world, you will notice that she has put her vast knowledge of work and pleasure relating to culture, art, food and history in her books. Back at Swansea, Joe’s ice cream is something that she’d die for. Her life revolves around her books, her full-supportive husband who ensures that she devotes her time being an author to a large extent, and her two chocolate Labrador dogs. Cathy is equally passionate about gardening.

One Response to “Cathy Ace”

1. Jean: 2 years ago

   This is the first time I have ever written about a book but I have so enjoyed the WISE Women series I felt I wanted to leave some feedback.
   All the characters were well drawn and believable the stories intelligently worked out and with at least two strands through out. At no time did I guess the perpetrators half way through and often not at all. Quite a mean feat
   as I read crime novels all the time.
   Normally if I buy a box set I will read one and then something in between but with these read all four together literally couldn’t put it down. Excellent series are there going to be more?

   Reply