Catherine Chidgey Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Children's Books

Catherine Chidgey is a published short story writer and novelist. Her writing has been released and has received wide international acclaim in the process.

She won Best First Book for her book In a Fishbone Church at the New Zealand Book Awards, also winning the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize in her region. It won the Betty Trask Award in the United Kingdom and was also longlisted for the Orange Prize.

Meanwhile her book Golden Deeds also received attention and prizes. It was named a Notable Book of the Year in The New York Times, a Best Book in the LA times, and was Book of the Year for Time Out. Catherine has also received the Katherine Mansfield Award, the Prize in Modern Letters, the Katherine Mansfield Fellowship, the Janet Frame Fiction Prize, and has received the Acorn Foundation Fiction Prize for The Wish Child.

Remote Sympathy made the shortlist for the Dublin Literary Award as well as the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction. It also was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Her book The Axeman’s Carnival also received the country’s largest literary prize, the Acorn, at the New Zealand Book Awards.

Catherine grew up in New Zealand, having been raised in Wellington. She attended Victoria University as well as in Berlin. There she had a DAAD scholarship for post-graduate study in the field of German literature. Today she resides in Cambridge. In addition to being an author, she is also an associate professor of creative writing at the University of Waikato.

Pet is a 2023 novel by Catherine Chidgey. If you have been looking for a good psychological thriller that will have you staying up a little later at night just to find out what happens in the end, you are in the right place!

Just like the other girls in her class, Justine is finding that she has an attraction to her teacher. Not in an unusual way. Justine is twelve years old and the new teacher is charismatic and glamorous, someone impressive and look up to. Justine wants nothing more than to be teacher’s pet.

When a thief starts targeting the school, Justine starts to have a sense that there is something going on that just isn’t right, and that sense starts to get even stronger. With every twist that the plot takes, the story of deception and how guilt can corrode things grows and takes even darker turns. Even though she’s a young girl, ultimately Justine is going to have to figure out where her loyalties are.

This story takes place in New Zealand in two different times thirty years apart, in 1984 as well as 2014. With themes of misogyny and racism, this is an impressive thriller that will have readers tingle with anticipation as they speed towards the conclusion. Check it out and follow along to find out what happens!

The Book of Guilt is a 2025 novel by Catherine Chidgey. If you have been searching for a completely unique story that is original and full of creativity, with hints of science fiction, this is a great book for you.

This story takes place in an alternate world, a place where no one ended up winning the second World War. Here, three brothers find that they are the only boys that are still in an orphanage. The thing that they don’t know is that the dark secret of this orphanage is the reason that they exist, and may end up proving to be the key to how they survive.

History may have recorded one outcome to World War II, but in this world, there has been a very different outcome. England in 1979 is a country that is ruled over by a government which has aims that have very sinister underpinnings as well as alliances.

In the countryside of Hampshire, three triplets find themselves to be the last remaining residents who are still at the Captain Scott Home for Boys. Vincent, Lawrence and William are thirteen years old and each day they have to take medicine that is intended to protect them from a strange illness that many of their friends have given in to. The ones who are lucky enough to recover can move to Margate, the seaside resort that has now entered into some type of status akin to modern myth.

Close by in Exeter, Nancy is thirteen years old. She lives a life on her own with her parents, who are doting towards her but also strict. She is not allowed to leave the house. As the lives of the triplets start to come into contact with Nancy’s own life, it will end up bringing up a horrible truth both about their origins and their fate. The children now have to unite in order to escape so that they can survive. Will they be able to make it out, or is everyone headed for different fates? Read this book from Catherine Chidgey to find out!