Cathy Ulrich Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Cathy Ulrich is a fiction author best known for her debut novel Ghosts of You. The book explores the lives of murdered women and the impact that these deaths have on society as a whole. The stories here are vivid and tell of the heartbreaks that the murder of different women leaves in its wake. While many stories in the book last few than three pages, the reader is able to get in and out with a fulfilling experience. Cathy has also written many articles published in various journals, including Fiction Southeast, Paper Darts, and Corvus Review.

Ghosts of You

Ghosts of You is a collection of stories of murdered ladies. While each story starts with the body of a woman, the details are always different. The author describes the mystery that surrounds most of these deaths and the effects they have to close family and friends. These stories focus on the women and their kin, never on the murderers. Each of these stories is addressed to the reader. This means that you are going to wear the shoes of every murdered girl. You will have the freedom to change the outcome of the story and determine how you are going to treat the characters’ legacies.

This book is, without a doubt, a stroke of genius. The author digs deep into the disposability of women and how the world views women in their absence. In most instances, a woman is only seen as a plot device. The use of the second person viewpoint helps drive the point home and make the reader think like the victims of murder. Almost all the stories in this book come with an identical title – Being the Murdered Girl. It is from this same launching pad that the author spins the 31 distinctive tales in this book. The stories are also alike in length at three to four pages each. Lastly, the stories are in the future tense, something that is not common in fiction writing.

The stories focus on the familiar characters you find in murder mystery stories. There are the likes of the murdered wife, lover, mother, babysitter, and so on. Ulrich also gets into unexpected territory with the murder of a politician, muse, Chanteuse, and Mermaid, among others. In all the stories, the killing of every woman changes the lives of all those whose lives they touched. From their families to those who take years to investigate the circumstances leading to their death, the murders leave untold grief and pain. The stories will evoke the strongest emotions. You will stop and feel, think, and possibly change your perspective on women and the role they play in society.

Cathy Ulrich is a master with the story short genre. She pulls all the strings on plot and steers the reader from murder mysteries sensationalism towards a point where murder tells more than just a story.

Every single short story piece in the book begins with the “The Thing about being the murdered (woman)….” the word woman in this context is replaced with the nickname that you may find as the headline of the local newspapers: The Murdered Homecoming Queen, The Murdered Lover. What set’s Cathy Ulrich’s stories apart is the fact that they never mention the investigation or the killer. Her stories tell stories of different themes like the memories the murdered women leave behind and the memories people make up about these women after they are gone. That’s a fascinating twist to the crime genre. And because each story in the book is narrated in a second-person perspective, the readers are able to witness the aftermath of each woman’s death without control of what happens next. These women experience different feelings from being missed, replace or longed for.

Ghosts of You is a welcome introduction to the world of flash fiction, where the reader is free to develop the characters using the richly created cast. The stories are short, and the rich details will leave you looking forward to more. If you are looking for something out of the ordinary, this book is ideal. These thought-provoking stories are both sad and captivating. You will get a glimpse of the mourning process and what goes through the minds of those who lose their loved ones most brutally.