Pippa McCathie

South Wales has played a big part in Pippa’s life, two of her three sons were born in Swansea and she visits close friends near Newport as often as she can. Brought up in Mauritius, she’s spent a lot of her life travelling, to Guernsey, London, South Africa, South Wales, Iran and back to Guernsey. She began writing in school exercise books to entertain her friends, which resulted in dubious exam results but much laughter. She’s had many poems and short stories published and, once her boys had been packed off to school, started on the novels. For 17 years she taught a creative writing class, and in her spare time she’s worked as a volunteer with a national charity, helped run Guernsey’s local Eisteddfod, and looked after a gorgeous husband and a cowardly cat. All these activities have helped her avoid time wasting activities such as housework and gardening. Her series of crime novels, Murder in the Valleys, Murder at the Old Abbey and Murder by the River Usk and Murder in a Welsh Town, are all published by The Book Folks, and feature two of her best (fictional) friends, Fabia Havard and Matt Lambert. She has now written a romantic thriller, Liberation Day, which is based in Guernsey and is full of adventure and interesting characters, and has just published another romantic thriller based in London and Mauritius. Now it's time to get back to the fifth book in the Havard & Lambert series, which has been slightly delayed by a move to Hampshire to be nearer her sons and grandchildren.