The Cathy Stewart Series was Born
The Cathy Stewart series was first created (in my head) in 2001. I was on maternity leave after the birth of my third child and, despite having 2 other children, I found myself with a little bit of time on my hands. Writing had always been one of my passions but I had let it slip for many years at that point. A news story about autoerotic asphyxiation tickled my imagination and led me to create the killing scenes for my villain.
Even as I wrote the initial chapters, I knew that I wanted the book to be the first in a series. I hoped that Cathy Stewart and the other characters would grab readers’ imaginations.
Inspiration for the Main Characters
I imagined the two first main characters – Cathy and Lee – as different versions of myself. Cathy was the one I identified most with, a mother of a certain age with a professional career. Of course, I was much younger than her at that time, whereas now I am considerably older. Time moves more slowly between the pages of a book! Cathy Stewart was always the principal character so the series had to be named after her.
Lee was simply how I imagined I might have been if my life had turned out differently. She’s not really a secondary character. To me, she has equal importance, but she’s not the private investigator and it is a crime series, after all.
The Books
Book 1: Lay Her Down To Die
In the first book of the series, we meet Cathy just as she agrees to take on a particularly complex case: to find a serial killer who murdered her client’s only sister. The police are getting nowhere and Joe Templeton and his step-mother hire Cathy to help them.
Always up for a challenge, Cathy agrees to take on the case. It is during her investigation that she runs into Lee Thomson who may have been in the wrong place at the wrong time and who might just lead Cathy to the killer.
Meanwhile, Chief Detective Inspector Goodfellow, seems to be involved, once again, in shady doings, at least as far as Cathy and Steve are concerned. They cannot resist looking into him as they all race to find the perpetrator.
Then Lee is kidnapped…
original eBook cover, 2017 current eBook cover, 2018 paperback cover, 2020
Book 2: no title yet!
Book 2 of the series is currently a work in progress. I’m about half way through at the time of writing this, so there’s still some way to go but it’s taking shape.
In book 2, we catch up with Cathy and Lee several months after Lay Her Down To Die. Cathy’s business is doing well, thanks in large part to the publicity from the case in book 1. She’s even managed to hire a part-time assistant to take on the brunt of the admin work for her. She’s approached by Mr and Mrs Macbride to investigate their daughter, Eve, whose behaviour is a cause for concern.
In the meantime, Lee is happier than before, for reasons I won’t go into here (spoiler alert!). However, she still feels some frustration at her lack of real career progression.
When Cathy realises that she needs some help to get close to Eve, she solicits Lee for her help. Lee is reluctant at first – after all, she only just escaped the last adventure without harm, so why put herself in danger again? But she relents and agrees to help. Cathy only needs her to take a temp job for a couple of weeks, so where’s the harm in that?
Meanwhile, Cathy still had her suspicions about DCI Goodfellow and can’t quite let go of the idea that she will get the better of him. She enlists the help of Steve Stanton, her former colleague, and he seems to be making hearway.
Then things start to go awry…
Book 3: not even started…
Book 3 has not yet been started but I do have an idea for the storyline. It will likely be based more in Luxembourg and less in Glasgow. The characters should get to travel too!
What’s next?
Who knows, if I get enough positive feedback after book 3, and I have enough inspiration for more plots, the series could be longer than just the 3 books I’ve planned for.