Featured Author: Catherine Astolfo

Our next Featured Author is Canadian author Catherine Astolfo, whose Emily Taylor Mysteries are filled with rich culture and unique characters. In The Bridegman, book 1, you'll be introduced to Emily, a school principal and amateur sleuth who just can't seem to stay out of trouble...

What inspired me to write The Bridgeman?

The devil inspired me to write The Bridgeman. Not literally, I hope, but more in the sense that I am intrigued by evil people. I am attracted to the reasons behind their darkness. As an old song says, "evil grows in the dark"…or does it? I think truly wicked people walk among us, aliens with human faces. Their lack of empathy, twisted ideas, and desire to hurt absolutely make me want to dig around and find out why.

Instead of becoming a police officer or a detective (since I’m a physical coward), I became a mystery/crime writer. I look for evil everywhere and luckily, there is lots of it around. In the newspapers, on television, from word-of-mouth, and let’s not forget, urban legends.

The Bridgeman began as a character sketch. On a drive through a little town in Ontario, I was stopped at a drawbridge, where I noticed the lockmaster going about his business in a very ordinary way, barely noticed, red-checkered jacket, plain face, every day, slow habits and movements. And I thought: what could this almost invisible person be hiding? What dark secrets might lie beneath the banality of his existence?

At the same time, my niece had acquired a job as a veterinarian’s assistant. Her tales of the puppy and kitten mills and their victims gave me an idea for the secret my ordinary bridgeman might suppress.

So began the Emily Taylor Mysteries. At first, Emily Taylor, the local school principal, was a vehicle for the bridgeman character sketch, and later, for Victim’s premise (Book Two). By Book Three, Legacy, Emily had asserted a strong voice of her own and had become more the centre of the series than the carrier.

In the last few months, I have happily been adapted Emily for the new world of eBooks. She loves our publisher, Imajin Books, and has been blossoming under their tutelage. Despite being media shy, she even appears in the trailers!

Catherine (Cathy) Astolfo is a retired school principal who uses her psychology degree for evil purposes, but only in writing. Follow her blog, visit her website. The Bridgeman is now available at Amazon and Smashwords. Visit Imajin Books for the links and lots of information. Victim will follow soon!