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Catherine Taylor

Goodreads Author

Born

in British Channel Islands, Guernsey

Website

https://www.catherinetaylor.net/

Twitter

CathTaylorNovel

Genre

Historical Fiction, Fiction, Paranormal

Member Since

June 2015

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Follow me on Instagram at @catherine_taylor_author and Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/CatherineTay...

Nowadays I live in London with my husband, two children and five cats, but I was born and grew up on the small British island of Guernsey in the English Channel.

My mother was a professional landscape artist, who spent her life painting the beautiful beaches and countryside of Guernsey. And so, I grew up in an environment where it was a very normal thing to want to make a living from your art. Which is just as well, because I’m someone who always knew she wanted to be a writer, and if I’d had parents who’d harboured hopes of me becoming a tax accountant or a corporate lawyer, they’d have been sorely disappointed.

I’ve been obsessed with Follow me on Instagram at @catherine_taylor_author and Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/CatherineTay...

Nowadays I live in London with my husband, two children and five cats, but I was born and grew up on the small British island of Guernsey in the English Channel.

My mother was a professional landscape artist, who spent her life painting the beautiful beaches and countryside of Guernsey. And so, I grew up in an environment where it was a very normal thing to want to make a living from your art. Which is just as well, because I’m someone who always knew she wanted to be a writer, and if I’d had parents who’d harboured hopes of me becoming a tax accountant or a corporate lawyer, they’d have been sorely disappointed.

I’ve been obsessed with books and words since the day I first learned to read, and grew up on classic children’s authors like Enid Blyton and Edith Nesbit. As I got older I began to gravitate towards love stories with gripping plots, devouring novels like Jane Eyre, Rebecca, Katharine, Wuthering Heights and Pride and Prejudice, about clever, independent-minded women caught up in passionate affairs with complex, Byronic men. I’ve always been a hopeless romantic, and my favourite novels are beautiful, intelligent love stories that combine a gripping plot with gorgeous prose and wonderful historical detail to lose yourself in.

I was a keen writer myself from an early age, penning copious stories and poems – as well as plays to be performed in the field behind our house, with parts for me and my younger brother and sister, but always with myself in the starring role (of course!). My love of language developed into an interest in foreign languages, and I went on to study French and German at university, then to live and study in Germany for several years afterwards. Most recently I worked as a journalist, starting my career at the Guernsey Evening Press and ending up at Dow Jones News writing for the newswire and The Wall Street Journal Europe.

Throughout university, I studied 1900-1945 European history and culture – a period that continues to fascinate me. I always knew that when I eventually wrote my first novel it would be a novel of historical fiction set during WW1 involving a shell-shocked soldier, and that it would be first and foremost a love story, which is what my first novel, Beyond the Moon evolved into.

Growing up on Guernsey, the evidence of the German Occupation of the island in WW2 lay all around us, and, as kids, exploring the dank old bunkers and gun emplacements was one of the main entertainments. But they always intrigued me beyond this. Who were these men, and what brought them to Guernsey? And why did my own family have to hurriedly evacuate to England in summer 1940 because of them? As I grew older I discovered that WW2 involved far more than the just the invasion of Guernsey, and that the war was in fact the most seismic and destructive event in human history.

And from my fascination with WW2 – rooted in my childhood in Guernsey and deepened by time spent in Germany – The Many Seas to Guernsey slowly began to take shape. From the start I wanted it to be a novel exploring both British and German experiences of the war, and I hope it offers something of that perspective.

I’ve already begun the next book in the duology, which continues Kitty and Lukas’ story, and will cover the Occupation of Guernsey and the war years. I hope you enjoy my novels as much as I loved writing them. I love to hear from readers, so please do get in touch. ...more

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Catherine Taylor’s books

Average rating: 4.18 · 3,786 ratings · 565 reviews · 2 distinct works • Similar authors

	Beyond the Moon 4.17 avg rating — 3,699 ratings — published 2019 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Many Seas to Guernsey 4.51 avg rating — 87 ratings — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

* Note: these are all the books on Goodreads for this author. To add more, click here.

11 posts
Catherine Taylor's Blog

Publication Day - The Many Seas to Guernsey is out!

The Many Seas to Guernsey, after five years of careful research and writing, is finally out in all formats! And I do hope you enjoy reading it as much as I loved writing it.

"In the last golden years before Europe erupts into WWII a young English writer and a German Roman Catholic priest-in-training meet by chance on the small British island of Guernsey – and are drawn into a forbidden, all-consum Read more of this blog post »

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Published on March 20, 2026 02:34

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Catherine is Currently Reading

Catherine Taylor is currently reading

The Many Seas to Guernsey

by Catherine Taylor (Goodreads Author)

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Feb 27, 2026 02:23PM

Catherine Taylor is currently reading

Beyond the Moon

by Catherine Taylor (Goodreads Author)

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Catherine Taylor and 520 other people liked Nat's review of The Artist: "Reading a book written by your sister is strange, not because it's clear she's a genius (I already knew that), but because of how familiar it all feels. It's Lucy in a book, from the woman creating something amazing in secret just to prove she can, t" Read more of this review »
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Quotes by Catherine Taylor (?)

“It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.”
― Catherine Taylor, Beyond the Moon

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