Catherine MacPhail is a Scottish-born author, refers to herself as "Cathy" and may also be known to other people as such. MacPhail has quickly established a reputation as a writer of gritty, urban stories that tackle emotitional, contemporary issues but always work towards a positive solution. Although she has had jobs (Assembling computers for IBM, housewife) she always wanted to be a writer but she didn't. Her first published work was a sort of "twist-in-the-tale" story in Titbits, followed by a story in the Sunday Post. After she had won a romantic story competition in Woman's Weekly, she decided to concentrate on romantic novels, but after writing two, she decided that it "wasn't right for me".