Here come the girls

With her teenage years “full of angst” and two children for inspiration, it’s no wonder Cathy Cassidy’s books strike such a chord with her readers.

When Cathy Cassidy completed her first novel, she didn’t have an agent. Picking one at random “because of her funny name” – Darley Anderson – she sent off her book. Then came two surprises: “‘She’ was actually a very well spoken English gentleman,” she says. The other surprise was Anderson admitting he had never dealt with a children’s author before. “He only confessed when he’d sold it,” she laughs, “and said he hadn’t wanted to miss out on the next big thing.”