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Kathy Shuker
ALLi Author Member
Location: United Kingdom (the)
Genres: Commercial Fiction, General Fiction, Literary Fiction, Mystery, Womens Fiction
Kathy trained as a physiotherapist but had to give the work up due to a back injury. She studied design and worked as a freelance artist, painting landscapes, seascapes and interiors, exhibiting, supplying galleries and teaching. Starting to write some years ago, she quickly became hooked, and now writes full-time.
Kathy writes character driven mysteries with a strong sense of place, engrossing stories which keep readers up at night wanting to read just one more chapter!
She has published four stand-alone novels to date, always set in places she knows well whether that be the southwest of England or Provence in the south of France. They are all available as eBooks across multiple platforms and in print online and to order from any bookshop. Her most recent novels are set in a series: the Dechansay Bright Mysteries, the third of which has just been published. The stories feature two itinerant art restorers who become involved in a range of intrigues on their travels across Europe and in the UK.
When not writing she is an amateur musician, singing in a choir and playing piano, fiddle and guitar. She is also a keen reader and has a love of art and the natural world.
Kathy Shuker's books
Deep Water, Thin Ice
Simon Brook is a celebrated and flamboyant conductor. When he kills himself, his wife Alex is shocked she didn’t see it coming. Guilt-ridden and grieving, she escapes to Hillen Hall, an old house by the sea, abandoning her classical singing career and distancing herself from everyone but her sister Erica.
Hillen Hall is an old Brook family home. Once a fine manor house, it’s now in need of renovation, but when Theo Hellyon, Simon's cousin, turns up offering to help, Alex is confused; she didn’t know Simon had a cousin. And Theo is charming and reminds her of Simon so, despite Erica's warnings, Alex cannot resist having him in her life. But the old Hall has a tortured history which Alex cannot begin to suspect and Theo is not what he seems.
How long will it be before she realises she’s making a fatal mistake?
Silent Faces, Painted Ghosts
'Heaps of mystery and intrigue, a nice love story, and a great plot. Shuker is truly a gifted storyteller.'
Terri is a talented art curator, stagnating in a dead end job in London. Her ex-boyfriend, Oliver, is stalking her. A post curating the retrospective of a famous but reclusive artist seems the perfect escape. Portrait painter, Peter Stedding, lives in the mountains of Provence, in a house he shares with his wife, daughter and eccentric sister, Celia. The setting is idyllic; the atmosphere is not. Peter is rude and obstructive, his household strained and silent.
The place holds secrets, stories no-one is allowed to tell, dark echoes of the past. Looking through Peter's old paintings, Terri finds a tantalising clue and soon she is caught up in a cat and mouse game in search of the truth. But whose past is she searching for? And whose past hides the darkest shadows?
That Still and Whispering Place
Bohenna is a small Cornish village, dominated by a thriving vineyard and the Pennyman family who run it. It’s an insular community, all gossip and rumour and intertwined lives. Claire knows everyone; she grew up there. She even married into the Pennyman family.
Every summer tourists swarm over the vineyard and village. So when Claire’s young daughter disappears without trace, it’s obvious to everyone that a visitor took her. Who else would do such a thing?
Six years later, her marriage broken, Claire still struggles to accept what happened. She’s been away but she’s back now - and increasingly convinced her daughter never left the village at all. But it’s not wise to start asking questions. Old resentments run deep and not everyone is pleased to see Claire back in Bohenna.
The Silence Before Thunder
It’s midsummer and the annual writing workshops are about to begin at the sprawling Devon home of novelist Eleanor Lambe. A group of old friends arrive to act as tutors, bringing past rivalries and resentments with them. They include Eleanor’s former lover, the charismatic poet Frank Marwell, and his new fiancée.
The same night, Eleanor falls from her clifftop garden and lies in hospital, damaged, silent. Gossip says she jumped; the police rule out foul play. Her niece, Jo, sits at her bedside, waiting. Messy, complicated relationships mean tensions run high, made worse when Jo starts asking awkward questions.
But what really happened that night? And will Eleanor ever remember?
A sensitively told and compelling mystery, infused with vivid characters, heartache, loss and a dash of humour.
A Crack in the Varnish
Hollywood actress, Esther Langley, has a home in the hills of Provence, an old converted abbey where she keeps her precious art collection. Now she has four paintings in need of restoration: one modern work, fire-damaged, and three crumbling old masters. It looks like a straightforward job for an experienced art restorer like Hannah Dechansay, and who wouldn’t relish a few months in Provence?
But living and working on Esther’s estate isn’t easy. It’s a tortured household, haunted by a tragic death. There’s guilt and recrimination in the air and relationships soon start to unravel. Was the death an accident? Everyone has a different version to tell. There’s something sinister going on and everyone, it seems, has something to hide.
By a Hand Unknown
It’s 1991 and Ranling Manor, set among the wild and watery Norfolk Broads, has been home to the Gyllam-Spence family for generations. Open to the public and family-run, its valuable art collection is decaying and conservators Hannah and Nathan arrive to restore its most fragile works.
But underneath the apparent gentility, the Gyllam-Spence family is at war with itself. And someone is stealing from the collection, someone all too close to home. When a body turns up floating in the nearby lake, it seems the stakes have risen to a new high. The police might deem it an accident; Nathan doesn’t.
As the family closes ranks, Nathan and Hannah bury their differences and join forces to find out who is responsible. But they will have to be both devious and extremely careful…