Cathy Cassidy - Personal Life

Personal Life

Cathy now lives in the Galloway hills in Scotland with husband Liam and two children, Caitlin (aged 17) and Callum (aged 19). She has been a vegetarian for over 35 years, and was a vegan for 8 years. Her lurcher, Kelpie, inspired the dog Legg-It in her first book, Dizzy.

She wrote her first picture book for her little brother when she was 8, though it was never published. Cathy was the agony aunt on teenage Shout magazine for 12 years and for many years taught art in local primary schools but is now a full-time author. She was once an art teacher at secondary schools, and went to university to take an art degree. She has drawn all the illustrations and the front covers to all the Daizy Star books. Her latest series, The Chocolate Box Girls, is inspired by chocolate. It is the story of five girls whose parents start a business in making truffles. She says that the names for each book are also the names of truffles, and she enjoys the "research" – eating and tasting chocolate and recalling her days in Somerset as a waitress. Cathy has so far written three books in the series, "Cherry Crush","Marshmallow Skye" and She has just finished writing "Summer's Dream" which was released June 7, 2012. Next will be "Coco Caramel," and the last book will be "Sweet Honey". For World Book Day 2013, Cassidy wrote another book to add to the Chocolate Box Girls Series called "Bittersweet" which comes from Shay Fletcher's point of view!