Catherine Fox is Academic Director of the Manchester Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her debut novel, Angels and Men (reissued in 2014), was a Sunday Times Pick of the Year. It was followed by The Benefits of Passion and Love for the Lost (both reissued in 2015). The Lindchester Chronicles series began with Acts and Omissions, which was chosen as a Guardian Book of 2014, and now numbers four volumes – Unseen Things Above (2015), Realms of Glory (2017) and Tales from Lindford (2021) - each complete in itself. Catherine is married to the Bishop of Sheffield and is a judo black belt.
Lyrical, compelling and full of insight. I found this very hard to put down. -- Katie Fforde, The Sunday Times No. 1 Bestselling Author [on Tales from Lindford] I hope Catherine Fox will forgive me if I say she doesn't write like an angel; she writes like a human being, with immense compassion, unsentimental faith and an impressively undisciplined humour. Not many writers give such a vivid sense of what it is actually like to try and live in the light of absolute mercy. Very few indeed do it with such brilliance and freshness of language. -- Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury [on Tales from Lindford] What makes Realms of Glory such a delight is the humour, humanity and the strong characters . . . that come off the page and hang around in your head . . . This is not safe Christian fiction, because we don't live in a safe Christian world. * Christianity [on Realms of Glory] * What a treat it is to have some Fresh Expressions from the diocese of Lindchester. Catherine Fox's second helping of bad language, sex and Evensong is Anglicanism at its best; her wit, compassion and rueful optimism are irresistible. -- Diarmaid MacCulloch, Professor of the History of the Church, University of Oxford [on Unseen Things Above] Catherine Fox's glorious Lindchester series is the twenty-first-century answer to Trollope's Barchester - but Trollope was never so funny, so fundamentally kind, or so mischievously attentive to grace. -- Francis Spufford, author of Golden Hill [on Unseen Things Above] Unsure what to buy the Trollope devotee in your life for Christmas? Look no further than Catherine Fox's Acts and Omissions and Unseen Things Above for a refresher course not only in cathedral politics, but also a set of profound, although lightly drawn, insights into the contemporary Anglican communion. -- Janet Beer * The Times Higher Education [on the first two volumes in The Lindchester Chronicles] * These books are utterly unputdownable, gossipy, subtle and wise. What's astonishing is that despite Catherine Fox's sharp awareness of the feet of clay under surplices, she somehow makes you believe several cheering things that most modern fiction doesn't: that the natural world is endlessly beautiful, that most people aspire to goodness even if they fall flat on their faces, and that the attempt to live a good life is worthwhile. -- Maggie Gee, novelist & Professor of Creative Writing, Bath Spa University [on the first two volumes in The Lindchester Chronicles]