Blog Tour: Guest Post: The Catalyst by Andrea Goyan
Today I am on the blog tour for The Catalyst by Andrea Goyan. It was released yesterday and today Goyan is sharing the 20-year path that she and The Catalyst went on. You read that right: It has been a 20 year journey for this novel to become published!
Book Description:
When human bodies are found with scales and tails, DNA specialist Kat Crocker is assigned to uncover the cause of the mutations and stop them before they spread. But her growing visibility makes her a target. As attacks escalate, the trail leads her to a newly released VR game powered by impossible genetics—and to one man: the mentor who taught her everything, the father she buried years ago.
Buy Your Copy Here:
Amazon US
Amazon UK
Hi Jessica. Thank you for inviting me here. I’m delighted to meet you and your followers.
I thought I’d chat a bit about my path to The Catalyst’s publication, and how it’s been as much about my personal progression as about the book’s. And of course, how the two things are intertwined.
I’m not a hyper or excitable person, but I’ve always been in a hurry, rushing toward imagined successes. I’ve harbored a lot of magical beliefs like “if I…, then I…” as in, if I win this competition, then I’ll elevate my visibility in the market, or, if my book gets published, people will find, read, and love it. These beliefs date back to my school days, too. If I get good grades, I’ll succeed. If I get the lead in the school play, I’ll be on my way to stardom.
It took me a long while to realize how toxic that belief system is because it’s married to its opposite. If I don’t win this competition, I’m not a good writer. If I don’t get my book published, I’ll never be read. If I’m not married by thirty, I’ll never find a spouse. If I don’t—fill in the blank—I’m a failure.
Reaching the grand age of sixty-six, at a point where there is way less time in front of me than when I was thirty, I find peace in no longer rushing for made-up finish lines. Maybe it’s because the permanent finish line looms and I’m in no hurry to get there, but I think it’s much more than that. Wisdom, age, grace, whatever one chooses to call it, I’ve learned the road continues after the end of every race. And I only progress one moment at a time.
I hope you won’t misinterpret what I mean. I still have lofty goals and pressing stories to tell, but I realize so many things are out of my control. Sometimes projects need to breathe and grow before they’re ready to launch.
I originally wrote my debut novel, The Catalyst, over twenty years ago. At the time, its title was DNA Abnormalis. I signed with a New York literary agent, and the book made the rounds to acquisition editors. I wildly spun my if I dreams until those hopes were dashed. The novel was soundly but kindly rejected. Of course, my nasty interior voices said they were only kind because of their working relationship with the agents, which may have been true. But neither option mattered because I didn’t know what to do next. I was new to the game and didn’t have anyone in my circle who was adept at navigating the submission process. I didn’t understand that getting soundly rejected was a big part of the business, and that over the coming decades, I’d develop moderate coping mechanisms to deal with the noes.
After the rejections, my agent suggested some rewrites that I wasn’t interested in. They would’ve changed my lead character and made the novel into something I didn’t want to write. We parted amicably about a year later. I fiddled with DNA Abnormalis for another year, wrote most of a second book, and set both aside for a decade. Then, I revisited the novel, did another pass, and set it aside again, figuring it was one of those classic writer tales about early novels sitting at the bottom of a drawer, or in today’s nomenclature, archived somewhere on a computer.
I moved forward and continued writing. Since those novel rejections, over forty short stories of mine have appeared in a variety of different publications, and many of those are free to read on my website. I also have three more novels in the works.
When I returned to The Catalyst on a whim two years ago, something clicked. I finally cracked the story and wrote a book I’m happy with. One I couldn’t have written when I started the book. And I know, all my life experiences and writing in the interim made that discovery possible. My finish line kept moving, and for some crazy reason, I slogged along, never rushing, until I reached and surpassed it.
My husband, who has watched me plunk away at my keyboard year after year, and I laughed the other night when we realized that after two decades, The Catalyst (née DNA Abnormalis) had become my debut novel after all. I guess it was always meant to be.
And if I…then I became if I write, then I’m happy.
About the Author:
Andrea Goyan is an award-winning author and an avid animal person who grew up being called Goat-Girl and Raccoon-Mama. She is a grateful part of a flock of collaborative Magpie Poets whose first collection, An Illegal Feast, was released in 2025. Andrea also co-hosts MetaStellar Magazine’s “Long-Lost Friends” and “Storytime.” In her spare time, she walks her dogs and loves to paint, especially animal portraits.
Many of her stories are available for free on her website.
Contact Andrea:
Website
Follow Andrea on Bluesky!
Blog Tour: Guest Post: Me Too by Katharine Light
Today I am helping to start the blog tour for Me Too by Katharine Light. This is the second book in The Millingham series. This one has such a gorgeous cover! Katharine is sharing a guest post about “Do writers make things up, or mostly write about what they know?” Me Too is available now!
Book Description:
Nearly forty, Anna has a successful career, a long-term relationship, and a carefully maintained sense of independence. But as time begins to run out, one question becomes impossible to ignore. What if she’s left it too late for the one thing she truly wants—a baby?
Divorced journalist Rob keeps his life free from complications. But when he runs into Anna at a friend’s wedding, he’s caught off guard. The girl he remembers is gone, replaced by a woman who is impossible to ignore.
When Anna makes him an offer, it’s one he can’t quite believe. No strings. No expectations. Just one simple arrangement.
It should be straightforward.
But the closer they become, the harder it is to stay detached. What begins as a practical plan deepens into something far more tender and much more dangerous.
If Anna allows herself to hope, she could lose not only her dream of motherhood, but the one man who has begun to feel like home.
Now Rob has a choice. Walk away…or risk everything for the woman he was not supposed to fall for.
Because some arrangements were never meant to stay temporary.
Buy Your Copy Here:
Amazon US
Amazon UK
Do writers make things up, or mostly write about what they know? Clive James, the writer and broadcaster, said of his book Unreliable Memoirs, ‘Most first novels are disguised autobiographies. This autobiography is a disguised novel… Nothing I have said is factual except the bits that sound like fiction.’
There are autobiographical aspects to Me Too and to Like Me the first novel in the Millingham series. I spent my secondary school years in Altrincham, just south of Manchester, England, which is the blueprint for Millingham. Going to Altrincham Grammar School for Girls, the Sunday night Youth Fellowship (YF) became a regular fixture in the social calendar because it was the place to meet boys, several of whom sang in the choir at St Mary’s Church, Bowdon.
We were a close group of friends, from when we were about 14 to 18 years old, who had somewhat innocent parties (a lot of snogging, pressed up against one another in the dark, and not much more), drank cider and listened to 1980s hits. Our soundtrack was an eclectic mix of Bowie, The Cure, Duran Duran, Wham, Blondie, Dire Straits, Randy Crawford, The Pretenders, The Clash, U2 and others… Communication was via landline telephones. There were no mobiles back then. When we arranged to meet up, we couldn’t text to change the plan. Nor did we have any social media to contend with. It feels as if it was a simpler, kinder world back then.
Some incidents in the books are based on actual events. There was a snow-laden New Year’s Eve, and night walk along Green Walk to Denzel House and Gardens in Bowdon (Lake Avenue and Lake Court in the books). There was a Brideshead Revisited party just after our A Levels and the evening was captured by some evocative black and white photos. Some of the locations have been changed, but I could point to Jess’s, Sam’s, and James’s houses, all within walking distance of St Mary’s Church.
Anna’s house is based on the home of family friends, but they lived in Dorset, rather than close to Bath. Purseton is mostly a figment of my imagination. Her workplace is similar to my friend Jane’s business premises in Warwickshire. Rob’s flat in Earls Court is inspired by friends who lived in Barkston Gardens for a number of years. Although theirs was a lovely home rather than an unloved living space.
Fiction is about drama, so many episodes from the books are made up. There was no fall from a tree, attack in a downstairs loo, or in a university bedroom. In many ways our lives growing up were privileged, happy and secure. But within our friendship group, there were other elements of family life to navigate: suicide, bereavement, divorce, secrets.
The original idea for Like Me, book one, was inspired by Friends Reunited, the social networking site reconnecting old school/university friends. Launched in 2000, its influence declined after the arrival of FaceBook in 2004. I began thinking about teenage friends who start meeting up again in their late thirties, and the ways these people who have known each other at a crucial and formative time in their lives might have special resonance for each other years later, and what might happen next.
As I was first writing when my children were small, and had to snatch time in the midst of busy parenting, it was very useful knowing what my characters looked like. Several were based on friends from my youth. But once on the page, they became characters in their own right. Anna’s and Rob’s story is entirely fictional, the result of imagining how far she would go to have a child.
My parents still live in Altrincham, and I love walking around the streets I’ve known most of my life. We make a point of dropping into one particular cafe, run by very lovely people, opposite Altrincham Market when we’re visiting, and that is the inspiration for the coffee shop where Rob takes Kate, and various other characters meet. It opened a few years after these books are set. But as I’ve created a fictional world, that’s ok. It’s fiction, after all.
About the Author:
Katharine Light was born in Glasgow and lived there until her family moved to Manchester when she was ten. While in her teens, she began writing stories for her younger sister Emma. These mostly centred around a naïve heroine and a 1980s pop star (some would say the hero was modelled on John Taylor of Duran Duran).
She did a degree in psychology at University College London, and after a year travelling, worked in corporate film production for several years, before taking a break to raise her children.
For many years she wrote mainly during the holidays, around her busy work for a local church.
Her first novel Like Me, published in 2023, was shortlisted for The Selfies Book Awards 2024. Her short story My arms are empty which is based on an episode from her second novel Me Too recently won the City University competition City Writes.
She is a director of the Romantic Novelists’ Association, with responsibility for organising their conferences, gatherings and awards ceremonies.
Katharine lives in London with her husband and quite often at least one of their adult children. She loves singing, walking, painting, looking at art, and going to the theatre.
Contact Katharine:
Threads @katharinelightwrites1
Instagram @katharinelightwrites1
Blog Tour: Promo: A Wish For Beth by Audrey Davis
Today I am taking part in the blog tour for A Wish for Beth by Audrey Davis. A Wish for Beth is Book 4 in the Cranley Wishes series. This series looks like fun to read romcoms! It was just released yesterday, June 10, 2026!
Book Description:
A heartwarming paranormal cosy romance set in a small Scottish village, featuring a flamboyant genie, three unexpected wishes, and a second chance at love after loss.
Love, second chances, and a dash of magic… what could possibly go wrong?
Beth Calder’s life so far:
Marriage falling apart? Check.
Heartbreak she can’t quite move past? Check.
Fresh start in a quiet Scottish village? Check.
Discovering a genie inside a pinball machine? That’s new.
Arriving in Cranley is meant to be Beth’s chance to begin again. A job as head chef at The Jekyll and Hyde pub, a cosy place to call home, and a village that doesn’t ask too many questions feel like exactly what she needs. Romance is firmly off the table.
That becomes harder to hold onto when she meets Kieran, a thoughtful and quietly charming tech developer who understands more than she expects. It becomes even harder when the pub’s dusty basement reveals a glitter-loving genie with a habit of interfering and a belief that Beth’s story isn’t over yet.
With three wishes she doesn’t quite trust and a heart still holding onto the past, Beth must decide whether to keep playing it safe or risk everything for a chance at something new.
In Cranley, even the most unexpected kind of magic can help you find your way forward.
A Wish for Beth is Book 4 in the Cranley Wishes series. Perfect for readers who love small-town charm, gentle paranormal romance, and uplifting second-chance love stories filled with warmth, hope, and a touch of magic.
Buy Your Copy Here:
Amazon US
Amazon UK
About the Author:
Audrey Davis is the bestselling author of sparkling romantic comedies that blend warmth, wit and just a touch of mischief. She burst onto the scene with A Clean Sweep and its prequel A Clean Break, before bewitching readers with her ghostly romcom The Haunting of Hattie Hastings, first published as a trilogy and later as a standalone novel.
Her feel-good Cranley Wishes series began with A Wish for Jinnie and went on to delight fans with A Wish for Jo and A Wish for Wilma. Along the way, she also delivered the laugh-out-loud Lost in Translation (2021). Her latest standalone, The Lexicon of Love, charmed readers in September 2025.
Originally from the UK but now settled in Switzerland with her husband, Audrey divides her time between writing, shopping, cooking, and indulging her love of red wine. She’s a voracious reader, a keen storyteller, and never fails to get a little giddy when readers reach out.
Contact Audrey:
X @audbyname
Instagram @cowieaudrey