Catherine Forster is an artist, filmmaker, and writer living in the Pacific Northwest … at the moment. Her work and love of travel have led her to six continents, including Sub-Saharan African, the source of her childhood fantasies. She still holds a fondness for Tarzan, but when trekking in the bush, hiking mountain trails, or exploring a new city, she prefers the company of her beloved husband Kevin.

SORRY CAKES, a work of fiction, was inspired by my grandmother’s colorful tales of her flapper youth. The story takes place in a sleepy rural Illinois town that was once a boom town, the fastest growing town in the Midwest outside of Chicago.

The novel’s protagonist, Judyth, is good at keeping secrets. One she holds most dear: an illegitimate daughter she gave up for adoption. She is content with the life she has built with her husband, Ed, but it all begins to unravel when her granddaughter is unexpectedly left in her care. The child has mysteriously stopped speaking. Her ghost-like presence reignites memories in Judyth of her own daughter, unleashing once-dormant wounds. Complicating matters, a long-ago nemesis, Ellen, threatens to reveal her secret. As Judyth tries to resolve the mystery behind her granddaughter’s silence, uncover Ellen’s intentions, and dodge Ed’s mounting suspicions, she is forced to confront her past.

Judyth and Ed’s shifting points of view unfold over a week in 1953, with flashbacks from 1914 to 1920, a journey that takes readers to the early days of the suffragist movement, World War I, and the dawn of the Jazz Age. SORRY CAKES was a finalist in the San Francisco Writers Conference and the Pacific Northwest Writers Association fiction contests.

SORRY CAKES is a work in process. More to follow!