Our Mission

We are readers who got fed up with how hard is to find good Catholic fiction that features authentic  Church teaching, themes, and characters. When we did manage to find a good story it was usually something written fifty years ago or in a genre that wasn’t always our favorite.

But we love books and we love reading. So we kept searching.

And we found dozens of hidden worlds, indie authors, small presses, and magazines. Despite the lack of advertising, imagination and art are alive and well in our parishes. We started Catholic Reads with the aim of putting authentic Catholic fiction into people’s hands. We want our nation and our world to have the chance to see what the Church’s imagination has to offer.

We decided we could do more to change things than just write and advertise our own stories. We started this company because we loved reading and we wanted to put some of the amazing books we found into the hands of hungry readers. Together we started Catholic Reads.

Now we help both Catholic authors and readers through:

Our Library of Reviews

Each week we will publish a review of a book written by a Catholic or that explores themes in common with Catholicism.

  • We will clearly list the themes explored and whether or not the author is openly Catholic. This way readers looking for books exploring specific themes will be able to find them using our tag cloud on the right-hand sidebar.
  • Because we are independent we will be able to review books from multiple Catholic presses.
  • Indie Authors can gain credibility with readers who know we will vet every ebook for quality and an accurate portrayal of the Catholic faith.
  • You can find new books under the Reviews tab, sorted according to the genre.

Our Email Blast of the BEST Catholic Book Deals

Subscribers will receive a weekly email alerting them to sales & giveaways on the books we review.

  • Readers on a budget can grow their own Catholic library & have a low risk incentive to try new authors.
  • Catholic authors get a chance to find new readers.

If you would like to help us you can do so by becoming a Patron.

Authors interested in finding out how to get their books reviewed or on the email list can find our submission guidelines on the Submissions page.

I cannot wait to help you find your next adventure and see where Catholic Reads will take us all. I hope that together, authors and readers can turn the page on the current state of religious publishing, and usher in a new Golden Age of Catholic fiction.

Your Editor in Chief,
A.R.K. Watson

Please keep in mind that the thoughts and opinions expressed on this website are not necessarily those of the Catholic Church. We are a team of practicing Catholics trying to do our best but the best resource for understanding Catholic doctrine is still the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Who We Are

Tiffany Buck

Tiffany Buck

Specializing in Romance, Horror & Poetry

Tiffany Buck’s poems have appeared in various journals. She is a cradle Catholic and a product of Catholic schools. She loves fairy tales and often incorporates them into her poetry. Currently she is in a book club, Well Read Mom that encourages mothers to read more classic literature. A few of her favorite authors are Jane Austin, Flannery O’Connor and Anton Chekov.

She also enjoys a good horror novel now and again if you write in that genre.

Corinna Turner

Corinna Turner

Specializing in the Fantasy Genre

Corinna Turner has been writing since she was fourteen and likes strong protagonists with plenty of integrity. Although she spends as much time as possible writing, she cannot keep up with the flow of ideas, for which she offers thanks—and occasional grumbles!—to the Holy Spirit. She is the author of over twenty-five books, including the Carnegie Medal Nominated I Am Margaret series, and her work has been translated into four languages. She was awarded the St. Katherine Drexel award in 2022.

She is a Lay Dominican with an MA in English from Oxford University and lives in the UK. She is a member of a number of organisations, including the Society of Authors, Catholic Teen Books, Catholic Reads, the Angelic Warfare Confraternity, and the Sodality of the Blessed Sacrament. She used to have a Giant African Land Snail, Peter, with a 6½” long shell, but now makes do with a cactus and a campervan.

Courtney Guest Kim

Courtney Guest Kim

Assistant Editor

Specializing in Classics

Courtney has a few unpublished masterpieces in various stages of completion waiting for her four children to grow up so she can do something respectable, like getting paid for her work.  At age five after watching a Billy Graham crusade on TV, she dialed the number on the screen and has been a Christian ever since.  She was baptized into the Church of Scotland when growing up in Paris, France.  Then after lots of adventures, she moved back to Houston, Texas and joined the Catholic Church.

She graduated with honors in the humanities from Stanford University (Class of ’92).  Then, after four dark years in a Ph.D. program in comparative literature at Rutgers, she faced a choice between her faith and an academic career.  The sort of people who are now throwing families with five children onto the street for declining to bake a cake were already ensconced in the Academy.  She chose exile, motherhood, a job in New York and twenty years of comparing literature on her own.

On July 11, 2017, Feast of St. Benedict, she launched a blog called The Domestic Hermit.  It offers a series of reflections on The Rule of St. Benedict, with a personal focus on character formation in the home.  She connected with Catholic Reads after a friend told her about hearing A.R.K. Watson interviewed in a podcast.  Now she’s taking on the Christian Classics challenge and hopes to share all the best of literature in English with anyone who loves truth, eloquence, wit and good sense.

A.R.K. Watson

A.R.K. Watson

Founder, Editor in Chief,

Specilizing in Science Fiction and Mystery Genres

A.R.K. Watson began writing with both arms in braces as a broke college student. Her love of the written word drove her to start this business aimed at popularizing good Catholic books, while writing sci-fi and fantasy herself.
She is an American living abroad in South Korea, a world traveler, and an absolute and unrepentant nerd.

She is the author of:

The Vines of Mars– A Martian Farmer, a Murderer, and a Forest That Would Swallow them all. Part western, part space opera all in a locked-planet mystery package. Excerpts of this book earned A.R.K. a coveted place in the Yale Summer Creative Writing Course.

The Dunes – winner of an Honorable Mention from Writers of the Future Contest, this suspenseful short story explores mental health, and paranormal vacation spots. Twlight Zone meets October Country at a seaside camp ground.

If your book involves robots, murder in space, or theology of the body inspired alien design she’d love to read it.

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