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
The Editors
G.M. Baker
Specializing in historical fiction, history, including the history of ideas, and general fiction.
Mark is trying to revive the serious popular novel, the kind of story that finds the truth of the human condition in action, adventure, romance, and even magic. He holds a BA in history from St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia and an MA from Western University in London Ontario. After a career in high tech, he now focuses on writing. He currently resided in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, Canada. He writes the newsletter, Stories All the Way Down, which examines serious popular fiction in theory and practice. Subscribe at https://gmbaker.substack.com.
Mark is the author of:
The historical novels series, Cuthbert’s People (The Wistful and the Good, St. Agnes and the Selkie, The Needle of Avocation): In the aftermath of the great Viking raid on the rich monastery of Lindisfarne in AD 793, two sisters, the beautiful but wistfully discontented, Elswyth and the plain but superbly talented needlewoman, Hilda, struggle to find their places and their vocations after one foolish indiscretion leads to bloodshed and exile and involves each of them, in their own ways, in the affairs of the mighty.
The literary fairy-tale Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight: When Isabel kills the Elf Knight and takes his horse, sword, and horn, she believes that she has done just work. She has broken his enchantment and has rid the twelve kingdoms of a great evil. But something old is waking in Isabel, something that longs for the gallop and the chase, for bright sun and the rush of wind against the cheek, for glimmering steel and bright blood and the dying of light in the eyes of the slain.
Theresa Frodin
Specializing in Nonfiction & Children’s Literature
Theresa Frodin, on fire for her faith, spent her teen years saving her money to buy Catholic apologetic books. She taught CCD and developed a scriptural curriculum to be in concord with the liturgical year (approved by her parish priest) and co-ran it for her peers. In college, she studied the great classics in literature, philosophy and theology.
Theresa has had a life-long love for storytelling which has manifested in multiple forms including directing plays, storyboarding books, writing and participating in humorous speech contests, creating marketing videos for small business owners, and re-vitalizing hard to read texts for young readers.
She started her career in the news publishing business, and eventually moved to the health-sector where she worked as a graphic artist and copy editor, and then as a marketing project manager.
She has developed and is hosting an ongoing children’s writing and art contest where Catholic kids can submit their work to be published in her Litany of Loreto book series. She hopes to empower young people to utilize their talents for God.
She enjoys studying approved-Catholic mysticism, history, and theology. Narrative non-fiction particularly appeals to her.
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.
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.
Nancy Bechel
Specializing in Young Adult Fiction
N.L. Bechel is an adventurer at heart and a hobbit in practice.
Her love of reading—and plea for just one more chapter!—started as a small child when her school teacher mom would read her and her siblings to sleep every night. She still hasn’t learned that she can’t begin a new book after 9:00pm; in a choice between sleep or finding out what happens next, the story always wins.
N.L. has a special place in her heart for young adult and middle grade fiction—especially fantasy and adventure—and enjoys finding fabulous books to recommend to her nephews and nieces (and former students). With a background in middle and high school youth ministry, retreat ministry, and middle school education, N.L. has a deep love for youth and a passion for providing opportunities for them to encounter Christ within the depth and beauty of the Catholic Church. She has BAs in Theology and Youth Ministry from Benedictine College in Atchison, KS, and over a decade of experience working with teens.
In her free time, she loves puzzles, watching old movies, playing tabletop games, frolicking with her sister’s kids, and writing her own YA fantasy adventures. She always has new worlds and stories brewing in her imagination, and is an active member of the Catholic Writers Guild.
The Leadership Team
Courtney Guest Kim
Assistant Editor
Specializing in Classics & the Mystery Genre
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.
She is also the author of:
How Sweet The Sound: a story of romance, mistakes and the grace that draw us to God’s heart with the twitch of a string.
A.R.K. Watson
Founder, Editor in Chief,
Specializing in Science Fiction
A.R.K. Watson is the author of:
The Vines of Mars: A Martian Farmer, a Murderer, and a Forest That Would Swallow them all. All the drama of The Expanse series set in a small town inspired by Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles.
Excerpts of this book earned A.R.K. a coveted place in the Yale Summer Creative Writing Course.
Death of a Colony: a prequel to The Vines, and only available to newsletter subscribers.
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.
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