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Mayo, Catherine
Writer's File

Catherine Mayo

Auckland - Tāmaki Makaurau
Mayo, Catherine
In brief
Catherine Mayo is a young adult novelist whose books engage with the overlap of legend and history in Bronze Age Greece. Her first novel Murder at Mykenai (Walker Books, 2013) is a reimagining of the Odysseus story that focuses on his relationship as a teenager with the young Menelaos. It received a Storylines Notable Book Award for Young Adult Fiction in 2014. Her second novel, The Bow (Walker Books) was published in 2014.
Bio

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mayo, Catherine (–) is a short story writer and young adult novelist. She has previously worked as a successful bluegrass musician, and for over thirty years has been a professional luthier – a maker and restorer of violins. She has published short fiction in the New Zealand School Journal and was shortlisted for the Storylines Tom Fitzgibbon Award in 2008.

In 2013 her first YA novel, Murder at Mykenai was published by Australian publisher Walker Books. It drew acclaim both for its vivid and compelling storytelling and its finely researched period detail. Ann Packer, writing for the New Zealand Listener commended it as an ‘entertaining and occasionally bloodthirsty introduction to Greek history through the eyes of teens Odysseus and Menelaos.’ Tessa Duder wrote: 'More than an impressive debut novel... it joins the top ranks of historical fiction, bringing to life the young Menelaus, Odysseus and others grappling with power, treachery and friendship in the years before the Trojan War.'

Mayo’s second novel The Bow continues within the worldview and historical period established in her first, reimagining the story behind Odysseus’ inheritance of the Great Bow of Eurytos.


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