| Catherine Bybee | |
| Occupation: | Novelist |
| Nationality: | American |
| Period: | 2009–present |
| Genre: | Contemporary romance, paranormal romance, romantic suspense, women's fiction |
| Children: | 2 |
Catherine Bybee is an American author. She has written thirty-nine books that have collectively sold more than 10 million copies and have been translated into more than twenty languages. Several of the books she authored have been on The New York Times and USA Today bestsellers lists.
Raised in Washington State, Bybee moved to Southern California in the hope of becoming a movie star. After growing bored with waiting tables, she returned to school and became a registered nurse, spending most of her career in urban emergency rooms. She now writes full time and has penned The Not Quite series, The Weekday Brides series, The Most Likely To series, and The First Wives series.[1]
Bybee was raised in Washington State,[1] and is the survivor of child abuse and a teen who "graduated high school by the skin of my teeth." Romance novels became a way to escape reality, "Romance novels saved my life more than once, and I don't mean that figuratively."[2]
Bybee moved to California in hopes of becoming an actress, but she eventually landed in nursing school and began working in urban emergency rooms.[1] However, Bybee's nursing career was cut short when a fall, while helping a patient transfer from wheelchair to gurney, injured her back resulting in multiple surgeries over the course of seven years. It was during her recovery that she decided to start writing, "I didn't take a bunch of classes in writing. I couldn't spell my way out of a paper bag. But I had to learn."[2]
Strong reader support has changed Catherine's life. She didn't grow up with money, and she says what she appreciates most is how success as an author has allowed her to improve other people's lives. She hired a full time assistant. "It's fabulous to actually employ people, for crying out loud. I hope that everyone can experience that."[2]
Bybee published nine books through small press, but it was her tenth book, Wife by Wednesday, that became her breakout novel. On December 15, 2011, Wife by Wednesday entered the USA Today Bestsellers list at #35, staying on for seven weeks.[3] On February 12, 2012, it entered the New York Times Bestsellers list at #18 for ebook fiction,[4] and on February 26, 2012, was #13 for combined print and ebook.[5] Wife by Wednesday was also the #1 best-selling Kindle Direct Publishing book, and #5 overall best-selling Kindle book, in December 2011.[6] [7] It went on to become the #11 overall best-selling Kindle book for 2012.[8] Originally written for Harlequin, but rejected,[1] Wife by Wednesday sold 300,000 copies by the time Amazon Publishing offered her a book deal.[2]
The bestselling Weekday Brides series, developed from Wife by Wednesday, was bought by Montlake Romance in September 2012.[9] In April 2012, Montlake also bought Bybee's second contemporary series, The Not Quite Series.[10] Bybee has since sold over 8 million copies of her work and have been translated into twelve languages. She hit the #1 Wall Street Journal Bestseller spot with her novel, Making It Right, and continues to hit the "Amazon Top 100" and the "Wall Street Journal" with her contemporary releases.
The Weekday Brides Series
The First Wives Series (A Weekday Brides Spinoff)
The Richter Series (A First Wives Spinoff)
The Not Quite Series
The Most Likely To Series
The Creek Canyon Series
The D'Angelo's Series
The MacCoinnich Time Travel Series
The Ritter Werewolves Series
Stand Alone Novels