Hello Frost readers. Sixteen years of this lovely online lifestyle magazine and some of you have been here since the beginning. All of the editors and writers, like our amazing Margaret Graham, are grateful. I thought I would introduce myself again as it has been a long time. I started Frost Magazine sixteen years ago, and it was one of the best things I haver ever done. Since 2010 I have become an author of three novels, and a successful freelance journalist, writing as Catherine Balavage and Catherine Yardley. I also now have four children! The youngest of which is a baby.

My third novel, The Mothers of SW19, came out on August 27th. My previous two are, Ember and Where The Light is Hottest. I wrote what would become The Mothers of SW19 during lockdown. I was homeschooling my first born, taking care of a toddler, and pregnant with my third child. I wrote over 3000 words a day and finished the book in six weeks. It was the thing that kept me sane.

It got a huge amount of interest when I was querying. 26 full requests. I had literary agents from the top agencies in my DMs. Then it died on sub. It hurt, but I have been a writer for a long time now. I don’t give up. Then after receiving more rejections I saw that entries were open for the Kindle Storyteller Award. This was June and you had to publish in August. I hired people to do the cover, marketing, socials, and editing. I also bought Vellum, which is a formatting software. I did a book tour with Rachel’s Random Resources, whom I love and always do a book tour with. Reviews and sales came flooding in. I could not believe how well it went. The preorders made me dizzy. Then Stylist magazine named my little book one of the best of 2026. Agents and publishers have contacted me. I have full requests out. 

I’m a freelance journalist, an author, and a mum-of-four who lives in SW19, London. I have bylines in the Times and the Sunday Times, Stylist, Telegraph, Metro, and many others. You can see some of my work here, though I am sometimes slow to update. This year has been a tough one personally. My aunty Kit died, who I always loved and am named after (Catherine is her real name, Kit is a nickname). She didn’t even get to meet my new baby. My biological father died and I had no idea how to feel because I hadn’t spoken to him in 25 years. There has been many more hard things, including the family cat dying, and another one going missing. Yet, as someone who has toiled as a writer for decades. Who had a theatre column all those years ago for Last Minute Theatre Tickets, writing one piece a day, to writing for the Sunday Times. Who has read over 1000 books. Who loves words and books so much, this has been the best year of my life. I wrote about my dad dying in Stylist, and I have written pieces for my favourite newspapers and magazines. I have started on a sequel to The Mothers of SW19, and have more books coming. Thank you for reading Frost magazine. We have a lot more amazing content coming your way.

The Mothers of SW19 is available on kindle +, ebook, and paperback.