About
Meet the Author - Catherine Mathis
Facing the first Christmas without our only child and overwhelmed with work obligations, I told my husband to plan a holiday trip. Proudly he lay out an itinerary to Portugal though not to the beaches of the Algarve. It helps to know we both love history. We drove north from Lisbon to wine, dine, and explore the country’s past.
Inspiration comes from the oddest circumstances. In a town less visited I found a stunning pair of tombs for a country with few intact relics of the time before The Earthquake (All Saints Day, 1755). A single question led to a rabbit hole from which I have yet to emerge. Who lay in the elegant pair of sarcophagi in Alcobaça's Abbey? We stumbled upon Iberia’s Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare’s tale overwhelmed one of the medieval antecedents to his play.
Born in Berlin as the first child of a spy and his secretary then wife, I grew up oblivious to their past. My earliest memories arise from growing up in the Washington, D.C. area where I went to public schools. As I entered junior high, my dad took a job with the Drug Enforcement Agency; a detriment to high school popularity. I graduated from Sewanee|The University of the South with a major in history. A career in corporate and international banking gave me the opportunity to travel to Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. I now write, live, and work in Atlanta near our son and his treasured family.