Author Spotlight: Cat Jameson

A little bit about Author Cat Jameson…

‘Writer of romance novels’ is actually my third career. My first was as a criminal defense lawyer for almost three decades, a life experience that helps me create the ‘suspense’ in my romantic suspense novels. When I retired from the practice of law, I began a second career as co-owner of a metaphysical bookstore. People see that as a 180-degree shift, but both have always been a part of me. The only thing that changed was which was front and center! The same is true for my career as a writer. I’ve been writing stories since I was a kid. I just never sent any of them out into the world until 2024 when my debut novel was not only sent out, but picked up! Many thanks to The Wild Rose Press who released Chasing Shadows�in March, 2025.

A native Missourian, I grew up in a small town near the Ozark Mountains before moving to St. Louis to attend Washington University School of Law. I wound up staying in St. Louis for most of my legal career and the city features prominently in both my debut novel and two others currently in the works. A happily divorced mother of two grown daughters, today, I live in Columbia, Missouri and spend my time writing, shopkeeping, playing with grandkids and road tripping with my best friend and business partner in a ten-year-old van named Woo. In other words, life is good!

This is Author Cat Jameson’s writing and publication journey in her own words…

Inspiration to start writing…

I write contemporary romantic suspense — more particularly, ‘legal suspense meets spicy romance.’ Romance novels got me through law school. Admittedly, they weren’t much help in learning Torts or Tax Law, but when that last exam of each semester was done and I emerged from the law library blinking in the sunlight like Punxsutawny Phil on Groundhog Day, romance novels made me whole. I’d devour them, one after another, letting my bruised and abused brain cells rest and recoup in the warm bath of a well-written romance. When I became a criminal defense lawyer and my crazy hours shifted from the law library to jails, prisons, and courtrooms — romance novels balanced the grit of my everydays. High stakes and suspense make for great stories, but actually living them? Let’s just say I needed those happily-ever-afters more than ever. I owe romance novels for picking me up off the ground more times than I can count. So, when I got the chance to actually WRITE them? How could I not jump at that?

Cat’s works…

Chasing Shadows

When the sexy stranger from the one-night-stand she can’t forget turns out to be the key witness against her client …�and somebody is trying to kill him.

Chasing Shadows Blurb

Annie O’Toole is a St. Louis Public Defender, passionate about fighting for the underdog and determined to prove herself as the badass trial lawyer she knows she can be. Getting assigned to defend the kid charged with shooting billionaire businessman, Michael Grayson, is a big step up for her career. At least until the hot guy she seduced at the Justice for All Ball shows up at her office in response to her deposition subpoena. Turns out the sexy stranger who introduced himself only as ‘Mick’, the guy she’s been fantasizing about since slipping away while he slept — is none other than the billionaire himself, Michael Grayson.

She’s horrified. He’s furious. He thinks she set him up. She thinks he’s an arrogant ass in a Savile Row suit. Sparks, intrigue, and bullets fly in a mix of swoon and suspense as the two battle each other, the bad guys, and an off-limits attraction neither can ignore. When the evidence leads back into Michael’s inner corporate circle, the two are plunged into a world of international intrigue, corporate espionage, and murder — with a side dish of unresolved family drama as Annie is forced to turn to the only expert in corporate intrigue she knows, her own uber-wealthy, estranged grandmother. Now all she has to do is solve the case, escape her grandmother’s plans to take over her life (again), and save her client, her career, and the man whose lifestyle she despises . . . and whose touch she can’t forget.

One of Cat’s favourite scenes from Chasing Shadows…

Hyperventilating, Annie dumped the envelope of news articles on her desk and scrabbled through the clippings until she found one with a picture. There he was again. Her mystery man, her fabulous one-night- stand man, her ‘no-last-names’ man. Her ever-so-charming prince.

‘Mick’ was Michael Grayson.

‘Let’s not bring all the family skeletons to the party.’ It hadn’t been some playful game. He really hadn’t wanted her to know his name. He was too important, too privileged, too goddamned special to let her know his real identity. After all, what was she? Some low-level public interest lawyer. Just a night’s free entertainment. He didn’t want any entanglement, any messy follow-up with the likes of her. A quick lay and out, free and clear. That’s all she was to Mr. High-and-Mighty so why bother getting to know last names?

Anger bloomed as the rant in her mind picked up steam. Never mind that she’d been the one to suggest their one-night stand. He was the one who’d lured her away from the ball with his slick, sneaky invitation to get away from Kurt Cochrane. He was the one who’d seduced her with that sexy eyebrow and bad-boy gleam in his eyes. Guess he thought he didn’t have to worry about running into the likes of little Ms. Nobody again. Well, Mr. Hotshot was in for a bit of a surprise now, wasn’t he?