Beth Cato

Beth Cato writes fantasy, science fiction, cozy mysteries, short stories and poetry. A native of Hanford, California, her present home is Red Wing, Minnesota. Breath of Earth opens her Blood of Earth trilogy, an alternate-history fantasy set around San Francisco in 1906 and shaped by geomancy and a transformed relationship between Japan and America. It follows Ingrid Carmichael, whose hidden geomantic power matters after the city's wardens are lost. A Thousand Recipes for Revenge begins the Chefs of the Five Gods duology. It follows Ada and Solenn, a separated mother and daughter with food-linked magical perception, as their paths converge amid a political plot. Cato's bibliography also includes the Clockwork Dagger books. Her poem 'After Her Brother Ripped the Heads from Her Paper Dolls' won the short-poem Rhysling in 2019, and 'The Bookstore' won the long-poem award in 2022. Her novella Wings of Sorrow and Bone reached the Nebula Award's Best Novella final ballot in 2015.