On the night of the WAFTAs, seven women are drawn into the same escalating chain of events. Each novel stands alone. Together, they reveal the hidden connections between crimes, institutions, families and the people caught in the fallout, exposing how violence, power and silence move through a city.
A trafficked Ukrainian sent to kill her bosses finds them already dead.
A disgraced former detective tries to help a stabbed young woman outside Cardiff's biggest awards ceremony.
A woman trapped in a controlling marriage discovers that leaving may be the most dangerous choice of all.
A grandmother is forced to confront the same forces that once took her daughter.
A survivor of abuse discovers that love may not be enough to save her from herself.
A media executive watches the biggest night of her career begin to collapse around her.
And a woman who hasn't left the house in years discovers that hiding can only protect you for so long.
CAGED
Kathy Saxondale
Crime novelist writing Celtic noir set
in modern Tiger Bay, Cardiff, Wales.
Seven women. Seven novels.
One expanding crisis.
EVERY CAGE STARTS AS A SOLUTION.
Books
Across the CAGED series, ordinary lives are pulled into an unfolding night of threat and pressure. Every character believes they're choosing the safest option.
No one is.
Set across a single night in Tiger Bay, Cardiff, the novels follow different women caught in the same expanding crisis. Together, they reveal the hidden connections between crimes, institutions, families and the people caught in the fallout.
SVETTIE and BERNIE are complete. Further novels in development. See Planned Books.
SVETTIE
Book One
Sent to kill her Serbian bosses, trafficked Ukrainian Svetlana finds them already dead and claims the credit.
Taking over their operation is her only chance of buying freedom.
But when her first cocaine shipment disappears, she has twenty-four hours to recover it before the cartel kills her brother, her girlfriend and herself.
As the night tightens around her, alliances fracture, threats multiply, and every attempt to keep control creates new risks.
Set over a single night in Tiger Bay, SVETTIE is a crime novel about debt, loyalty and survival when every available choice makes things worse.
Status: Manuscript complete.
BERNIE
Book Two
After being forced out of the police, Bernie is broke, under scrutiny and trying to rebuild her life as a security guard.
Then, on the night of the WAFTAs, a young award winner is stabbed in a lane behind Cardiff's biggest awards ceremony.
As the city scrambles to contain the fallout, the attack is quickly repurposed into something useful: a media story, a political problem, a career opportunity, a custody battle and a distraction from bigger scandals unfolding elsewhere that night.
The more Bernie learns, the clearer it becomes that helping the girl will place her in direct conflict with former colleagues, powerful interests and the institutions she once trusted.
It may also cost her the one thing she still has left to lose: her daughter.
Set over a single night in Tiger Bay, BERNIE is a crime novel about power, public image and what happens when a vulnerable person becomes more valuable as a story than as a victim.
Status: Manuscript complete; in revision.
Planned Books
MOIRA
For decades, Moira has kept everything running.
The house. The peace. The lies.
Her marriage survives because she absorbs the damage.
Then violence enters her home and shatters the fragile order she has spent years maintaining.
For the first time, walking away becomes possible.
It may also be the thing that gets someone killed.
Status: In development.
BLAZE
When the same forces that took her daughter come for her granddaughter, Blaze is forced back into a fight she thought was over.
The first time, they took everything.
This time, they get Blaze.
Status: In development.
ENFYS
Enfys thought love would change her.
Instead, it showed her what she was capable of.
Now she must choose between the woman she loves and the compulsion she can no longer control.
Status: In development.
KASSANDRA
Promotion to Sbectra Global's London headquarters is finally within reach for Kassandra, Managing Director of Dinas FM and host of this year's Welsh BAFTAs.
Then the event begins falling apart.
Every solution creates a new problem.
And every problem comes with witnesses.
Status: In development.
MAGDA
Magda hasn't left the house in years.
The world outside has spent a long time
forgetting she exists.
Then a threat to her family forces her back into it.
Hiding kept her alive.
It won't save her now.
Status: In development.
EVERY CAGE BREAKS
about the author
Kathy Saxondale is a crime novelist based in Wales.
Her work explores power, silence, survival, the pressures that shape human behaviour, and the stories people tell themselves to get through the night.
She is fascinated by the moment when staying becomes more dangerous than leaving, and the choices people make when there are no safe options left.
Her CAGED series follows different women drawn into the same night of events in Tiger Bay, Cardiff, UK.
Kathy is currently developing the remaining novels in the series.
