by Kathleen Donohue

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Kathleen Donohue was born in Burnley, England, where she graduated from secretarial college. She worked for the NHS, the BBC in London and the United Nations in Switzerland and Austria before meeting her Canadian husband in Vienna and moving to Calgary with their 3 kids.

The family later moved to the Middle East where Kathleen wrote her weekly column “Life with Teens” and completed her 3rd "Mercy Meadows" book about an 11 year old ‘mini-me’ school girl and her friends.

The books are about jealousy, envy, rivalry, sports, competitions, and mischief. But mostly they're about friendship.They’re fun to read and the dialog is very clever, just like Mercy. You never know what she’ll come up with next - and you’ll laugh out loud when she catches you out.

Below are summaries of the 3 Mercy Meadows books:

Guess What?

Mercy and her friends turn detective to spy on Miss Spencer, their 5th grade teacher, and Mr. Burton, the new gym teacher. 

The New Girl.

Mercy feels threatened when Abbey Prince glides into town from Arabia in a brand new metallic green Jaguar and her best friend, Diana, is immediately spellbound. 

Secrets

Mercy finds her older sister Mona’s stash of love letters and shows them to her friends! But in the meantime, what’s going on between mum and dad?

Life with Teens is a collection of conversations about the everyday frustrations and misunderstandings between parents and teens. It offers a window into the daily routines of raising teenagers, while also providing humour and comfort to parents who are going through it.

"Life with Teens" was a weekly column published over a two year period in "The Peninsula", a major English language newspaper in Qatar. The column was very popular and most of our children's friends wanted to be mentioned in them. Many parents and teachers actually said that it made them look forward to Monday mornings! How sad.