About the Author
I write difficult women.
Regency London where household accounts are weapons and the marriage plot is still here—but the heroine has read every page of the contract.
The pen behind the name
Catherine Kerrigan
Catherine Kerrigan is the pen name of an author who got tired of reading historical romance heroines who had been smoothed down until they were perfectly round. The women in my books are allowed to be sharp on purpose.
I write Regency London, but the version where the household accounts are weapons and the servant network is a private intelligence service. Vapors are tactical. Inheritance is a puzzle with at least three solutions. The marriage plot is still here—but the heroine has read every page of the contract.
Currently at work on the second Theodora Thornbury novel, somewhere between a manuscript and a personal grievance.
On the Work
What I write and why
Historical romance has always been a space where women's intelligence gets to be the plot engine, not a charming footnote. I take that seriously. My heroines are not softened into palatability—they are competent, occasionally ruthless, and entirely aware of the game they are playing.
The Regency setting matters because it is an era of enormous social constraint producing enormous social creativity. Women who wanted to survive—or thrive—had to become very good at systems: networks, ledgers, alliances. That is interesting to me. The rake is there because chemistry is interesting. The inheritance puzzle is there because power is interesting.
I am not writing wish fulfillment. I am writing women who deserve to win—and then watching them work out how.
The Thornbury Files · Book One
The Lady's Guide to Calculated Ruin
A Regency heroine who runs a discreet problem-solving salon, a rake with inconvenient intelligence, and a contract every woman in the ton wishes she had written first.
Forthcoming
Cover reveals, release dates, and news as it happens—in the newsletter.
About the book
The Newsletter
Calculated Ruin
A letter on historical women who refused to be footnotes, the craft of the marriage plot, and whatever I am currently arguing with my editor about. No hedging, no sparkle, no girlboss energy.
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