A novelist’s job is, first and foremost, to tell a good story. For a historical novelist, there is another layer. Yes, the story needs to be good. But the place and characters – the story’s universe, as it were –must feel real. Authentic. Of their time, but also relatable for a reader picking up the story today.
This is not always easy. And it may be why I’ve been at work on my women’s fiction novel The Admiral’s Wife for so long. How do I bring to life the voice of my protagonist, Katherine Cochrane, when we are separated by two centuries and so little of our lived experience overlaps?

I understand my role is not that of a documentarian, nor of an academic. But having grown up a lifelong love of history and earning a master’s degree in the field, it irks me not to get the details right. I am terrible to watch period films with for this reason – I will spot anachronisms, roll my eyes, occasionally comment, and depending on the film, either give it a pass or make a mental note to visit History vs. Hollywood later. Historical novels are the same way. I literally stopped reading a New York Times bestseller after the third gaffe I spotted, a reference to hunting deer in the spring. It doesn’t take a wildlife biologist to know that spring is the wrong time to hunt deer. One, they’re raising babies. Two, deer tend to be rather thin after the winter. Three, a Google search could provide a fact-check on this topic in about 10 seconds. So I decided that a book with sloppy research wasn’t worth my time, no matter how well it sold. And I set a goal for myself to do better.
Unfortunately, there are no books written on Kate Cochrane. Nor any academic articles, essays, or other items that I was able to locate. She is mentioned in works about other people – mainly her husband, Admiral Lord Cochrane, but never as the subject in her own right. Before I could become Kate’s storyteller, I had to become her biographer.
I delved into sources on her period: paintings, newspapers, dresses and jewelry of Regency England (that’s Bridgerton era, y’all, for anyone swept up in that series), recipe books, documents, music. I made a Pinterest board to keep track of it all. And luckily for me, Kate was quite the letter writer. I located a trove of her correspondence in a Scottish archive and spent several rainy autumn days reading and transcribing her letters. It was magic.
Letters are the next best thing to an interview, I think. It’s like eavesdropping on a conversation. As a reader of letters, you are privileged. You pick up tone, relationship dynamics, desires and tensions. In Kate’s, I see her longing for her husband, exasperated by her children, frustrated by circumstances, triumphant after a successful lobbying effort. Her excitement and elation at traveling in South America, when she accompanied her husband there during his naval campaigns, is palpable:
I determined to continue my route as far as the Inca’s bridge, which is about four leagues the other side of the highest pass on the Cordillera…This I accomplished and was most particularly gratified by having done so as it enables me to give you a good account of this country when I return which I am sure will also please you, altho’ you would have feared my going. I think you will be amazed by my adventures!
Letter from Katherine Cochrane to her husband Thomas Cochrane, November 10, 1820, Argentina
Much later, in a letter sent to Thomas while he was in Greece and she in France in 1828, she alludes to her husband’s apparently recurrent periods of low spirits and attempts to cheer him:
Why are we not to be happy, at least why not so much so as we have ever been? I cannot understand your state of mind or feeling, what can you dread? There is no fighting now in Greece. You surely cannot be well or such vile blue devils would not hold you so tight…Yet my dearest I would strongly advise you to look on the brighter side, and leave that sad train of thought. Try reading writing walking in fact try anything but thinking.
Letter from Katherine Cochrane to her husband Thomas Cochrane, September 9, 1828, Beaujon, France
And finally, triumph after her years-long efforts to persuade the British government to grant Thomas a pardon after he made powerful political enemies. In the midst of her exultation, she pauses to place credit where credit is due.
“Good news! Good news! You will be happy to hear that it is to be done. I have succeeded beyond my wildest hopes…The will was wanting and where there is no will, there never was a way in the world. I am thankful that I had the will and found the way. I have done more for you than if I had brought you a dower of 50,000 pounds.”
Letter from Katherine Cochrane to her husband Thomas Cochrane, February 17, 1832, Southampton, England
I could practically see Kate taking a victory lap as the words sing from the page.
There are dozens more anecdotes I could pull from her letters, more nuggets of personality to glean. But perhaps these pieces are enough to show you what I see: a woman of great feeling, with steely determination and strong passions. She is pragmatic, loyal, and loving. She is fed up. She is confident and charming. And through it all, she speaks with a voice that is her own.
And that is something I can relate to.