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Creator: Catherine Anderson
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Catherine Anderson is a romance author, specializing in both the contemporary and historical categories. She's most known for the Kendrick/Coulter/Harrigan saga and the Comanche series, but has done many stand-alone stories as well. While her work is generally well-received among fans of the genre, others are quick to point out that her plotlines and characters aren't very original, Mrs. Giggles especially.
Tropes associated with this author's works include:- Abusive Parents: Poor Mandy Pajeck, Caitlin O'Shannessy, and Maggie Stanley.
- All Abusers Are Male: And how!
- Angst Coma / Heroic BSOD: Rebecca Morgan is extremely prone to this given the trauma she's been through.
- Attempted Rape: Way too much of this.
- Author Appeal: You can tell Catherine is a country girl at heart by her settings, her taste in romantic heroes and her focus on animals.
- Badass Preacher: Esa Paxton aims to become one.
- Beauty Equals Goodness
- Beauty Is Bad: If the heroine's love rival is pretty, she's inevitably a Bad Person (Liz, Belinda, Hazel).
- Blessed with Suck: Poor Loni McEwan in Morning Light. She's a clairvoyant whose powers are stronger than both her mother's and grandmother's, but all they've ever done is bring her heartache and make her feel isolated.
- Break the Cutie: A lot of her heroines, but most notably Molly Sterling, Rebecca Morgan, Maggie Stanley and Rachel Hollister.
- But We Used a Condom: At least Carly Adams thinks Hank Coulter did in Blue Skies, anyway.
- Child by Rape: Maggie Stanley's son, Jaimie in Baby Love, Annie's child in Annie's Song and Daphne O'Keefe in Lucky Penny. Eden Paxton is this for her mother Dory. Fortunately the children are loved in spite of the dark means of their conceptions.
- Cute Kitten: Several in Lucky Penny.
- Deconfirmed Bachelor: The majority of the heroes, just before the heroine crosses their path for the first time.
- Distressed Damsel: Way too many of Catherine's heroines fall under this, but Rebecca Morgan in Cherish is the quintessential example.
- Distress Ball: Poor Sam Harrigan can hold her own in a fight, but during the climax of Sun Kissed, her Jerk Ass ex-husband corners her and despite her best efforts she still ends up needing to be rescued by Tucker.
- Does Not Like Men: A lot of Catherine's heroines have major trust issues with men at first...
- Domestic Abuser: ...because of this. Poor, poor Molly Sterling, Sam Harrigan and Rainie Hall!
- Evil Redhead: Well, she's not exactly evil, but Always In My Heart's narrative makes it quite clear that Liz is not a nice person.
- Fiery Redhead: Eden Paxton and Brianna O'Keefe.
- Finger Poke of Doom: How Marvin's poking of Ellie is seen in Always In My Heart.
- Fluffy Tamer: Mandy Pajeck gets Zach Harrigan's attention right quick when she manages to handle the violent stallion Tornado, which no one, not even Zach, a professional horse trainer, has been able to do. It turns out that Tornado was abused by his former owners, and takes to Mandy because he somehow senses that she went through the same thing.
- Food Porn
- Friend to All Living Things: Laura Townsend in My Sunshine.
- Gaslighting: Rodney does this to Molly in order to make her and everyone else think she's gone crazy.
- Gold Digger: Of both genders, too!
- Good Girls Avoid Abortion: Even if it's a rape pregnancy.
- Good People Have Good Sex
- Guilty Pleasure: Sure, all her novels are ridden with Mary Sues, Gary Stus, Undyingly Unrealistic Devotion And Love Everlasting and Unrealistically Perfect Sex, but if you take them as the fantastical escapism they are, they actually are quite charming.
- Hurt/Comfort Fic: The professional published version, essentially.
- I Have You Now, My Pretty: Used in Cherish.
- The Ingenue: Rebecca Morgan is this role to a T.
- Inspirationally Disadvantaged: Laura Townsend, Bethany Coulter in Phantom Waltz. Averted with Luke Pajeck in Here to Stay until his character development.
- It's All My Fault: Every member of the Grant family feels this about the death of oldest son Sammy in Always In My Heart. Molly and Laura also frequently apologize for things that weren't their fault, and Rebecca spends a good chunk of her story weeping and wailing about how all the tragic things surrounding her are because God hates her.
- Kindhearted Simpleton: Subverted with Laura Townsend, who only appears this way because of her language difficulties, which impact her ability to do math and use complex words but otherwise have no effect on her intelligence. Isaiah points out rather sharply to his brother Tucker (also a veterinarian) that "she's probably smarter than you are!" when Tucker makes the (wrong) assumption that Laura won't understand enough about veterinary medicine to be married to a veterinarian.
- Kindly Vet: Isaiah Coulter (My Sunshine) and his twin brother Tucker (Sun Kissed).
- Let's Duet: Natalie and Zeke in Bright Eyes, since Natalie's a singer.
- Lifetime Movie of the Week: Poor Molly, really. Ditto Rainie. David also seems to treat Brianna's story like this in Lucky Penny, much to Brianna's ire.
- Living Emotional Crutch: Luke and Mandy unknowingly treat each other this way for years until Zach Harrigan knocks some sense into both of them.
- Love at First Sight: Oh God. SO many.
- Love Martyr: Molly Sterling would do anything to please her slimy former husband, until she realized how dangerous he was.
- Manipulative Bastard: Molly's ex-husband Rodney in Sweet Nothings. AND HOW!
- Marital Rape License: Brianna fears David will try to exercise this with her.
- Murderers Are Rapists: The Sebastian Gang in Early Dawn always gang rape a woman before they kill her, unless they plan to sell her.
- Nature Abhors a Virgin: Most of Catherine's virgin heroines are embarrassed about their status.
- No Accounting for Taste: How do these heroines end up married to such sleazeballs (or in the case of Seventh Heaven's Joe Lakota an abusive shrew) anyway?
- Obviously Evil: Maggie's stepfather in Baby Love, Rodney Wells in Sweet Nothings, Peter Danning in Star Bright.
- One True Love: Parker Harrigan discusses this with Rainie, telling her that as far as Harrigan men are concerned, there's one woman for them and that's it.
- Plucky Girl: It can't be said that these ladies don't at least try to keep going in spite of all the shit life's thrown at them. Especially Eden Paxton, Laura Townsend, and Samantha Harrigan.
- Precious Puppies: The baby rottweilers in My Sunshine, as well as Hapless the mutt.
- Raised by Dudes: Samantha Harrigan, due to her mother's Death by Childbirth.
- Rape as Drama: Way too much: Annie Trimble, Marilee Nelson, Moira O'Keefe, Caitlin O'Shannessy, and Maggie Stanley all suffer this fate. Eden Paxton only escapes this because the bandits want to sell her.
- Real Men Wear Pink: Tucker Coulter lives in a white cottage with a picket fence and elegant, feminine furnishings and if his brothers have a problem with it they can go fuck themselves. (Subverted in Sun Kissed when he realizes such dainty furnishings don't suit him as well as he thought, though).
- Red Herring: Jeb Pritchard and his boys in Summer Breeze.
- Rescue Romance: Anderson's bread and butter.
- Shown Their Work: Anderson goes to great lengths to get the details of things like veterinary medicine, horse training, and general horse care right.
- Slap-Slap-Kiss: Ellie and Tucker in Always In My Heart. Loni and Clint start out this way in Morning Light, and Natalie's own parents have this going on in Bright Eyes. But Brianna and David in Lucky Penny take the trophy for this one.
- Smug Snake: Rodney again.
- There Are No Therapists: Averted. Mandy Pajeck in Here to Stay starts going to therapy to help her get over her fear of marriage. It's really rather refreshing to see a romance novel admit that The Power of Love can't cure everything, and sometimes professional help is the best answer. Also averted in Always In My Heart, when the Grant family finally realize they need to deal with the loss of oldest son Sammy in a better way than they have.
- Third Act Misunderstanding: Oh boy... Averted in Star Bright and Sun Kissed, though, where the climax is something else entirely.
- Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Ellie and Tucker's oldest son Sammy is implied to have been this in Always In My Heart.
- The Vamp: Liz in Always In My Heart, Belinda in My Sunshine
- Wife-Basher Basher: Matthew Coulter. Ever since the rape and murder of his wife, he will not stand by and let anything bad happen to a woman.
- Woman Scorned: Isaiah's co-worker Belinda Baxter in My Sunshine, Hazel Wright in Lucky Penny.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Belinda attempts to have sex with an uninterested Isaiah, but when they get caught by another vet at the clinic she claims he was trying to rape her. Luckily for Isaiah it doesn't work.
- Wrong Guy First: Played for drama with 90% of Anderson's heroines.
- Your Cheating Heart: Half of Anderson's heroines inexplicably marry adulterers.
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