The Other Catherine | Lauren Keenan

Two worlds, two women, one story... In 1793, sixteen-year-old Catherine is sentenced to transportation on the Tempest, a convict ship bound for New South Wales.

Trapped below deck with scores of women, she endures storms, brutality and loss, while dreaming of freedom on the shores of a country far from home.

Decades later in Aotearoa, Maori matriarch Keita stands amid the ruins of her whanau and the encroaching world of settlers, whalers and empire. Disturbed by loss and the long reach of colonial change, Keita beings to unravel her own story.

Spanning seas and generations, The Other Catherine is a luminous tale of survival, whakapapa and female friendship, for readers of Jenny Pattrick and Tina Makereti.

Lauren Keenan (Te Ati Awa ki Taranaki) is a writer of creative non-fiction, novels, short stories and popular psychology. Lauren was a winner at the 2017 Pikihuia Awards for Maori writers and a finalist in the 2019 awards. She was also a participant in Te Papa Tupu mentoring programme. Her short stories have appeared in Huia Short Stories collections in 2015, 2017 and 2019. In 2020 her book The 52 Week Project- How I Fixed My Life by Trying a New Thing Every Week for a Year was published, and in 2022 her children's novel Amorangi and Millie's Trip Through Time was published. It was a finalist in the 2022 NZ Book Awards for Children and Young Adults and longlisted in the ARA Historical Novel Prize. It also won the 2023 Book Lovers Award. Her debut historical fiction novel The Space Between (Penguin Random House, 2024), set against the backdrop of the New Zealand Wars, is a national bestseller. Lauren has a Master of Arts in Taranaki Maori History.