Bossy Historical Fiction Favorites of the Summer
- The Bossy Bookworm
- 1 hour ago
- 6 min read
Bossy Historical Fiction Standouts
Summer's oppressive heat and humidity feels like the perfect inspiration to immerse myself in another place and time. These varied historical fiction reads have been some of my favorites this summer.
I omitted two other titles that likely deserve to appear here as well: I left off Calamity Club because I recently included it in my Is This the Perfect August Reading List? post, and I'm taking a while to get through Maggie Shipstead's wonderful book Land, so I can't share that review yet.
Have you read a favorite historical fiction work (or a book in another genre) this summer?
01 Walk an Unusual Path: The Foursome by Christina Baker Kline
Kline takes what might be a voyeuristic-feeling story of two North Carolina sisters (distant relations of hers) who married the world-famous conjoined twins from Siam, Chang and Eng, and builds a suitably complicated set of dynamics; a layered story of hope, emotion, and tragedy; and enough details of the time to bring it all to life.
The Foursome paints a fascinating story of of the uncommon family structure and its logistics. The couples collectively had twenty-one children, and the novel delves into supposing the how-to of procreation and sex--including the participants' imagined mental tricks to creating distance in the mind to cope with complications around physical ability, emotional reactions, and lack of privacy.
As with all relationships, things get complicated; here, the stakes are higher and the ability to create space or have one-on-one conversations is impossible. The relationships between the sisters, the brothers, and the four adults evolve and show cracks, are repaired, then threatened again.
Kline puts forward plausible doubts, magnetism, conflict, seeming impossibilities, and outsiders' desire for salacious details in this sympathetic, layered story. She is skilled at building a story within a specific place and time, and the details made this story come alive.
I received a prepublication version of this novel courtesy of NetGalley and Mariner Books.
Christina Baker Kline is also the author of Exiles, which I liked, Orphan Train (which I really liked), and A Piece of the World (which I loved).
For my full review of this book please see The Foursome.
02 Face Devastating Loss and Follow a Search for Forgiveness: A Far-Flung Life by M. L. Stedman
Stedman takes a remote Australian sheep farm and drops our main protagonists into agonizing scenarios that threaten to break their spirits and ruin them forever. This was a beautifully written tale of anguish, penance, and redemption.
A Far-Flung Life is an epic family story of generations carving out existence in remote Western Australia, ruled by secrets, hopes, and resignation.
We meet the MacBride family in the 1950s, in the midst of a long family history of sheep farming on their million-acre station Meredith Downs.
Stedman plunges the family into the depths of despair, throwing at them physical and mental damage, emotional angst, and painful shifts in family dynamics.
As things seem to settle into a new rhythm, Stedman introduces a strictly taboo scenario--a devastating mistake that was tough to read and that was so disturbing for me, it made it difficult to continue with the story afterward.
Aside from that enormous issue, the story offers so many elements I loved: the remote Australian setting, living off the land, reimagined family dynamics, characters who show depth and growth (including my favorite, Pete Peachy!), and an epic years-long tracking of the various players.
I appreciated Stedman's optimistic-feeling final scenes and ending.
Please click here for my full review of A Far-Flung Life.
03 Immerse Yourself in a Rich Culture at a Volatile Time: The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali
Kamali's powerful story of enduring friendship spans decades and is shaped by years of political turmoil in Iran. The childhood best friends at the heart of the novel grow apart, then reunite in complicated circumstances. This is wonderful.
Marjan Kamali's The Lion Women of Tehran is historical fiction that begins in 1950s Tehran, where young Ellie lives in opulence with her mother and father. But after her father's untimely death, daughter and mother quickly face the hard reality of women's inability to own property or assert rights. Ellie turns to Homa, a local girl, for companionship, and their deep, volatile friendship endures; as they grow up this friendship shapes the novel.
With enormous shifts in Iran as catalysts for changes in their own lives, the friends dramatically diverge in their life goals--marriage for one, activism for the other--and life pushes and pulls them in different directions so that they are eventually both figuratively and literally a world apart.
This was powerful, beautiful, and poignant. I loved this story.
You might also want to check out these books featuring friends like family and these historical fiction Bossy favorites.
For my full review, please check out The Lion Women of Tehran.
04 Be Inspired by a Female Doctor in a Man's World: All in Her Hands by Audrey Blake
I love reading historical fiction about female physicians before they were common. Nora Gibson is a willful, clever woman fighting against prejudice in 1849 London and aiming for better healthcare for women--until cases of cholera emerge and all rules must be reimagined. Blake includes wonderful scientific detail and details of life in that time.
I love how Blake shapes a story in which privileged education comes up against gritty, real-world life experience, and I love how she works in the gaps in knowledge as well as the leaps and bounds that were taking place in science in that era.
Blake also weaves in issues around body autonomy, pregnancy challenges, and societal and professional issues for women who might become mothers.
This is the third book in a series, but it works beautifully as a stand-alone read. I had no idea there were prior books until I finished; this is seamless and fascinating.
I listened to All in Her Hands as an audiobook courtesy of Libro.fm and Recorded Books, Inc. For my full review, please see All in Her Hands.
You might also like these novels that include female physicians.
05 Go Behind the Scenes of a Seemingly Perfect TV Family: Meet the Newmans by Jennifer Niven
This peek behind the scenes of a fictional 1960s sitcom is layered with the complex issues of the changing world at that time for women, people of color, gay people, and others. Niven doesn't make characters' paths to self-actualization too easy, but there's a sense that everything will turn out in some version of a happy ending.
Del and Dinah Newman, along with their sons Guy and Shep, have been mainstays on the TV for years. Their wholesome, bighearted, clean-cut show has long been easy viewing, with everything turning out all right each week and with the traditional Newmans happily settled by the end of each episode.
When Del suffers an accident and is unable to run the show, Dinah, Guy, and Shep have new directions in mind to close out what might be the very end of Meet the Newmans. And if Del wakes up, he's going to be as shocked as the sponsors that the rest of the Newmans are pushing the envelope at last.
I loved Niven's exploration of feminism and strong women, characters' rethinking of the dynamics of some longstanding relationships, and the behind-the-scenes peeks at a fictional television world. Dinah is the star of the novel, and I loved her zigzagging journey toward self-actualization.
I also just love Niven's writing and the tone of her novels. I feel like I'm in good hands when I read them, and I'm in for all of her books.
Jennifer Niven is also the author of All the Bright Places, a young adult novel I adored, Holding Up the Universe, Breathless, When We Were Monsters, and other books.
For my full review, please check out this link.
6 Witness a Frenzy of Renaissance-Era Religious Visions and Manipulation: The Lost Book of Elizabeth Barton by Jennifer N. Brown
Brown's dual-timeline debut novel concerns 16th-century prophecies and a modern-day murder mystery, linked through time by a historian, a hidden book, an illiterate young girl, the powerful men who aimed to manipulate her, and two brave women who tried to save her life.
Historian Alison Sage recently made the discovery of a lifetime--she unearthed the fabled writings detailing the prophecies of a 16th-century nun, Elizabeth Barton, a slim book which had been thought to be lost forever.
The discovery of the book leads to Alison's first ever invitation to the exclusive Codex Consortium, where select historians gather to discuss discoveries and ideas. But when a murder takes place on the grounds, everyone is a suspect. Clues to the murder--and, possibly, to vast riches from Barton's era--may lie in the story of Elizabeth Barton herself.
Brown toggles back and forth in time, so that we see Alison's experiences in present day as well as Barton's rise to fame centuries earlier.
An illiterate serving girl, Elizabeth initially has a true vision: she accurately predicts the death of a child in the household where she works. When powerful, religious and political figures get hold of Barton, they encourage her to speak about and "prophecy" in ways that benefit their causes, which the eager to please girl willingly does.
We spend far more page time with Alison, her professional passion, and her interpersonal struggles. Brown lays out clues (I wouldn't have minded more twists or elements to wonder about) for Alison (and the reader) to follow to a fairly neat and tidy conclusion, albeit with significant casualties.
For my full review, please click this link.
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