Saara El-Arifi's Cleopatra offers a picture of a feminist, cutthroat, passionate, dedicated woman who Like many of us who question historical accounts that feel whitewashed or wiped of women due to sexism

Mackenzie is a sports agent who's constantly fighting against misogyny and double standards as one of few women and refusal to bend to societal pressures--whether by behaving in a more tough manner because she's a woman in a career where fewer women exist, or by using her femininity as a tool in that career.

Everywhere (Frankie Elkin #3) by Lisa Gardner Frankie Elkin is the best at finding missing girls and women She's an unassuming middle-aged woman and a recovering alcoholic who has a compulsion: to locate missing But a strange feeling pervades everything on the island.

exposes age-old power mismatches; offers young characters agency; explores systemic violence against women It's about the infuriating, often tragic power mismatches between men and women, white and Black people Meanwhile our main protagonist is a middle-aged woman appealingly muddling along at times, doing her particularly powerful and heartbreaking in their copiousness--and in highlighting the brutality against women Lists include cases summarized in the vein of "It was the one where [insert specific circumstances of a woman's

(Side note, the imbalance of power of men and women and the females' responsibility to keep up appearances It's strange how relief and longing can live side by side in the same heart.

released after 22 months' imprisonment for the drunk-driving accident in which she killed an older woman Harriet's fraternizing with the imprisoned women--both in and out of jail--seems particularly ill-advised

But she's determined to follow her own path--and her strong-willed decisions fly in the face of rigid society's expectations concerning women, slavery, and appropriate marriage prospects.

your alley, you might also like the books on the Greedy Reading List Six Great Stories about Brave Women in A Well-Behaved Woman, both in the surroundings and the rigid views of the period about women, marriage between what feels frivolous and what is Ava's meaningful growth, including her important role in the women Meanwhile, privileged Charlotte has her own secrets, and when both women's true situations begin to be (especially black women) in that time who were without men to protect them.

Historical fiction set in the West also lends itself to stories of strong female characters in a time when the world around them didn't support women's abilities, independent thinking, or determination. Kate is a tough young woman posing as a male cowboy. Turner's story is inspired by her family's memoirs, and her Sarah Prine is a strong woman living on the Walk on Earth a Stranger tells the story of Lee, a young woman with a powerful secret: an ability to

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading a novel in two timelines about a young woman posing as a cabin abortions in pre-Gilded Age New York, Madame Restell; and I'm listening to Britney Spears's memoir, The Woman But Restell's story swirls with weighty issues still relevant today--women's rights and autonomy; the I'm listening to this as an audiobook. 03 The Woman in Me by Britney Spears In her slim memoir The Woman

In a world of the near future, a young (unnamed) woman is one of several civil servants offered a mysterious building bonds deeper than either could have imagined; the love story between the bridge and Gore is strange willing to suspend my disbelief regarding; and my mind was bent around trying to follow some of the later strings

Wonderfully Witchy Stories to Charm You , and again in my review of Natalie Haynes's A Thousand Ships , a woman-centered type immersed in her own sometimes dark writing, she is disgusted by the rest of her cohort--childish women

Forty women (one is a young girl, our main protagonist) live year after year as prisoners in an underground Male guards come and go, feeding the women minimal rations and never speaking. The women have no recollection of how they came to be in this place, and no information is forthcoming Then a blasting alarm sounds, the nearest guard drops his keys and flees, and the women scramble for The novel's tone doesn't assure a satisfying set of answers as to why the women were chosen for this

She explores the necessity of being a strong woman in a male-dominated profession. And I do love hearing the stories of women in comedy.

find support and to function more fully in the present, she decides to refuse to be shamed as the woman I could see that some people...were uncomfortable with me coming out of my lane, a place where women To them, a woman writing about a man leaving is, somehow, worse than the man leaving.

I loved that brave women that drive the novel in both timelines. Lisa Barr is also the author of Woman on Fire , The Unbreakables , and Fugitive Colors .

Alouette herself yearns for creative freedom, but as a woman with no standing, she is not allowed to and breathtaking power imbalances; dangerous mining practices; widespread captivity of inconvenient women

Bridie is a strong female protagonist, and Things In Jars offers solid historical fiction details of Veronica to benefit from the author's own modern sensibilities in A Curious Beginning, but Veronica is a strong Abigail is clever, and her strong role in her partnership with the wonderfully odd Jackaby is satisfying Ji Lin speaks her mind and ruffles feathers even as she exploits assumptions about women, sexual attraction She doesn’t fit the mold of a typical woman from 1930s Malaysia nor that of the British colonists living

with the sisters' complicated relationships and with the link Harrow draws between witching and the women's I adored how Harrow intermingled the women's suffrage movement with the reemergence of witching and women's or dialogue distracted me from what felt like the heart of the story (the Eastwoods' helping other women 02 The Winter of the Witch by Katherine Arden This is the third and final book in Katherine Arden's strong reading the Wicked Witch of the West story turned on its head as Maguire traced the origins of Elphaba, a strong-willed

invincible--who has dropped out of sight and settled down to raise her young daughter alongside her strong-willed Amina soon finds herself entangled in a dangerous ocean quest to rescue a young woman, while fighting and she believes they're linked to the curse that the community believes has its hold on the Farrow women She would love to end the curse, the fraying of the Farrow women's minds, once and for all--by never

causality; and I'm listening to a stand-alone historical fiction novel that's also a sequel, The Book Woman's Daughter by Kim Michele Richardson The Book Woman's Daughter is Kim Michele Richardson's stand-alone sequel to The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, a book I listened to as an audiobook and loved. Richardson writes about strong Kentuckians and their environment, and in The Book Woman's Daughter she Click here for my review of The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek.

find their mother, a disappeared activist who always fought against the practice of matching Ukrainian women Endling holds dark humor, sobering truths, and lots of gray area within a strange story.

Then Bridget falls for a fellow "sporting woman," and when the Buffalo Queen is threatened, she must Bridget is strong and no-nonsense yet also inexperienced and far from worldly.

Ward's novel, set in the years before the Civil War and told from the point of view of an enslaved young woman anticipated: she's separated from her mother, sold, and forced to begin walking in a trail of roped women Without her mother's protection--and tales of their warrior-woman ancestors--Annie is left with only

As always, her main characters are richly layered, struggle with terrible circumstances, retain strong Click here for my full review of Chenneville. 04 Time's Mouth by Edan Lepucki Lepucki's strange, interesting A friend's borrowed, rambling home becomes a refuge for unwed mothers and mothers-to-be, with the women on site treating Ursa as a goddess--and the children being horrifically neglected as the women enjoy Heart by Emma Donoghue Donoghue's captivating historical fiction centers around two real-life young women

I was intrigued by her one-woman trial and error method of determining her triggers, impulses, and coping Jen Hatmaker, who was married before she could legally have a drink and who built her identity as a woman as an audiobook. 06 This American Woman: A One-in-a-Billion Memoir by Zarna Garg Comedian Zarna Garg I laughed out loud repeatedly while I was reading this charming memoir by this strong, funny woman. Please click here for my full review of This American Woman.

But as the wedding week goes on, each woman is surprised by what she discovers about herself and the Blaylock celebrates tough women, stand-up men, and never-ending hard work. The mountain justice that's carried out by the women was thrillingly shocking. released after 22 months' imprisonment for the drunk-driving accident in which she killed an older woman Harriet's fraternizing with the imprisoned women--both in and out of jail--seems particularly ill-advised

Randy Savage by Jon Finkel (2024) Better Faster Farther: How Running Changed Everything We Know about Women I feel powerful, strong. Hare shares the mental fortitude, grueling physical challenges, and how she became a middle-aged woman

This historical fiction novel from Quinn is a departure from much of my favorite Quinn fiction--brave women who initiates weekly makeshift attic-apartment dinner parties and builds bonds between the disparate women But none of the women is precisely as she seems on the surface. The ladies exhibit broadening horizons, and over the course of the story, each of the women stretches

01 Sunny Side Up by Katie Sturino I loved Sunny's body positivity and her self-made-woman status. shake off the fact that nothing in the Bergdorf Goodman swimsuit section comes even close to fitting a woman Handles It and makes her dreams come true--thereby also taking care of fashion-conscious plus-sized women I loved Sunny's independence, savvy abilities, strong will, and, of course, her fashion sense.

01 Isola by Allegra Goodman Isola , based upon the story of a real-life sixteenth-century woman, shifts When she sees an ad seeking for the first women scientists to join NASA’s space shuttle program, Joan becomes obsessed with being part of the 1980s training and with becoming one of the first women in space The women's fights to fully be part of a traditionally male-dominated field and the various ways in which When a mysterious woman washes up half-dead on the remote island of Shearwater, home of the world's largest

Reading Now I'm reading recently published stories by Claire Keegan, So Late in the Day: Stories of Women 01 So Late in the Day: Stories of Women and Men by Claire Keegan In the brilliant, Irish-born Claire stories from various eras in Keegan's career are revised and expanded here: Antarctica explores a married woman's

This historical fiction novel from Quinn is a departure from much of my favorite Quinn fiction--brave women sometimes testy, often incisive, and at other times diminished--a product of the limitations of single women The Fraud . 05 Isola by Allegra Goodman Isola , based upon the story of a real-life sixteenth-century woman please see Isola . 06 Trust by Hernan Diaz This story-within-a-story-within-a-story reveals a clever woman I was intrigued by the structure and by the peeks behind the curtains of a wealthy family and one woman's

later timeline takes place in the time of World War II as Daphne, an intelligent and educated young woman protagonists are explicitly linked within the story, although the reader will know of their bond before the women Walsh is also the author of Becoming Bonnie, Side by Side, A Betting Woman, and The Call of the Wrens

hidden book, an illiterate young girl, the powerful men who aimed to manipulate her, and two brave women links to Elizabeth Barton herself, and Alison dives into trying to add to her vast knowledge of the woman

Blakemore's story about witch hunts in 1643 England and the young women who aimed to thwart them; and With plenty of youthful explorations of sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll, plus young women striving to strike Odd events are ascribed to dark forces, and dangerous rumors begin to swirl around the women on the outskirts Can the headstrong young women save their society from the arrogant men and their unchecked power? Then something really strange happens.

Vera and Edith are such a complementary WWII partnership, and I loved spending time with these strong Germany during the war; their wonderfully brave, practical, creative routes to survival as single young women Abriel introduces another enormous shift that shakes things up enormously yet again for both young women Vera and Edith are such a complementary partnership, and I loved spending time with these strong young women.

Bossy Favorites of the Month I've had a strong Bossy reading month. to find support and to function more fully in the present, she decides to refuse to be shamed as the woman The Three Lives of Cate Kay by Kate Fagan Cate Kay is a bestselling author--and a pseudonym used by a woman Stone Yard Devotional concerns a woman who leaves her Sydney life behind to live among nuns as an unbeliever and Violet Thistlewaite is determined to shed her identity as the Thornwitch, Shadowfade's right-hand woman

Reading Now Last week I gave a Spring Book Talk about recently published titles I thought that group of women fiction about a female physician and surgeon in 1849 London as she fights for respect and to advance women's Tennis brings together three women, formerly strangers to each other.

and as Veronica and Stoker follow clues they venture from a royal palace to an artists' refuge to a strange Veronica and Stoker; the allusions to each of their complicated pasts; their hilarious banter; and their strong-willed

Tough women, secrets and smarts, and sneaky spying! Kate Quinn, the queen of historical fiction about women who are spies, recently recommended these titles If you like stories about brave women during wartime, you might also like the books I listed on the recent Greedy Reading List Six Great Stories about Brave Women During World War II. I loved the strong female protagonists and seeing their fire and grit and growth.

She's asked to play the role of maid to an unassuming, wealthy young woman in a dastardly plot to take the woman's inheritance and leave her to rot in an insane asylum. Bridie is a strong female protagonist, and Things In Jars offers solid historical fiction details of Montague; an unorthodox woman with an open mind and brave disposition, Theodora; a young woman who has be cruel, ruthless, and he's Wren's sworn enemy, a deadly force who has destroyed her countrymen and women

Julia Fine's Maddalena and the Dark is a gothic story set in 1700s Venice in which two young women's Yet she desperately yearns for some measure of independence, which is not easily available to the women But a young woman in that time has little say over her destiny.

As Sam's disappearance stretches on, Ali, a gay culturally Muslim woman, is excoriated in the press for Much of the energy of the story centers around the women's reconciliation with each of their estranged

Powerful with divine blood, yet largely powerless because she is a woman, Medea is full of contradictions abound of foxes, which are believed to have the magical ability to transform into beautiful men and women Bao, a detective set on uncovering the mystery of the woman's identity and death, has long been fascinated

Tough women, secrets and smarts, and sneaky spying! If you like stories about brave women during wartime, you might also like the titles I listed on the recent Greedy Reading List Six Great Stories about Brave Women During World War II. 01 Miss Graham's makes the urgency of World War II code breaking come alive through the stories of three young women The Rose Code is a wonderfully spun historical fiction story of three very different women who answer

invincible--who has dropped out of sight and settled down to raise her young daughter alongside her strong-willed Amina soon finds herself tangled in a dangerous ocean quest to rescue a young woman, while facing complicated

The women in the story--Cal's mother Grace, his grandmother Ella, and his best friend Isla--hold the disastrous addiction, and his town's blind focus on piety and its unfailing inflexibility, we also witness strange

have felt overused from use in other stories (a tough, closed-off investigator, broken by her past; a strong

As he becomes involved with the family whose daughter and ward died, Captain Jim's endearingly strong mission as he tries to save those in need and avoid becoming emotionally entangled with a smart young woman and class, a deadly fear of scandal, and terrible mistreatment of those in lower castes, especially women