The war and all its deprivations seem relentless, but for Cristabel, there is a strange and guilty thrill later timeline takes place in the time of World War II as Daphne, an intelligent and educated young woman Unsinkable. 05 Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino In Beautyland, Bertino offers a poignant, funny, strange Gwendoline has strong opinions and is feeling constricted in her prescribed royal role even without the

character-driven mystery offers an imperfect, unassuming heroine obsessed with solving the cold cases of missing women She's an unassuming middle-aged woman and a recovering alcoholic who has a compulsion: to locate missing women and girls the authorities haven't been able to find. Frankie travels the country tracking lost women, moving into communities with little more than a change She cares about the women she's seeking, and she's not afraid to ask uncomfortable questions.

I'm Reading Now I'm reading Kate Quinn and Jamie Chang's historical fiction novel about two disparate women 01 The Phoenix Crown by Kate Quinn and Janie Chang In 1906 San Francisco, two very different women seek Thornton draws both of the women into his world by offering to be their patron.

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.

The first in the series sets up a strong young Black heroine who bucks tradition as she explores her wholly independent network of magic, inheritance, bucking expectations, and pending danger for her strong

So many elements of this premise are favorites for me--a strong young female main protagonist, ship life

Our Woman in Moscow, Beatriz Williams's historical fiction mystery, based on real-life double agents favorite read of the month); How High We Go in the Dark, Sequoia Nagamatsu's fascinating, disturbing, strange 01 Our Woman in Moscow by Beatriz Williams This was my favorite read of the month! In Beatriz Williams's historical fiction, Our Woman in Moscow, it's 1948, and Iris Digby, her American , she uses a fascinating story structure to explore different potential paths for interlinked young women

The friends-like-family element and deep loyalty is strong among the members of Jack's group, and the

Yet she is strong enough to cut to the heart of tough situations and to sit within the pain of them-- a bookstore when it was first published in 1998, forgetting the title, remembering that it was two women's

and The Painter. 03 A Conspiracy in Belgravia (Lady Sherlock #2) by Sherry Thomas A Study in Scarlet Women irresistible heroine, but a fascinating examination of gender in Victorian society--and what happens when women returns in all of her feisty, unconventional, clever glory, despite the significant constraints on women

And their mother Christine is strong-willed and a force within the family, yet she has barely extricated

01 When the World Fell Silent by Donna Jones Alward It's 1917 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and two women

Sittenfeld's wonderful second short-story collection, we meet imperfect characters, often fortysomething women Throughout the book, characters, often middle-aged women, consider art, expression, love, respect, friendship violence is so out of character for Luke, the hostages are never identified, and Luke was behaving strangely Are the strange coordinates she's receiving on her phone after seven years a message from Luke?

He is in love with and married to a wonderfully strong woman, Irene, "Attolia"--and she is the real power

and the rigid views of the period about women, marriage, sex, politics, public and private behavior—and 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 detail the hardscrabble life of a newly freed black person—and the often desperate circumstances of women (especially black women) without men to protect them at the time.

science fiction Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow; and Kelly Barnhill's speculative fiction, When Women book, to be published tomorrow, courtesy of Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group and NetGalley. 03 When Women but is being denied by the government and historians alike: a Mass Dragoning, in which thousands of women This is a gloriously feminist tale in which women force the world to consider rethinking their roles and worth by taking control and power and by making faulted men and meek women fear their wrath.

The women realize they may know too much about where the bodies are buried--literally--to be allowed as a team once more, they realize they've been set up--someone has convinced the higher-ups that the women It's kill or be killed, and the seasoned women have to use their years of niche expertise, optimistic I loved the women's complicated bonds, their crafty planning, their fights for justice, and their ability While this book is a standout for me, you might also enjoy a different book about aging women taking

The author has created two independent, defiant, appealingly strong young women split by time (and, secondarily , complex male characters the women love as family or romantic partners). Equation. 05 Normal People by Sally Rooney In Rooney's novel Normal People, Marianne, a solitary young woman

hand, and dabbling in the Sami traditions of runes, poppets, or the playing of drums—or simply being a strong-willed woman helping to feed a village by manning fishing boats when the men are all lost—is enough to lead said to be humorous, and it includes Vikings, seafaring adventure, “nefarious company,” a town run by women The main protagonist Kristin is a headstrong woman, and she escapes a convent for love. Check.

a few elements of the mystery didn't diminish my enjoyment of the fast-paced tale in which a young woman Married Landon was having a passionate affair with a beautiful, spunky local young woman, Lo Bailey, predicted a few elements of the big reveal, I was intrigued by how Lo turned the demonization of the Oth er Woman

opportunity and second chances, Meet Me at the Lake; I'm reading a book club pick about three young Muslim women They're good young Muslim women...and they also know how to skirt the rules, cover for each other, and As the women prepare to graduate from college, one night of confessions could change their relationships

Hartnett evokes a sense of place so strong, the town felt like a character itself. Unlikely Animals is sweet and wonderfully strange, and Hartnett employs a light touch and thoughtful

Namesake is the second and, sadly, final book in Young's duology about the wonderfully strong, ruthless , clever young seafaring woman, Fable.

This is epic but never melodramatic, and I was hooked on the Viking-esque elements, the badass women

a character-driven story of the shocking, widespread, deadly West Virginia Mine Wars and thousands-strong What brings the book to life are versions of the real-life figures of Mother Jones (the elderly woman once called The Most Dangerous Woman in America) and the sharpshooter Sid Hatfield; and characters like

In Young's story, loosely set in the world of her Fable series, strong young Bryn fights for her own I was thrilled to find that Young's wonderful, signature strong-young-female protagonist-in-a-man's-world

Gwendoline has strong opinions and is feeling constricted in her prescribed royal role even without the

series by Rachel Hartman; and I'm listening to Harrow the Ninth, the second in Tamsyn Muir's very dark, strange It's the perfect reentry to the wonderfully cheeky, strong, faulted character of Tess as she tries yet

twisty mystery is set against the backdrop of an unforgiving winter on an Australian island, with two women Only when the two women's worlds intersect can they piece together the full stories of their husbands

She wonders now whether she might have caused other women in the midst of their own crises to feel that

I love a spy book, a book about Russia, and a feisty, strong young female protagonist, and The Traitor

look at the music business, musical creativity and songwriting processes, and body-image pressures on women

I adored how Harrow intermingled the women's suffrage movement with the reemergence of witching and women's situations or dialogue distracted me from what felt like the heart of the story (the Eastwoods' helping 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

01 Hour of the Witch by Chris Bohjalian Bohjalian's newest book takes place in 1662 Boston, where strong-willed women like young Mary Deerfield are suspicious and frequently considered dangerous.

For my full review of this book, please see Nothing to See Here. 05 A Woman Is No Man In A Woman Is No are bright points: rare friendships emerge, sisters build intense loyalty to each other, girls and women throughout the book--the food, spices, and meals that are a framework for much of the structure of the women A Woman Is No Man explores the incredible drive and bravery required by Rum's female characters to write She goes to sleep one night feeling satisfied, but she wakes up in another life: in a strange apartment

The boy-band mania is fun, and Straub doesn't look down on the fandom; she made me admire the women's

Stone Yard Devotional concerns a woman who leaves her Sydney life behind to live among nuns as an unbeliever protagonist (who is not named) in Charlotte Wood's literary fiction Stone Yard Devotional  is a middle-aged woman A larger, more powerful unresolved situation revolves around a woman who has risen high in the ranks

The author has created two independent, defiant, appealingly strong young women split by time (and, secondarily , complex male characters the women love as family or romantic partners). Equation. 05 Normal People by Sally Rooney In Rooney's novel Normal People, Marianne, a solitary young woman

bright points: some rare friendships emerge, sisters build intense loyalty to each other, girls and women find joy in secret reading and in books, women find strength and demand truth rather than secrecy, and thread throughout the book of the food, spices, and meals that create much of the structure of the women --but also many other real-life women in comparable situations--to write a new history, one in which For my full review of this book, please see A Woman Is No Man.

When a local young woman goes missing, Chloe fights her rising panic. Is there another killer who preys on young women, one paying homage to the twentieth anniversary of her

Through Bell's voice we also learn what has shaped the other women of the family: we hear rich stories the difficult relationship between Bobby and her daughter (Kalb's mother) and how it affected each woman's

Michaelides has woven Greek mythology, references to ancient ceremony, and superstition into this dark In the first story of the collection the Sarahs are college women, and Cohen takes tongue-in-cheek potshots In other stories, Cohen recasts Sarahs and explores various roles for women, different searches for self A Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan and a Bible-era trans woman are two of So far this is a weird and edgy

frequently unorthodox searches for self and meaning--while coping with versions of the universal challenges women collection of stories felt rooted where universal experience intersects with the uniqueness of Any Woman

Gwendoline has strong opinions and is feeling constricted in her prescribed royal role even without the I loved the strong female protagonists and their fire and grit and growth.

When her mother disappears, Josie begins to track down the other Girls, and together the young women discover strange, unique powers as they rely on each other and attempt to unravel their shared history abilities repeatedly shield them from the most grave danger--and unlock remarkable freedom for each of the women

eccentric family and a broad surrounding cast of characters--and it's all centered around independent women with unconventional women's roles in society in nineteenth century New York City. The Gilded Hour explores how these women's abilities and constraints intersect with women's rights of

Although the three interconnected women faced sometimes staggeringly tragic challenges, Spera injects during the first chapter that Gertrude was going to feel like a caricature of a backwoods Southern woman And although the three interconnected women faced sometimes staggeringly tragic challenges, Spera injects

eager to find out if, as I hope, she's offering a straight-talking, funny, compassionate missive to women

then I began listening to the book's relentless, churning roller coaster of hopes, dashed dreams, and strong

Hamptons village to be a nanny, but the community has recently been rocked by the disappearance of a young woman Strangely, Anna looks a lot like Zoe, so she's faced with the village's pain and suspicion everywhere youngadult, #mystery, #siblings 03 A Good Girl's Guide to Murder ​ It's been years since a local young woman #youngadult, #mystery 04 Mad, Bad, & Dangerous to Know Samira Ahmed offers two story lines of young women Two hundred years in the past, Leila is a young Muslim woman struggling to survive.