Inspired by True Events: Badass Women in Historical Fiction

I know this was intended to be a reflection of our current state of democracy (and I agree, it’s sad!), but when this came across my feed the other day I had to laugh a little - because, y’all, this was me! All four years of high school history taught by football coaches. Which means (understatement alert!) there’s a lot of gaps in my history knowledge.

Sadly, the impact wasn’t just limited to knowledge gaps - it also spilled over into an interest gap. I didn’t know much about history and, therefore, I wasn’t overly interested in the subject in general. But, then - enter Philippa Gregory (IYKYK!). And, of course, Hamilton.

If you are looking to close your own personal knowledge or interest gaps - great news! There are some new historical fiction books coming out this fall - all BY badass women, FOR badass women!

1412. France is mired in a losing war against England. Its people are starving. Its king is in hiding. From this chaos emerges a teenage girl who will turn the tide of battle and lead the French to victory, becoming an unlikely hero whose name will echo across the centuries. With unforgettably vivid characters, transporting settings, and action-packed storytelling, Joan is a thrilling epic and a feminist celebration of one remarkable—and remarkably real—woman who left an indelible mark on history. You can read more and get your copy here.

Isobel Gamble is a young seamstress carrying generations of secrets when she sets sail from Scotland in the early 1800s with her husband, Edward. An apothecary who has fallen under the spell of opium, his pile of debts has forced them to flee Glasgow for a fresh start in the New World. But only days after they've arrived in Salem, Edward abruptly joins a departing ship as a medic––leaving Isobel penniless and alone in a strange country, forced to make her way by any means possible. When she meets a young Nathaniel Hawthorne, the two are instantly drawn to each other. As the weeks pass and Edward's safe return grows increasingly unlikely, Nathaniel and Isobel grow closer and closer. Meticulously researched yet evocatively imagined, Hester is a timeless tale of art, ambition, and desire that examines the roots of female creative power and the men who try to shut it down. You can read more and get your copy here.

Florence, the 1550s. Lucrezia, third daughter of the grand duke, is comfortable with her obscure place in the palazzo. But when her older sister dies on the eve of her wedding to the ruler of Ferrara, Lucrezia is thrust unwittingly into the limelight: the duke is quick to request her hand in marriage, and her father just as quick to accept on her behalf. Having barely left girlhood behind, Lucrezia must now enter an unfamiliar court whose customs are opaque and where her arrival is not universally welcomed. As Lucrezia sits in constricting finery for a painting intended to preserve her image for centuries to come, one thing becomes worryingly clear. In the court’s eyes, she has one duty: to provide the heir who will shore up the future of the dynasty. Until then, for all her rank and nobility, the new duchess’s future hangs entirely in the balance. You can read more and get your copy here.

Vanessa Riley brings readers a vivid, sweeping novel of the Haitian Revolution based on the true-life stories of two extraordinary women: the first Empress of Haiti, Marie-Claire Bonheur, and Gran Toya, a West African-born warrior who helped lead the rebellion that drove out the French and freed the enslaved people of Haiti. Both an emotionally palpable love story and a detail-rich historical novel, Sister Mother Warrior tells the often-overlooked history of the most successful Black uprising in history. You can read more and get your copy here.

And here’s another Haitian revolution read…

Sylvie de Rosiers, as the daughter of a rich planter and an enslaved woman, enjoys the comforts of a lady in 1791 Saint-Domingue society. But while she was born to privilege, she was never fully accepted by island elites. After a violent rebellion begins the Haitian Revolution, Sylvie and her brother leave their family and old lives behind to flee unwittingly into another uprising—in austere and radical Paris. Sylvie quickly becomes enamored with the aims of the Revolution, as well as with the revolutionaries themselves—most notably Maximilien Robespierre and his mistress, Cornélie Duplay. But as she works her way into the inner circle of Robespierre and his mistress, she learns that not even oceans can stop the flames of revolution. You can read more and get your copy here.

Hard-drinking, hard-living poker players and prostitutes of the new boom towns; wives and mothers traveling two and a half thousand miles across the prairies in covered-wagon convoys, some of them so poor they walked the entire route; African-American women in search of freedom from slavery; Chinese sex-workers sold openly on the docks of San Francisco; Native American women brutally displaced by the unstoppable tide of white settlers -- all were women forced to draw on huge reserves of resilience and courage in the face of tumultuous change. Drawing on letters, diaries, and other extraordinary contemporary accounts, sifting through the legends and the myths, the laws and the treaties, Katie Hickman presents us with the dramatic, untold stories of the diverse array of women who helped transform the American West. This book comes out October 25th - you can read more and order your copy here.

Captain Kidd was one of the most notorious pirates to ever prowl the seas. But few know that Kidd had an accomplice, a behind-the-scenes player who enabled his plundering and helped him outpace his enemies. That accomplice was his wife, Sarah Kidd, a well-to-do woman whose extraordinary life is a lesson in reinvention and resourcefulness. Twice widowed by twenty-one and operating within the strictures of polite society in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century New York, Sarah secretly aided and abetted her husband, fighting alongside him against his accusers. More remarkable still was that Sarah not only survived the tragedy wrought by her infamous husband’s deeds, but went on to live a successful and productive life as one of New York’s most prominent citizens. Marshaling in newly discovered primary-source documents from archives in London, New York and Boston, historian and journalist Daphne Palmer Geanacopoulos reconstructs the extraordinary life of Sarah Kidd, uncovering a rare example of the kind of life that pirate wives lived during the Golden Age of Piracy. This one is out in November - you can read more and order your copy here.

From the East End of London to the Eastern seaboard of the United States, from Spitalfields to Scottish castles, from Bletchley Park to Buchenwald, and from the Vatican to Palestine, Natalie Livingstone follows the extraordinary lives of the Rothschild women from the dawn of the nineteenth century to the early years of the twenty-first. As Jews in a Christian society and women in a deeply patriarchal family, they were outsiders. Excluded from the family bank, they forged their own distinct dynasty of daughters and nieces, mothers, and aunts. They became influential hostesses and talented diplomats, choreographing electoral campaigns, advising prime ministers, advocating for social reform, and trading on the stock exchange. Misfits and conformists, conservatives and idealists, performers, and introverts, they mixed with everyone from Queen Victoria to Chaim Weizmann, Rossini to Isaiah Berlin, and the Duke of Wellington to Alec Guinness, as well as with amphetamine-dealers, suffragists and avant-garde artists. The Women of Rothschild gives voice to the complicated, privileged, and gifted women whose vision and tenacity shaped history. This book comes out October 22 – you can read more and order your copy here.