This month is Women’s History Month and at BookTrib, we are celebrating women’s historical fiction titles set in the eighteenth or nineteenth century.
Portrait of an Unseen Woman: A Novel of Annie Shaw by Roberta Harold
In 1892 Paris, Annie Shaw longs to escape the confining American Colony where she’s lived for twenty years as a quiet Civil War widow. As an aspiring artist, she immerses herself in the Belle Epoque’s vibrant life of art, literature and music. But when her domineering mother-in-law announces plans to move in next door and make Annie her permanent caregiver, Annie feels entrapped and must choose between being responsible for others — her expected societal role — or living her life on her own terms.
A reimagining of a life of which there was little historical record, Portrait of an Unseen Woman: A Novel of Annie Shaw is a bold historical novel that confronts the constricting Victorian norms of the late nineteenth century.
Saving Vincent: A Novel of Jo Van Gogh by Joan Fernandez
In 1891, timid Jo van Gogh Bonger lives safely in the background of her art dealer husband Theo’s passionate work to sell unknown artists, especially his ill-fated dead brother, Vincent. When Theo dies unexpectedly, Jo’s brief happiness is shattered. Her inheritance — hundreds of unsold paintings by Vincent — are worthless. Pressured to move to her parents’ home, Jo defies tradition, instead choosing to open a boarding house, raise her infant son alone and promote Vincent’s art herself. But her ingenuity and persistence draw the powerful opposition of a Parisian art dealer who vows to stop her once and for all and so sink Vincent into obscurity. Saving Vincentreveals there was more than one genius in the family.
Solitary Walker: A Novel of Mary Wollstonecraft by N.J. Mastro
England, 1787. Mary Wollstonecraft is an avowed spinster. At 28, she moves to London to live independently as a writer. With her publication of A Vindication for the Rights of Woman a few short years later, she emerges as a leading figure for women’s equality. But when a humiliating faux pas threatens her reputation, Mary travels to Paris to write about the French Revolution, where she unexpectedly falls in love with American adventurer Gilbert Imlay. Their ill-timed affair occurs just as the Reign of Terror begins, forcing Mary to decide whether to leave Paris — and Imlay. Her writing has branded her a counter-revolutionary. If she stays in France, she is sure to face a trip to the guillotine. The choice Mary makes alters her life forever.
Readers of biographical fiction will embrace this carefully researched novel about the woman historians widely consider the world’s first feminist. Told against the backdrop of Wollstonecraft’s incredible rise as a writer, the French Revolution, and a solo journey along the remote shores of Scandinavia, Solitary Walker is the timeless story of women forging their own path.
Seeds of the Pomegranate by Suzanne Uttaro Samuels
In early 20th-century Sicily, Mimi Inglese, a talented painter, aspires to defy societal norms by attending the Palermo Art Academy. But when she contracts tuberculosis, her dreams come to an end. She and her family move to New York City, where she is sucked into the underbelly of city life and becomes involved in her father’s money laundering scheme.
When her father goes to prison, Mimi begins counterfeiting $5 bills to save her family from starvation and maybe save enough to make art again. But tragedy strikes when her sister dies. Overwhelmed by guilt and grief, Mimi finally abandons her artistic ambitions to care for her sister’s child, Sebu. Escalating Gangland violence pervades their lives until a devastating tenement fire forces her to a crossroads. Does she have the courage to flee westward with Sebu and finally carve out a life of her own making? A gritty story of a woman learning to survive in a man’s brutal world.
Song of the Wooden Sparrow by Isabel Tutaine
1894 – Devastated by the deaths of her husband and son during an epidemic in Ghana, Dr Leah Maays returns home to Edith’s Bay, Maine. Hoping to continue her medical career, she discovers the community is hostile to female doctors.
Enter Duncan Shay. After years of being ostracized for murdering a man while robbing a bank, he’s developed a persona that can freeze a glass of water.
Unaware Duncan is shunned, Leah tends to a gouge on his hand as if he’s just another regular fellow, making Duncan realize the walls he’s built to keep others out are too weak to contain his yearnings to belong. Though drawn to him, Leah resists Duncan’s friendship because she can’t establish a practice if she too is ostracized. To have Leah in his life Duncan must convince everyone, including himself, that he’s more than the worst thing he’s ever done in his life.
Daughters of Green Mountain Gap by Teri M Brown
WINNER of the 2024 Shelf Unbound Best Indie Book
An Appalachian granny woman. A daughter on a crusade. A granddaughter caught between the two.
Maggie McCoury, a generational healer woman, relies on family traditions, folklore, and beliefs gleaned from a local Cherokee tribe. Her daughter, Carrie Ann, believes her university training holds the answers. As they clash over the use of roots, herbs and a dash of mountain magic versus the medicine available in the town’s apothecary, Josie Mae doesn’t know whom to follow. But what happens when neither family traditions nor science can save the ones you love most?
Daughters of Green Mountain Gap weaves a compelling tale of Maggie, Carrie Ann and Josie Mae, three generations of remarkable North Carolina women living at the turn of the twentieth century, shedding light on racism, fear of change, loss of traditions and the intricate dynamics within a family.
Her Own Revolution by Debra Borchert
By swearing loyalty to the revolution, Geneviève Fouquier-Tinville convinces her father, the Public Prosecutor who condemns thousands to the guillotine, to hire her as a court clerk. But Geneviève harbors a secret: she intends to earn passage to America, to join her forbidden lover, Henri. Tasked with copying lists of names scheduled for execution, she reads Louis LaGarde, a fallen noble she despises. Believing him innocent, she dares to alter the list, saving his life. This dangerous act of defiance reveals a chilling reality: hundreds more will perish at her father’s hand unless she forges a treacherous path.
Hunted by relentless Revolutionaries, Geneviève is forced to accept LaGarde’s help. As the city descends into a vortex of suspicion and terror, her heart wages a war between loyalty and a forbidden desire that threatens to consume her. Geneviève must fight for her life and the lives of those she’s come to love while confronting the dangerous truth of her heart.
Her Own Revolution tells the story of a feisty heroine fighting for her rights during the French Revolution. She dresses as a man but must learn to trust her heart to save herself and the people she loves.
Champagne Widows: First Woman of Champagne, Veuve Clicquot by Rebecca Rosenberg
The First Champagne Queen’s Daring Legacy of Love, Loss and Courage — The captivating story of Veuve Clicquot, a woman who dared to rise above treacherous times, personal loss and an emperor, leaving an indelible mark on the world of champagne.
Best Champagne Book of All Times, Book Authority. Editor’s Choice Historical Novel Society.
Reims, France, 1800s. Young widow Barbe-Nicole Clicquot possesses an extraordinary gift: Le Nez, an exquisite sense of smell required to craft the world’s finest champagne. Despite crippling grief and laws against women owning businesses, she negotiates a way to take over her late husband’s struggling winery. Napoleon’s Code shackles her with business restrictions, his wars strangle the economy and competitors block her every step. Yet, Barbe-Nicole rises like a defiant bubble, confronting prejudice and even clashing with the emperor himself.
Then, amidst the chaos, love throws a tempting yet perilous curveball: a passionate connection with her sales manager. But marrying him means forfeiting the winery, forcing her to choose between love and her life’s calling. Will Barbe-Nicole defy the odds and become the first female champagne mogul, or will her dream be crushed by Napoleon himself?
English (US) · 