The Rec League: Brilliant Science Heroines Rule! More Please?

The Rec LeagueI received an email from Cordy, who is looking for some recommendations:

Hello there! Once upon a time, I read your review of Laura Kinsale's Midsummer Moon and I am finally getting around to actually buying and reading the book. And it turns out that I have a never-before suspected intense love for books about weird creative-genius ladies and the suave-but-befuddled dudes who can't help themselves around them.

Okay, this book veers, sometimes, toward The Twee and also the “…what is happening?” (I am developing a theory that Laura Kinsale writes the parts she is most interested in during some kind of magnificent oracular trance, and then later, at the insistence of her editors, drops in some connecting bits) but I really, really love that Ransom is so smitten by Merlin, and that Merlin is SO TOTALLY WEIRD (okay, yes, there is some “Watch me interpret a metaphor literally, again”, and some pretty unlikely not-grokking of contemporary mores that one assumes even a Merlin would have been aware of, but there's a real driven weirdness underneath it) and not really necessarily as into Ransom as Ransom is into her.

And I LOVE that she is a weird genius, and that Ransom understands that she is a genius, and that her genius must be protected (I haven't finished the book yet, but am going to go out on a limb and assume that Merlin achieves some kind of inventing triumph and that Ransom is delighted… don't tell me if I'm wrong, because the fantasy is v. enjoyable.)

“Midsummer Moon” strikes me as a book about a “Literary Husband” finding the genius with whom he'll end up playing baffled-but-loving helpmeet to for the rest of his life. And it's great.

Are there more books like this? Any romance genre is fine, I just want to read more about genius ladies (any type of science or art would work – I am less interested in Tough Businesswomen and more interested in compulsively-creative oddballs) and the men who fall head over heels for them. And the ladies don't need to be AS strange as Merlin, but I would love reading about driven women who are more interested in their own work than in anything else.

My only caveat is that I'm really only interested in stories where the female genius triumphs in some way – not in anything where she winds up happily giving up her research to get married to the dreamy viscount/billionaire. Any tips? Thank you so much! 

 

Genius, “compulsively creative” oddball heroines? Yeah, we've got a few of those! Off the top of my head: 

 

Book Girl Least Likely to Marry Carrie reviewed Girl Least Likely to Marry by Amy Andrews, and really enjoyed it, particularly because the heroine was an unabashed science geek:

The Girl Least Likely to Marry is a delightfully lighthearted, funny contemporary romance with a heroine who is a socially inept nerdy scientist.  Think ‘Sheldon’, from “The Big Bang Theory”, but not as inconsiderate or mean – just someone who learns social rules by rote memory instead of intuition.  Even though this book had some tropes I normally disliked, they were all played for such light-hearted comedy that I was completely charmed.

It's $1.99 currently at most retailers: Goodreads | Amazon | BNKobo | iBooks

 

 

 

A Study in Seduction - Nina Rowan

Another book that might appeal is A Study in Seduction by Nina Rowan.

Jane from DearAuthor liked this book more than I did, and we discussed it in a podcast at some length.

The heroine is a mathematical genius, and while I struggled with some parts of the story, enough readers other than me loved this book that I want to make sure I mention it. 

You can find a copy at Goodreads | Amazon | BN | Kobo | iBooks.

 

 

What other books would you recommend for Cordy?

Comments are Closed

  1. Jilli says:

    I swear to God, I’ll stop after this one.

    Dangerous Science: A Steampunk Romance

    by Sydney Swann from Blushing Books. The heroine is a scientist whose most recent expedition has failed and the reigning scientific body demotes her to the position of ‘Scientific Ward’ under one of her former professors, Dr. Cromwell. I wish I could say more, but I don’t want to claim the B&N blurb as my own words and I don’t want to give any of it away.

    I’ll say this though: much like the beloved Henry of the Cindy Spencer Pape novels, this book features a clockwork cat!

  2. Jacqueline says:

    Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple features a brilliant architect. Not exactly a romance but I loved it.

  3. JaniceG says:

    I join the chorus for The Countess Conspiracy and the fun Bellwether but I’m afraid I disagree about The Girl Least Likely to Marry, which I read on a recommendation from SBTB. It wasn’t awful but I disliked the “hormones trump everything” repeated trope. Yes, hormonal attraction is powerful stuff but a plot that hinges on it strongly interfering with a heroine’s lifelong dream of doing research at a top institution really annoyed me. And I strongly disagree about A Night to Surrender – a number of people had recommended A Week to be Wicked so I thought I’d start with the first book in the series and I found the setting so contrived and the hero so one-dimensional through the entire first half of the book that I couldn’t even finish it.

    If you like Regencies, Evelyn Richardson tends to write about studious, capable women, and has a two-book series about sisters raised by classical scholar parents, The Education of Lady Frances and its sequel, which is even closer to the plot about scholarly women and the men who do (or don’t) appreciate them, Miss Cresswell’s London Triumph.

  4. Meg says:

    Ditto Shelly Laurenston and Delphine Dryden!

  5. roserita says:

      Since several someones have already mentioned Shelly Laurenston, I’ll mention her alter ego, G.A Aikin, and her What a dragon should know.  I just love the brilliant, scheming, bespectacled Lady Dagmar, Chief Battle Lord of the Dark Plains, and the dragon who loves and understands her, the slightly goofy Gwenvael.
      Aaaand let’s hear it for the original lady-in-charge with the boyfriend-in-the-background—-the one and only Nancy Drew.

  6. ML says:

    A great historical with a scientific heroine, where the plot centers on her need for her work, is My Darling Caroline by Adele Ashford.

    And another huzzah for Bellwether. Willis is one of those authors who rarely errs.

    @EC: thanks for the reminder of Body Electric. Haven’t thought of that book in a while!

  7. Cordy says:

    You guys, thank you so much! I immediately read “The Countess Conspiracy”, and I loooooooved it. It was so healing and therapeutic! I burst into tears like three times, and each time the trigger involved some kind of work-related thing, not the romance. (The romance was lovely and unique – but I loved so much that the biggest emotional moments weren’t about if someone loved her, but if she loved herself, and if she was going to succeed in her work.) Really pretty incredible, the kind of romance novel I want to make non-romance readers check out. Wonderful. Thank you all!

    I’ll work on compiling the other suggestions (which all sound awesome – I can’t wait to read!) into a Goodreads list and post the link here for anyone who’s interested.

  8. FairyKat says:

    And anything by Debora Geary, her Witch Central books are based around a group of programming geniuses (who are also witches)—male and female. Lots of smart geeky women, some of whom are weird, some of whom are hard business women, some of whom are soft knitting mothers, lots of diversity (including non-magical folk) but they are all smart.

  9. Karin says:

    Wow, MacKenzie’s Mission, an oldie but goodie. I recommend “Against the Tide” by Elizabeth Camden, the heroine has mad language skills, and works as a translator.  She knows like half a dozen unusual ones like Greek, Armenian, etc. It’s classified as inspirational, which I don’t often read, but there is actually not much mention of religion, and what there was, was not heavy handed at all. I liked that she was very serious about her career.
    If you like traditional Regencies, “Lady Elizabeth’s Comet”, the heroine is an astronomer whose greatest ambition is to discover a comet.
    Also Michelle Diener’s Tudor series that starts with “In A Treacherous Court”. The heroine, Susanna Horenbout, is a talented artist who works for King Henry VIII, doing paintings and illuminated manuscripts. But the kicker is, her and the hero were real people, she really was an artist who worked in Henry VIII’s court and was married to the hero in real life. She apparently was so good that Albrecht Durer bought one of her pictures. I loved that in the book, when she was working on a piece, she was so totally absorbed and oblivious to the world around her.

  10. JaniceG says:

    Karin: Thanks for the recommendation of the Diener series. [DIGRESSION: I’m in the middle of a fantastic Tudor series myself by CJ Sansom (first book is Dissolution). Not romance but terrific lead character in a hunchbacked male lawyer who starts out as a reformer working with Cromwell and gradually becomes disillusioned about religion as the books progress. Lots of well-interated historical research.]

  11. jw says:

    If anyone is still reading this, Almost Real by Charlotte Stein is set in this semi-futuristic world (think Never Let Me Go) where they pretend to be married (!!) so that they can hide the fact that their house is basically on top of a clone factory run by the corporation they work for. The female lead is the scientist who maintains the lab and the dude is the security expert.

  12. I just want to say that Cordy’s theory about writing the interesting bits is so totally true.

  13. CORDY! You’re going to print Laura Kinsale’s response out and tape it to your fridge, right?

  14. Cordy says:

    Hah, yes!

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