Shout out to Reader Andie who sent us this email for a Rec League right up the Bitchery’s alley! Here is Andie’s original request:
Sarah: Alyssa Cole should make you very happy! She has two novellas, Let it Shine ( A | BN | K | G | AB ), set in the 60s during the initial freedom rides and the early days of SNCC, and Let Us Dream, which is set in the 20s. Her novel, An Extraordinary Union ( A | BN | K | G | AB ), may also satisfy your request- it’s set during the Civil War, and the heroine is a free Black woman undercover as a slave in a Richmond household.I’d love to have recommendations of historical romance novels where either the hero or heroine or both are activists. As a history nerd, I love reading about reformers in the 19th century — abolitionists, suffragettes, union organizers, and other crusaders. I’d love to read more historical romance novels that deal with those who were fighting these fights and how they managed to find love while doing so.
On a related note, I’d love to read more historical romance novels where a specific point of history informs the story. I’d like novels where the history is more than window dressing.
Carrie: The Suffragette Scandal by Courtney Milan! ( A | BN | K | G | AB )
As far as history playing a major role: Mary Robinette Kowal’s Glamourist Histories ( A | BN | K | G | AB | Au | Scribd ) series in which everything happens in accordance with Regency history, but with a small fantastical element. Real life historical events play central roles in the stories, especially after the first story.
Which historical heroines would you recommend for Andie?
Social justice romance is basically my favorite thing. Here are a few I enjoyed:
Starlight, Carrie Lofty: the heroine is a union organizer in a Scottish industrial town in the 19th C (like North and South but with much more kissing)
Indigo, Beverly Jenkins: the hero and heroine are involved with the underground railroad in the US just before the Civil War
Laurel McKee’s Daughters of Erin series features heroes/heroines involved in the struggle for Irish independence in the late 18th/early 19th C
Donna Thorland’s Renegades of the Revolution has heroes/heroines involved in the American Revolution
Elizabeth Hoyt’s Thief of Shadows: the hero runs a school for orphans and is a vigilante in Georgian England
KJ Charles, A Seditious Affair: one of the heroes is writing anonymous pamphlets about political unrest; the other hero is supposed to track down the author and expose him.
There are also a lot of political themes in Cat Sebastian and Jenny Holiday’s historicals.
Courtenay Milan, and Beverly Jenkins, and Alyssa Cole are probably the best bets I can think of, and Amanda Quick is also worth checking out.
Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South comes to mind, although the heroine is not exactly an activist, she is socially aware. The tv adaptation with Richard Armitage is wonderful- perhaps better than the book.
Midnight Rose by Patricia Hagan. The main theme is struggle against anti-black racism and the slave industry. It’s set in Virginia in the 1820s, the female lead is part-black and gets involved in the Free Soilers and the Underground Railroad. As far as content warnings IIRC there is one scene where the female lead is molested as a child and one attempted rape as well as domestic abuse and off-screen implied rape of the female lead’s mother and her best friend (all these are perpetrated by her step-father who is the villain of the piece).
Vanquished by Hope Tarr has a suffragette heroine and a photographer hero. It’s sexy, the heroine is curvaceous, and Tarr does a great job of dileneating the different factions in the suffragette movement in London during the time. My favorite read by her.
You will probably have a hard time finding them, but Gillian Linscott wrote a superb mystery series in the 90s with a suffragette heroine. The history was solid, they weren’t all set in London (one was in Switzerland so heroine could go climbing in the Alps), and there was a satisfying romance plot that made me happy. First one is SISTER BENEATH THE SHEET.
I highly recommend the OUTLANDER series by Diana Gabaldon. I think those books have everything Andie likes.
Susannah Craig’s historical romances are also right up Andie’s alley: To Kiss A Thief, To Tempt An Heiress, To Seduce A Stranger
If you like mystery/murder with a side of romance, you might like the Dr. Dody McClellan series by Felicity Young. The books are set in Edwardian London. She is a trained surgeon, but the only job she can get is as a police autopsy assistant. Her sister, Florence, is an avid suffragist and the first two books (I haven’t read further yet) include quite a bit of the struggle for suffrage. Books 1 and 2 are available in both print and ebook; books 3 and continuing are only ebook. I really enjoyed the two that I read and plan to read the rest some time (massive TBR, you understand).
The Tea Rose Trilogy by Jennifer Donnelly has plenty of this. The Women’s Vote show up more in the later two books, while there’s also a plot in one book in which the main heroine is a doctor. OOP but readily available used is Celeste De Blasis’ Swan Trilogy. The activism is more apparent in the later books as well, especially with a female character in the third book as a Nellie Bly style reporter.
Much like Outlander, I would say Susanna Kearsley’s novels fit the bill for a historical event informing the story. I actually picked up the Outlander series after reading The Winter Sea and The Rose Garden by Ms Kearsley.
For an activist heroine in history, I just finished After the War is Over by Jennifer Robson. It’s set after WWI in Britain and our heroine is in social work, writes a weekly column about the injustice she encounters and brings about some social activism in the hero as well. I thoroughly enjoyed it!
It seems that in historical romances women’s activism is often of a journalistic bent. The Suffragette Scandal has been mentioned but Loretta Chase’s The Last Hellion, which follows Lord of Scoundrels in her scoundrels series, has a female lead who is described as a crusading journalist. Also The Earl by Katharine Ashe, the h is a pamphleteer who goes by the name of Lady Justice.
An older example is the novel Fettered For Life(from 1874) by Lillie Devereux Blake which is in the public domain.In addition to writing fiction Blake was an important but now largely forgotten figure in the political struggle for women’s rights in the U.S.A.
My finger is itching to one click buy these, but as I just spent $500+ on plane tickets for Christmas I have to resist. Will be saving these titles for next month, though. 🙂
Daughters of a Nation: A Black Suffragette Historical Romance Anthology; I think the title speaks for itself. Contributing writers include Alyssa Cole and Piper Huguley.
Almost any of Beverly Jenkins’s historicals would fit the bill. Even if the characters are not activists per se, their lives and their choices are informed by the politics of the day.
I second the Donna Thorland rec, for great American Revolutionary era heroines who are fighting for the cause.
Also, I have not read “The Widow’s War” but it sounds like it’s got a strong political setting, pre-Civil War Kansas, during the fight between abolitionists and pro-slavery forces.
I know that in the latest Beverly Jenkins, Breathless, the main character is involved in a local organization that is focused on getting African-American women the vote, and that also works to improve conditions for African-American women in their community. It’s not her main focus, but it’s noticeable and interesting.
Though the romance arcs aren’t the main focus, Kamila Shamsie’s A God in Every Stone has a lot of interesting exploration of the struggle for Armenian independence in the early 20th century, movements for education and political autonomy in the Indian subcontinent, and the struggle for the women’s vote in England.
George Eliot’s Middlemarch is, I think, fascinating as a historical novel written about the previous nineteenth-century generation, and I love Dorothea and her reforming ways. Also there’s Lydgate and his hospital. I love the non-activist-involving romance arcs too.
Julie Rowe’s AIDING THE ENEMY – the heroine is a Red Cross nurse the in First World War who helps Allied soldiers escape. It’s loosely based on the real-life story of Edith Cavell (although with a happy ending – Cavell was executed by a German firing squad, Julie’s heroine is NOT.)
It’s part of a three-book series “War Girls” all set in Belgium during 1914-1915.
This made me think of Betina Krahn. I read her books in the 90ies and don’t know if they hold up today. I especially recall An unlikely Angel with an idealistic reformer heroine. The hero is a cynic and at first sets out to watch her fail, and she suffers some major setbacks. But then they start working together towards a fairy tale ending. I remember loving it.
Ooh, that sounds good @Anna Richland, World War I!
I just finished The Alice Network, which involved women Resistance fighters in France. A romance plot line, although not so much a romance with a capital R. Quite excellent, though, in all respects.
Susan Wiggs had one that was part of a trilogy of women caught in the Chicago fire. One of the ladies was a suffragette, and I remember the H-h’s all marching together at the end. It may have been the women marching and the guys cheering them on. I am too comfortable in my chair after nursing a three day migraine to go through my boxes to search for a title. Sorry.
It’s an outlier for her, but the Big Misunderstanding in Georgette Heyer’s The Nonesuch involves the hero’s interest in vocational training for orphans and potential juvenile delinquents. (He tells the heroine at the end that his mother will probably bug her to start a similar program for girls.) It’s a small but crucial part of the plot.
If you like YA, a lot of Geoffrey Trease novels have some implied romance (lots of adventure) and a good deal of social activism one way and another. My favorite is Victory at Valmy but that’s not really ABOUT activism per se, more about the French Revolution in general. You might try White Nights of St Petersburg. The Arpino Assignment is about underground British operatives in Italy working with the Italian partisans, and features a romance.