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During these times of breaking news in this busy world, it’s uplifting and distracting to exercise our imaginations by reading some great historical fiction.
The following books are based on actual women who faced challenges in their personal lives and along their career paths. I loved these books because, as an older woman, I identified with their struggles at different ages and stages of life.
Reading about strong women is inspiring, including those living in other countries or other centuries. It’s eye-opening to discover the limitations women were subjected to by society. I enjoyed how skillfully these authors fold true events and characters into the story. Check out these five best sellers featuring remarkable women. Pick one up and take a trip back in time.
Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kate Rooney
This is an enchanting description and a brutally honest account of her life, told by Lillian herself at age 85, spanning the 1920s to the 80s. She experienced high highs and low lows in her personal and career lives. Lillian was inspired by her Aunt Sadie, an independent businesswoman, and followed in her footsteps to become the highest-paid advertising woman in the country. Lillian was an outgoing, friendly woman who never met a stranger. She had an effective and surprising way of connecting with people from all walks of life while walking on the streets in New York City — the place she loved. The book is fiction, but is loosely based on the life of Margaret Fishback, a poet and copywriter for Macy’s department store.
The Frozen River by Ariel Lawson
This book is based on the life of an actual person, but the account has been fictionalized. It’s narrated by Martha Ballard, a midwife in Maine during the timeframe 1789-1790. This strong and assertive woman had accumulated thirty years of experience delivering babies and attending to women’s health issues. She and her husband had nine children, but three died during a pandemic. As part of her work, she kept a detailed journal, being one of the few women of that era who could read and write. Not surprisingly, she taught her daughters those skills. The story centers on a small town’s reaction to finding a body in the frozen Kennebec River and Martha’s active role in solving the mystery of who committed the murder. Themes including rape, unfairness and cruelty to women, family, responsibility, trust, love, and the laws of the land at that time make this book an engrossing read. The courtroom scenes are vivid!
By Any Other Name by Jodi Picoult
The author uses two time frames to narrate this story. Present-day Melina lives in New York City. She longs to be a playwright, but during college, she received a painful setback when a professional critic severely panned her play. Her dream remained, but she believed that women were not taken seriously as writers. She asked her roommate/friend, Andre, to submit her play for a contest under his name.
The heroine of the other voice is Emilia, whom we meet during the 1590s in England. (An interesting tie between the two is that Melina finds out through her father’s family research that Emilia is her ancestor.) Emilia is creative and loves to write poetry and plays, but women were not permitted to write — it was unheard of. However, this spunky young woman befriended men who encouraged and helped her learn more about the craft. The premise of Emilia’s story is that she wrote plays and made a deal with William Shakespeare, who was not well-known at the time, to put his name on her continuous stream of work and then split the money earned from selling it. Both Melina and Emilia are challenged by obstacles in their love lives and in their desires to pursue their calling as successful playwrights.
The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict
This book of historical fiction was written from the point of view of Belle de Costa Greener, personal librarian to JP Morgan. The story takes place from 1905 until her death in 1950. When her parents separated, Belle’s mother moved her and four siblings from Washington, DC to New York City. They were a very light-skinned African American family and her mother was convinced that passing as white was the only way to be successful. Belle lived with this secret her entire life. JP Morgan held her in high esteem. She became a savvy art collector and obtained exclusive pieces for the Morgan Library. Although she had an active social life, Belle avoided marriage because she was unsure what skin shade her children would have.
The Marriage of Opposites by Alice Hoffman
The setting of this beautifully written story of love, longing, and family began in St Thomas in 1807 and later moved to Paris. Rachel, a headstrong girl, was raised by a mother she did not feel close to and a father who taught her the skills necessary to understand and operate the family business — trade and commerce, very unusual knowledge for a woman in those days. Rachel became a widow when her much older husband died, and shocked the community when she remarried his nephew. Children are lost in different ways—death, abduction, or even given away. Art is a huge theme. The famous Camille Pissarro, a Danish-French painter, was Rachel’s favorite son, although their relationship struggled because their personalities were too similar. Love and devotion, Jewish traditions, superstition, and food descriptions create a variety of themes in this work of historical fiction based on real people and events.
Have you read any of the above? Let us know in the comments below.
