The best books about fabulous femmes in fantastical settings

Diana Bishop is a professor of history at Yale University pursuing her doctorate at Oxford. She’s also a witch who has never cared to develop her powers. Enter the world of vampires, daemons, English manor homes, French castles, the Bodleian Library, old farmhouses in Massachusetts, alchemy, the history of science—even an enchanted manuscript.

I love this story because it’s an example of how smart, hard-working women can find love in the most unexpected of places. Harkness has created a fantastical world complete with engaging characters you’d like to befriend, characters I was sorry to leave after turning the last page. Diana is fabulous because she is brave and defiant in the face of her enemies and determined to see her quest for the manuscript to its end.

Safa Patel is a police officer who anchors an elite team assembled to save the world. She is fabulous because she can strategize a scenario, field strip and reassemble a gun in no time, and take on a group of commandoes. I would want her in a foxhole with me! Fantastical elements include time travel, prehistoric beasts, international intrigue, and the merits of leather boots.

I love this book because it values heroes who come in different shapes and sizes with different skills. Haywood has crafted a wildly creative adventure rich with friendship and humor. One character taught me how to do a quick head-to-toe body check to be sure all the parts are there and working after being unconscious.

Celia Bowen is an artist whose medium is magic. She is an unwitting competitor in a contest where only one will survive. Her canvas is a circus that appears without fanfare. Its black and white tents conceal a fantastical world filled with sugar flowers, cuckoo clocks, chocolate mice, cloud mazes, and wishing trees. Its spectacles delight crowds and are performed only at night. Regular attendees are identifiable by their black attire punctuated with a single red accessory.

I love this book because it transports you to a place of wonder amidst the strain of an impossible situation. Morgenstern has created a whimsical experience tinged with darkness. Celia is fabulous because of her capacity to imagine and love. I’ll never look at someone wearing a black coat and red scarf the same way again.

Claire Randall is a WWII British field nurse, which served her well in 1945 but leaves her open to charges of spying and witchcraft when she falls through a standing stone circle in the Scottish Highlands and lands at the same location in 1743. The fantastical aspects of time travel open the world of 18th-century Scotland, with its clans, tartans, and longstanding political tensions with England.

I love this book because it crosses genres and contains an indefatigable heroine to root for, a love story with a dreamy Scotsman, action, and high-stakes adventure. Gabaldon’s writing is a sensory experience that continues to draw you into the story. Claire is fabulous because she’s smart and resourceful, although at times her modern sensibilities land her in hot water.

Ester Velasquez and Helen Watt are two women separated by 300 years and connected by a cache of hidden documents. Seventeenth-century Ester, scribe to a blind rabbi, embraces new ideas she encounters in the rabbi’s correspondence. She yearns for the freedom to debate philosophy with other learned minds rather than lose herself to husband and home. Helen is a contemporary British professor eager to unlock the mysterious scribe. Enter the fantastical world of quill and ink, Portuguese-Jewish refugees from the Inquisition, Restoration London, Black Death, intellectual controversies, and forbidden thought.

I love this book because of Kadish’s atmospheric writing that steeps you in a faraway time where you can appreciate the luster of hand-carved cherubs and determination of two fabulous women who navigate life’s journeys with grace, determination, and regret.