10 books like America's First Daughter

I love this book. Although it’s a novel, Virginia Hall was a real person. She was recruited by the Allies to be a spy.

The book is written in present tense—which I usually find distracting—but it works in this book. It really lends an air of immediacy to the story. My heart didn’t stop pounding through the entire book. Even though I knew the basics of Virginia Hall’s life, this novel really brings it to life. She was an extraordinary woman.

Everyone thinks they know Cleopatra, but this amazing novel made me feel like I was peering over Cleopatra’s shoulder while she fought civil wars against her siblings, snuck into the palace to meet Julius Caesar, and fell in love with Marc Antony. There are so many forgotten details of Cleopatra’s history that are brought to life here!

While this novel moves effortlessly between three narrators, I loved that one of them is plucked straight from the dusty pages of history. While Lucrezia Borgia typically gets plenty of press, her contemporary Giulia Farnese was the beautiful young woman who didn’t have a choice in becoming the mistress of Cardinal Borgia, who became Pope Alexander VI. Here we see her learning to wade through Italian politics at the height of Borgia treachery.

I think most history fans know about the ill-fated relationship between Napoleon and Josephine, but I loved that this novel also highlighted Josephine’s early—and mostly forgotten—years spent in Haiti as France’s ideals of equality spurred the bloody Haitian Revolution. Josephine then also has to survive the French Revolution before she catches Napoleon’s eye.

Educated is a memoir about a young girl who grows up with an extreme prepper family who does not trust government institutions, so they do not send their children to schools, use medical institutions, or participate in society in general. Tara’s older brother and father are both abusive, and eventually, Tara decides to leave her family to pursue a college education. 

I am a college professor as well as a writer, so I really enjoyed this book. It’s a book about pursuing your dreams. It’s a book about not giving up. It’s a book about leaving your family or a bad situation even though you feel guilty. These are all themes that are part of my book and that I related to well before I wrote my novel.

I also had to move away from my family to become a stronger version of myself. I also had to reinvent myself.… show more.

American Daughter caught my interest because of the title. I was writing a novel based on my father’s search for the American Dream, and we had a contentious relationship. I always felt like the American Daughter of an Argentine dad.

American Daughter, however, didn’t really have anything to do with being American aside from showing the realities or another side of the American Dream, the pain, the struggle, and the brokenness of American families.

I ended up relating to this book much more than I expected. The author’s mother was mentally unstable, selfish, and unable to actually mother. My father, and the character of my novel, was also all three of those things.

I felt a connection with the author because I understood how difficult it must have been for her to ultimately forgive her mother and see her as a damaged human being who did the best she could.… show more.

My Dear Hamilton is a compelling novel of a Revolutionary woman who falls in love with a dashing man destined for greatness and tragedy.

Richly imagined and researched, Eliza’s story gives us, on one level, an in-depth understanding of one of American history’s founders. But it is also a story about strength, resilience, and forgiveness. I loved this story for the depth of Eliza’s character and her untold contribution to history and for what I learned about the details and dynamics of the era that so inform our own time.

The American Revolution required the blood, fortune, and commitment of its supporters. Deborah Sampson was a young woman who had no fortune to give, but she had grit, determination, and the strength to fight for her country. Tired of the oppressive societal rules for women, Deborah dresses as a man and uses an assumed name to enlist in the army. Though Deborah Sampson was a real person, the author in this novel explores not just the societal motivations that drove her to assume a man’s identity, but also explores what life could be like for a woman who could cast off the strictures of her assigned gender and write her own rules.

Sometimes strength, particularly for women in history, has been quieter. The colonial early American setting of The Indigo Girl echoed part of the painting’s story from my book as well. In The Indigo Girl, Eliza is willing to speak up, to do what is right, even when it’s the furthest thing from anyone’s mind. As a huge art history fan, and as a hobbyist painter, I am always interested in learning more about where pigments and colors come from. This story told about that, but it also explored forbidden friendship and love and touched the heart, leaving a stain of remembrance, deeper than the indigo itself. 

Bound is set in the years prior to the American Revolution, and highlights the difficulties faced by girls and women indentured servants. Alice and her family set out for America from England, but when her mother and brothers die during the voyage, Alice’s father decides he cannot keep her and sells her as an indentured servant upon reaching Boston. Alice should have had a middle-class upbringing, but instead, she becomes chattel. The scenes of abuse in this book are stark, but it helps to shed light on the sufferings of the disenfranchised and the helpless. Alice’s determination will inspire.