Here are 100 books that The Indigo Girl fans have personally recommended if you like
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I’ve been fascinated by Marie Antoinette since I watched Sofia Coppola’s film about her as a teenager. Pair that with a Les Miserables musical obsession and a Francophile dad that loved history, and I became fascinated with the French Revolution. My interest was re-ignited years later after I visited Versailles and wandered the foggy gardens where I must have gotten haunted by a French ghost because the idea for Cake Eater struck me after I returned home. I was in a bit of a writing slump at the time, but the idea took hold of me and wouldn’t let go. I drafted Cake Eater for Nanowrimo and it became my debut novel.
This totally unique retelling blends Greek mythology with World War I and II history in a beautiful way that stuck with me long after I finished the last page.
There are tons of Greek retellings to choose from, but the added element of the World Wars storyline makes this one stick out from the crowd. Aphrodite strikes a deal on trial and must tell the story of two war-torn couples. The story has a big sweeping feel, full of tragedy and romance.
Lovely War brings to mind Greek epics in its scope and feeling, but the setting gives it a fresh feel. I’ve never read anything quite like it.
A sweeping, multi-layered romance set in the perilous days of World Wars I and II, where gods hold the fates--and the hearts--of four mortals in their hands.
They are Hazel, James, Aubrey, and Colette. A classical pianist from London, a British would-be architect turned soldier, a Harlem-born ragtime genius in the U.S. Army, and a Belgian orphan with a gorgeous voice and a devastating past. Their story, as told by the goddess Aphrodite, who must spin the tale or face judgment on Mount Olympus, is filled with hope and heartbreak, prejudice and passion, and reveals…
Women’s fiction is about relationships and issues that women deal with daily. I wish I could write thrillers or fantasy—those are so much fun to read, but I’m most fascinated by people and the life-changing choices they make. Being the daughter of immigrants has made me obsessed with two things, one is identity and the second is success. My books touch on the discovery of self and how that leads to success. And if we're honest, our relationships with our parents have a massive effect on who we become and our beliefs. I’ve explored parent/child relationships in all my novels, but most intimately in Let Us Begin which is based on my father’s life.
This is a fascinating historical novel about Thomas Jefferson’s oldest daughter, Patsy Jefferson. Aside from learning much more about history than I ever did in high school or college, I enjoyed reading about the relationship that she had with her father.
It’s difficult, I think, to have a relationship with a man like Jefferson who was devoted to his ideals and dreams first and to his family second. He had goals that were so immense that there was no competing with them. And yet, Patsy is completely devoted to her father and his goals. It’s a story about loving an imperfect man and making sacrifices.
It gave me a different perspective on a historical figure, but it also made me think about my own relationship with my father because I could relate to coming second or third in the life of a father you love. I know what it’s like…
In a compelling, richly researched novel that draws from thousands of letters and original sources, bestselling authors Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie tell the fascinating, untold story of Thomas Jefferson's eldest daughter, Martha "Patsy" Jefferson Randolph--a woman who kept the secrets of our most enigmatic founding father and shaped an American legacy.
From her earliest days, Patsy Jefferson knows that though her father loves his family dearly, his devotion to his country runs deeper still. As Thomas Jefferson's oldest daughter, she becomes his helpmate, protector, and constant companion in the wake of…
T.K. Thorne became a police officer during the first decade of women policing in Birmingham, Alabama, retiring as a captain. Her background as a woman in a macho man’s world helped inform the writing of award-winning historical novels about completely unknown women in two of the world’s oldest and most famous stories—the tale of Noah’s flood and the burning of Sodom (Noah’s Wife and Angels at the Gate). An experienced speaker, T.K. shares the fascinating background research into the culture of those early civilizations, as well as the scientific discoveries behind the flood in the Mideast and first-hand information gained from her personal trips to the area.
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.
From the New York Times bestselling authors of America's First Daughter comes the epic story of Eliza Schuyler Hamilton-a revolutionary woman who, like her new nation, struggled to define herself in the wake of war, betrayal, and tragedy. Haunting, moving, and beautifully written, Dray and Kamoie used thousands of letters and original sources to tell Eliza's story as it's never been told before-not just as the wronged wife at the center of a political sex scandal-but also as a founding mother who shaped an American legacy in her own right.
I’m a professional historian and life-long lover of early American history. My fascination with the American Revolution began during the bicentennial in 1976, when my family traveled across the country for celebrations in Williamsburg and Philadelphia. That history, though, seemed disconnected to the place I grew up—Arkansas—so when I went to graduate school in history, I researched in French and Spanish archives to learn about their eighteenth-century interactions with Arkansas’s Native nations, the Osages and Quapaws. Now I teach early American history and Native American history at UNC-Chapel Hill and have written several books on how Native American, European, and African people interacted across North America.
Alex Myers’s Revolutionary is a novel that conveys the feel of being a soldier in the Continental Army: its hope, its horror, its boredom.
I like to assign novels in my classes, and this is the one I use in my class on the American Revolution. Its central character is Deborah Sampson, a Massachusetts indentured servant who decided to disguise herself as a man and enlist in the Continental Army. The young soldier trained, marched, fought, and made friends, all while pretending to be (and sort of becoming) “Robert Shurtliff.”
As a historian, I’m a fairly harsh judge of historical fiction that misrepresents the past, so I particularly love to find a book like Revolutionary, which is deeply researched and written in a straight-forward prose that fits the eighteenth century.
“A remarkable novel” (The New York Times) about America’s first female soldier, Deborah Sampson Gannett, who ran away from home in 1782, successfully disguised herself as a man, and fought valiantly in the Revolutionary War.
At a time when rigid societal norms seemed absolute, Deborah Sampson risked everything in search of something better. Revolutionary, Alex Myers’s richly imagined and carefully researched debut novel, tells the story of a fierce-tempered young woman turned celebrated solider and the remarkable courage, hope, fear, and heartbreak that shaped her odyssey during the birth of a nation.
I’ve always been fascinated by American history and have clear memories of celebrating America’s bicentennial as a child. I have twenty-two Revolutionary Patriots in my family history, and I am most proud of my 6x-great grandmother, Anna Asbury Stone, for her bravery and daring during the winter of 1778. I did extensive genealogical research to learn about her, her family, and her circumstances before writing Answering Liberty’s Call: Anna Stone’s Daring Ride to Valley Forge.
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.
An indentured servant finds herself bound by law, society, and her own heart in this novel set in colonial Cape Cod from the author of acclaimed The Widow’s War.
Indentured servant Alice Cole barely remembers when she was not “bound”, first to the Morton family, then to their daughter Nabby—her companion since childhood—when she wed. But Nabby’s new marriage is not happy, and when Alice finds herself torn between her new master and her old friend, she runs away to Boston. There she meets a sympathetic widow named Lyddie Berry and her lawyer companion, Eben Freeman. Impulsively stowing away on…
When I was not yet a teen, a neighbor had what I considered to be a valuable treasure—all of the Nancy Drew Mystery series. Her daughter had died of leukemia, and she had held onto them as a reminder of her precious child. To my surprise, she entrusted them to me to read. That was the beginning of my passion for mysteries. As I got older, I couldn’t get enough of Agatha Christie and P. D. James. I visit them often, like old friends, but I am also eager to make new literary acquaintances. My list has only five, but it could have included thousands. Enjoy this diverse sampling.
I love all of Jacqueline Winspear’s books about Maisie Dobbs and am sorry to see that the author is retiring this character. I liked Maisie from the first, maybe because the 1920s are an era of fascination for me.
Not only was the mystery a good read, but it led me to do further research on the after-effects of World War I and the toll it took on the young soldiers, most of them barely out of their teens. Winspear is a great storyteller with a compelling heroine.
A favorite mystery series of Hillary Clinton (as mentioned in What Happened, The New York Times Book Review, and New York Magazine) A New York Times Notable Book of the Year Agatha Award Winner for Best First Novel Macavity Award Winner for Best First Novel Alex Award Winner
Fiercely independent Maisie Dobbs has recently set herself up as a private detective. Such a move may not seem especially startling. But this is 1929, and Maisie is exceptional in many ways.
Having started as a maid to the London aristocracy, studied her way to Cambridge and served as a nurse in…
I grew up in a confusing, chaotic household, and magic was always an escape for me. Books were my place to dream about other worlds and bigger choices. Stories of forgotten, invisible, or odd people who found their way to each other, found courage and talents they didn’t know they had, and then banded together to fight some larger foe even though they were scared. Was it possible that dragons and witches and gnomes were real and very clever at hiding in plain sight? What if I had hidden talents and courage and could draw on them with others just like me?
I love stories that weave magic into the plot in real settings that make it seem obvious that, of course, there’s magic in that place. Throw in an origin story about a family lineage of witches who are all strong women who will need to figure out how to be there for each other. That’s my jam—the idea of community and vulnerability mixed with a fast-moving plot and a little romance.
The extraordinary novel tracing a centuries-old curse back to its beginning from the author of PRACTICAL MAGIC and THE DOVEKEEPERS
We first met the Owens in the glorious novel Practical Magic. We discovered the tragedy of the Owens siblings in Rules of Magic. Now we learn how it all began... with a baby abandoned in a snowy English field in the 1600s. Under the care of gentle Hannah Owens, little Maria learns about the 'Unnamed Arts'. Maria has a gift for them - a gift that may well prove her undoing.
That moment when you realize, whew, you’ve survived the catastrophe, but the greater challenge lies ahead? That intrigues me. Maybe that’s because my grandmother was struck by a Vespa in Italy when I was five years old, and we traveled home by ship through a hurricane that rocked much of the East Coast. Stories about “What’s next?” and “How do we push the rubble away?” are my go-to now, as they were during the years I worked as a journalist, first as a reporter, then for much longer as an editor. After my husband’s death in 2011, clearing the rubble yielded the first two installments of my vampire trilogy.
Its setting in suburban Philadelphia (near my old house) drew me to this book. But I loved it for the way Patchett unwinds the event that upends everything two siblings understand about and expect from their lives.
I’ve experienced how a single accident or illness can change the course of the future. What I recognized and connected with was this book’s portrayal of what I call the Grief Cha-Cha, two steps forward, three steps backward, and how sometimes what you grieve isn’t so much the person you’ve lost as the person that loss makes you.
Lose yourself in the story of a lifetime - the unforgettable Sunday Times bestseller
'Patchett leads us to a truth that feels like life rather than literature' Guardian
Nominated for the Women's Prize 2020
A STORY OF TWO SIBLINGS, THEIR CHILDHOOD HOME, AND A PAST THAT THEY CAN'T LET GO.
Like swallows, like salmon, we were the helpless captives of our migratory patterns. We pretended that what we had lost was the house, not our mother, not our father. We pretended that what we had lost had been taken from us by the person who still lived inside.
In the…
As I’ve reached middle age, I’ve found that many books about this period are about trying to regain lost youth or the hardships that aging can bring. I want to read more books about women who have lived through some things and are more powerful (and funnier!) because of it. In my writing, I try to highlight the stories of women with a little bit of history behind them and show that a long life–if we’re lucky–is also a full one. I hope you enjoy the books on this list as much as I have!
This isn’t a book about middle age as much as it is a book about a middle-aged woman. Margery Benson, schoolteacher and spinster, has been overlooked and overworked. She’s ready for an adventure and to find the beetle she’s been obsessed with since childhood.
Margery doesn’t go on this adventure alone, and the friendship between Margery and the younger, flashier Enid Pretty is the real heart of this novel. Adventure, friendship, women finding their strength: it’s exactly what I want from a book.
WINNER OF THE WILBUR SMITH ADVENTURE WRITING PRIZE | BEST PUBLISHED NOVEL WOMAN & HOME BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR and A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
'The perfect escape novel for our troubled times.' PATRICK GALE
It is 1950. In a devastating moment of clarity, Margery Benson abandons her dead-end job and advertises for an assistant to accompany her on an expedition. She is going to travel to the other side of the world to search for a beetle that may or may not exist. Enid Pretty, in her unlikely pink travel suit, is not the companion Margery had in…
I adore historical fiction but find that it is often (like many things) still centered around male experiences. I love getting to read stories and recommend ones that bring to light women’s roles is moving society forward or the un-sung contributions women have made throughout history.
This is the first book that I’ve read that’s taken a women-centric view of the time when Jesus was alive. Ana was such a likable character and strong woman, I mean, to go toe-to-toe with the son of God and his followers takes some guts! The supporting female characters were also so vibrant; my heart broke for them several times, and the audiobook narrator really added extra depth to an already immersive story.
"An extraordinary novel . . . a triumph of insight and storytelling." -Associated Press
"A true masterpiece." -Glennon Doyle, author of Untamed
An extraordinary story set in the first century about a woman who finds her voice and her destiny, from the celebrated number one New York Times bestselling author of The Secret Life of Bees and The Invention of Wings
In her mesmerizing fourth work of fiction, Sue Monk Kidd takes an audacious approach to history and brings her acclaimed narrative gifts to imagine the story of a young woman named Ana. Raised in a wealthy family with ties…
