I love 19th century novels and strong heroines. I have spent so much of my life reading and living in the worlds of these novels, sometimes I feel as much (or more) a native of that world than our own 21st century. I also love vibrant, intelligent writers who know how to put a sentence together and create an atmosphere and characters who pop off of the page. If you want to get lost in a book, and hang out with incredible women, I warmly recommend these five novels.
I read it for the first time in a Jane Austen class I took in college, because it gave me an excuse to read all her novels. I fell immediately in love with this one.
We all know, in real life, second chances are not a given. This novel so heartbreakingly and beautifully describes what comes after “the end” and a way that ending is able to be changed as the two central characters have grown older and wiser, and then learn more about one another over the course of its pages.
I love the yearning in this novel—it is off the charts! I carry the hope in this novel with me. And the Roger Michell film adaptation is divine!
'In Persuasion, Jane Austen is beginning to discover that the world is larger, more mysterious, and more romantic than she had supposed' Virginia Woolf
Jane Austen's moving late novel of missed opportunities and second chances centres on Anne Elliot, no longer young and with few romantic prospects. Eight years earlier, she was persuaded by others to break off her engagement to poor, handsome naval captain Frederick Wentworth. What happens when they meet again is movingly told in Austen's last completed novel. Set in the fashionable societies of Lyme Regis and Bath, Persuasion is a brilliant satire of vanity and pretension,…
This wonderful novel explores the industrial revolution in the north of England, the conditions of factory owners and workers, and the education of a young woman from a slightly more genteel background who learns to navigate it as her eyes are opened throughout the course of the book.
The BBC adaptation of this is also completely delightful—I can watch the ending scene over and over again. I love the wonderful sparring between heroine and hero—another woman who remains resolutely herself as she grows her understanding about herself and the truth of the world and the people around her.
North and South is a social novel by English writer Elizabeth Gaskell. With Wives and Daughters (1865) and Cranford (1853), it is one of her best-known novels and was adapted for television twice (1975 and 2004). The later version renewed interest in the novel and attracted a wider readership. Gaskell's first novel, Mary Barton (1848), focused on relations between employers and workers in Manchester from the perspective of the working poor; North and South uses a protagonist from southern England to present and comment on the perspectives of mill owners and workers in an industrialising city.[1] The novel is set…
Readers describe Krenik's writing style as “fast-paced, engaging, making complex plotlines easy to follow.”
Set in a dystopian world where dragons exist, this series offers readers layers of mysteries to unfold. Romance flares between a viscount and the nanny of his five-year-old twins. But not everyone is as they seem,…
This is a lovely, quiet book literally set in Jane Austen’s own, private world.
It centers around her surviving sister, Cassandra, and explores what it means to be part of a sisterhood that is close and intimate, and then to lose one half of that pair. Cassandra seeks to do what she believes is best, on her sister’s behalf and to preserve (or craft, perhaps?) the memory of that sister’s life.
It is about everyday people and life (yes, there was a time when Jane Austen was simply the not-well-off daughter of a vicar in rural England). A moving read. I have not yet watched the miniseries, starring Keeley Hawes, which is available via PBS streaming.
The Sunday Times bestselling novel, set to be a major TV drama ________________________ 'You can't help feeling that Jane would have approved.' OBSERVER
'So good, so intelligent, so clever, so entertaining - I adored it.' CLAIRE TOMALIN ________________________ Throughout her lifetime, Jane Austen wrote countless letters to her sister. But why did Cassandra burn them all?
1840: twenty three years after the death of her famous sister Jane, Cassandra Austen returns to the village of Kintbury, and the home of her family's friends, the Fowles.
She knows that, in some dusty corner of the sprawling vicarage, there is a cache…
This is an enjoyable romp, focusing on one group of horse-riding-in-the-park women friends in Victorian London.
Our heroine, Evelyn, decides she will make an impression on Society through the way she is dressed, and seeks out a master tailor who can design the clothing ensembles which will make her unforgettable.
Matthews mixes up the traditional romance narratives by making her designer discovery a transplant to London from the Indian Subcontinent —Ahmad Malik. So, not only do you have the rules of Society, the drive for money, and the obstacles for making one’s way as a woman in such a world, you also have the issues of racism and colonialism to deal with.
Bridgerton meets Jilly Cooper in this feminist historical romance that will have you swooning!
'Unflinching, tender and moving.' EVIE DUNMORE
'A rare treat to enjoy and savour.' KATE PEARCE
'A moving love story and a vivid recreation of Victorian life.' Anna Campbell
The marriage mart is calling, and Evelyn must answer . . . Evelyn Maltravers longs for her perfect match. But with her family tumbling toward ruin. Her only hope is to distinguish herself is on horseback and to succeed she'll need a habit-maker who's not afraid to take risks.
Ahmad Malik have always made women beautiful - but…
The Sailor Without a Sweetheart
by
Katherine Grant,
Enjoy this Persuasion-inspired historical romance!
Six years ago, Amy decided *not* to elope with Captain Nate Preston. Now, he is back in the neighborhood, and he is shocked to discover that Amy is unmarried. Even more surprising, she is clearly battling some unnamed illness. Thrown together by circumstances outside their…
It is a quiet, warm, gentle, and yearning novel, about a broken war veteran and the woman who comes to love him. While it is years since I read it, it occupies a special corner of my heart which I touch, every so often, simply to know and feel the warmth it still gives off in my memory.
Miss Onyx Hamilton is about to make what everyone agrees is a perfect marriage-until handsome Major Jack Beresford comes galloping into her life. But with his fortune and connections, Onyx knows he'd never ask for her hand, would he? New and longtime fans alike will relish this delightful romance from Carla Kelly. Charming, sweet, and full of fun, it's simply impossible to stop reading.
Financially desperate widower and single parent, Alec Raeburn, Duke of Selkirk, leaves his faltering estate to seek an heiress on the Marriage Mart and a mother for his daughter. He’s accompanied by his wealthier cousin, Finn, Duke of Galloway. As the Season begins, wealthy industrial heiress Aurora Hardcastle arrives with her titled but financially distressed friend, Lady Millicent Wentworth. Aurora has resigned herself to the process of finding a husband, but her heart remains in the world of her father’s factory.
An outing to the Tower of London brings the four together, and Aurora befriends Marjorie. But it is beautiful Millicent who is the Season’s Incomparable, not Aurora. Gradually, Alec and Aurora grow closer and contemplate a match, but a devastating discovery threatens everything.
Portrait of an Artist as a Young Woman
by
Alexis Krasilovsky,
Kate from Jules et Jim meets I Love Dick.
A young woman filmmaker’s journey of self-discovery, set against a backdrop of the sexual liberation movement of the 1970s and 1980s. In Portrait of an Artist as a Young Woman, we follow Ana Fried as she faces the ultimate…
Five squabbling guardians. Three rivals for an earldom. And one dashing cavalryman threatening to overset it all...
At fourteen, Arabella Audley inherited her father's Scottish barony—but was denied his English earldom. Shuffled between five quarrelsome guardians for six long years while Parliament dithers over determining the Earl of Audley's rightful…
