Books like A Flame in Byzantium

British writer Tanith Lee has been one of the most important influences on my writing and this book is classic Lee. Set on Nova Mars, it is the story of Sabella - difficult, damaged, and deadly - and Jace, who has come to avenge his brother’s death at her hands. Their conflict leads them to an unexpected truth. Lee’s language is brilliant and baroque, her characters are sinister and sexy, and the novel plays with both gothic and science fiction tropes. And Sabella has a wonderful wardrobe, which is always a plus for me. 

Gilda begins her life as a runaway slave in pre-Civil War Louisiana and this beautifully-written novel explores her life over the next two hundred years as she faces danger, love, and loss. It’s memorable not only for the lens of Black and LGBTQ history that it brings to the vampire myth, but for the main character’s commitment to maintaining her connection to community, both vampire and mortal, and her openness to the world that transforms around her. 

Just when I thought I was done with vampires, Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Certain Dark Things came along.

I was burned out on the genre. Most of the characters in vampire stories are rich, privileged, and frankly, not that interesting. Atl, the main character in Certain Dark Things, is the exception.

A descendant of Aztec blood drinkers, she finds herself caught between the rival vampire clans that dominate Mexico City. When she develops an unexpected attachment to a street kid named Domingo, her life gets even more complicated. 

Domingo could have been nothing but a Renfield, a plaything for her vampire lead. But Moreno-Garcia explores the tender bond that develops between them, a connection that puts both in jeopardy. An engrossing new spin on the vampire tale.

Jane has grown up as the town outcast, caring for a dying mother who has never shown her any affection. She’s counting the days until she can leave when she meets new girl Sabrina, who pushes her to investigate the mysteries of her mother’s past, including the identity of her unknown father. What Jane discovers upends everything she thought she knew about her life and herself. Sensual, moving, and sometimes grim, I love this book for the way it explores tough questions. What would you do for love? What would you do for need? Who would you betray to survive?

For centuries, Christian preachers and leaders held all women responsible for Eve’s sin. Since Eve ate forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, leaders called womankind “the devil’s gateway” and the source of all suffering and death. Men also used the Genesis account of Eve’s creation from Adam’s rib to argue that all women should hold a secondary status in church and society. However, as Amanda Benckhuysen shows, women through the centuries created a counter tradition. They reinterpreted Eve to argue for women’s dignity and their right to preach, teach, and receive an education. Made from superior substance (Adam’s flesh) rather than the dirt of the ground, Eve was God’s worthy creation. Eve sinned, but so did Adam. Thus, Eve’s “curse” did not bar her female descendants from ministerial roles.  

In classical detective fiction, the story of the crime is like a puzzle, and piece by piece, clue by clue, we arrive at the big picture. Subdivision is, in some ways, a classic puzzle mystery (it even involves a puzzle!)—except it doesn’t start at a crime scene. It starts with a woman arriving at a guesthouse in the surreal and Kafkaesque Subdivision where she now lives. She can’t remember why she is there or really anything from her past.
Unlike more classical detective fiction, she is not a guide; I followed her—tracking, assembling, interpreting—but when certain elements of the real (maybe) slid into focus, they did so mostly despite her. I couldn’t put it down, and notwithstanding its fairly cerebral tone, I cried at the end.

There was a season in my life and business where I prayed for growth, then hesitated when it showed up because I got scared. That’s why Year of Yes hit me so deeply.

Shonda Rhimes, one of the most powerful women in Hollywood, admits she was terrified of saying yes to the very opportunities she worked so hard to create. That kind of honesty is refreshing.

Her “Year of Yes" challenge is funny, vulnerable, and motivating. It reminded me that fear doesn’t disappear just because you become successful (if anything, it grows!). What changes everything is the decision to move anyway. Shonda pushed me to stop shrinking and start leaning into the rooms and responsibilities I’d earned.

If you’ve been waiting to feel ready, this is your reminder that stepping into your next level starts with saying yes to yourself.

This book gave me permission to embrace and harness my anger as a tool for change. Chemaly’s exploration of how society suppresses women’s anger—and why we must reclaim it—is profound and eye-opening.

Her writing is sharp, relatable, and filled with research that helps contextualize why our anger is not only valid but vital. It left me feeling more equipped to channel my emotions into meaningful action.

This book kicked off my obsession with stories about young women who are trying to make sense of all the versions of themselves they have inside and weighing up which one to present to the world at any given time. The protagonist, Ruth, is an American living in London who works at a department store, spritzing perfume during the day, watching all the people go past, and trying to understand how the other young women who work there seem so self-assured. This is not a plot-driven book so much as a character study of a character who doesn’t know who she is yet.

Kate Zambreno’s writing is absolutely gorgeous. She creates a distance between Ruth—the ‘green girl’—and the world, like she’s looking through a window and can see people inside talking but not understand what they’re saying. At the same time, I recognized myself in Ruth,… show more.

When Lauren Cook and I published They Fought Like Demons, we knew that our book, although groundbreaking, was only the tip of the iceberg in the story of women soldiers in the Civil War, and we always hoped that another scholar would pick up the torch and move the story forward. Shelby Harriel has done just that.  Behind the Rifle is a meticulously researched and ably written account of the distaff soldiers who hailed from Mississippi, or found themselves there. Citing previously unknown sources along with revealing newly-located photographs, Harriel’s contribution to the history of women soldiers is remarkable.