Here are 100 books that Domina fans have personally recommended if you like
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My mother was the only female chemist in a Fortune 500 company for a good two decades before another one was hired. I saw from a front-row seat the misogyny she endured. The result of this experience was that I wrote a novel about a female doctor in 1894. I also ended up in a technical field that was only slightly populated by women, although women dominate it today. I saw the transition because I was involved in it. I think my acceptance in that field happened because of the efforts of the other women who went before me.
This book is so full of tension and grit that I found it hard to stop reading. One of the things this book does so well is plop me right in the middle of a plague. The darkness persists as the main character (Nora, an orphan idiosyncratically trained in medical skills like surgery and caring for patients) pokes her way through the medical field, seldom receiving credit for her abilities and skills because she’s not supposed to practice medicine. No woman is in the 1840s.
The book points inward toward Nora’s travels through unfairness where she does the work and someone else always takes the credit. Only when she faces the worth that she’s created in herself does everything around her begin to shift dangerously. This book certainly kept my attention!
THE USA TODAY BESTSELLER! "An exquisitely detailed journey through the harrowing field of medicine in mid-19th century London."-Tracey Enerson Wood, USA Today bestselling author of The Engineer's Wife and The War Nurse An unforgettable historical fiction novel about one woman who believed in scientific medicine before the world believed in her. London, 1845: Raised by the eccentric surgeon Dr. Horace Croft after losing her parents to a deadly pandemic, the orphan Nora Beady knows little about conventional life. While other young ladies were raised to busy themselves with needlework and watercolors, Nora was trained to perfect her suturing and anatomical…
When Elliot finds herself dead for the third time, she can't remember her past, is getting the cold shoulder from her best friend, and has no idea why she keeps repeating the same mistakes across her previous lives. Elliot just wants to move on, but first, she'll be forced to…
My mother was the only female chemist in a Fortune 500 company for a good two decades before another one was hired. I saw from a front-row seat the misogyny she endured. The result of this experience was that I wrote a novel about a female doctor in 1894. I also ended up in a technical field that was only slightly populated by women, although women dominate it today. I saw the transition because I was involved in it. I think my acceptance in that field happened because of the efforts of the other women who went before me.
OK, OK, this book is not a novel, although it’s as easy to read as a novel with all its tension. It covers, among others, the lives of Elizabeth Blackwell, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Sophia Jex-Blake, and other female doctors from the 1800s.
The deeply researched book is biographical, but its strength is in the examination of how women doctors were thought of throughout the ages and the difference they’ve made. The book explores the ancestors of modern doctors (mid wives, ancient Greeks female doctors, etc.).
I found the writing accessible and vivid with a real elbows-on-the-table and sleeves-rolled-up approach.
Meet the pioneering women who changed the medical landscape for us all
For fans of Hidden Figures and Radium Girls comes the remarkable story of three Victorian women who broke down barriers in the medical field to become the first women doctors, revolutionising the way women receive health care.
In the early 1800s, women were dying in large numbers from treatable diseases because they avoided receiving medical care. Examinations performed by male doctors were often demeaning and even painful. In addition, women faced stigma from illness--a diagnosis could greatly limit their ability to find husbands, jobs or be received in…
My mother was the only female chemist in a Fortune 500 company for a good two decades before another one was hired. I saw from a front-row seat the misogyny she endured. The result of this experience was that I wrote a novel about a female doctor in 1894. I also ended up in a technical field that was only slightly populated by women, although women dominate it today. I saw the transition because I was involved in it. I think my acceptance in that field happened because of the efforts of the other women who went before me.
I really enjoyed this book because it plopped me right into the early 1900s when women began wandering into traditionally men’s fields like medicine. I like the delicate folding of the main character’s personal life with her Down Syndrome child and her struggles in her professional life because, face it, work is not everything in life.
This book captures the compromises a single mother has to make and compounds them by adding characters who refuse to believe she’s competent in medicine.
In a uniquely vivid story of women in medicine, found family, and conquering fear for readers of Kristin Hannah, Ellen Marie Wiseman, and Audrey Blake, an impoverished former doctor and her disabled son join a traveling medicine show and its family of strangers on a collision course with the deadliest natural disaster in American history – the Galveston Hurricane of 1900. From the acclaimed author of The Nurse's Secret and The Second Life of Mirielle West.
"Perfect on so many levels that I don't even know where to begin." —Addison Armstrong, Author of The War Librarian
Kindle Book Award Finalist. Readers' Favorite Book Award Finalist. Gotham Writers' YA Novel Discovery Contest Finalist. B.R.A.G. Medallion Honoree
Brigit Quinn has always felt like an outsider. Growing up in a small town where her mom’s pagan practices are the stuff of local gossip, she’s spent her whole life trying…
My mother was the only female chemist in a Fortune 500 company for a good two decades before another one was hired. I saw from a front-row seat the misogyny she endured. The result of this experience was that I wrote a novel about a female doctor in 1894. I also ended up in a technical field that was only slightly populated by women, although women dominate it today. I saw the transition because I was involved in it. I think my acceptance in that field happened because of the efforts of the other women who went before me.
I like that this book is in first person because, at times, it feels as if you are in a conversation with the main character.
The book opens with a super-strong voice and is contemporary rather than historical. After I did all the research for historical novels having to do with female doctors, I felt the need to move forward in novels to see if anything had changed as far as attitudes toward women doctors were concerned.
And indeed, yes, things are better in this book, but tension and problems still require grappling.
After practicing medicine for over thirty years, Norah Waters MD is weighing her options, and early retirement looks better and better. At age fifty-eight, who needs midnight calls, cranky patients, and business headaches? Fighting burnout and workplace melodrama, Norah gives herself one last year to find her way back to enjoying her once-cherished career. In her final effort to make a meaningful difference, Norah takes on two medical students who both make and break her resolve to persist. One seems a hopeless introvert, the other a toxic egotist; supervising them makes her downright dizzy as she labels them the "yin…
Years ago, I wrote mystery novels featuring women investigators when that was new in the genre. Now, I discover stories of real-life women whose lives have a natural story arc that can engage the reader from start to finish. Like gambling and prostitution, abortion, when it was illegal in the US, as it is now again in many places, was simultaneously in your face and undercover. It was also largely practiced by women, which is why I’m fascinated by books about it.
I thought I had nothing left to learn about Madame Restell, the unapologetic 19th-century abortion provider until I saw how this book was organized. While keeping the narrative flowing, Syrett helpfully organizes Restell’s career into phases defined by changes in the law, her trials, and the emergence of one male adversary after another.
I loved learning that, even after Restell met her Waterloo, her loving grandchildren profited from her legacy. As told by Syrett, a gender-norm-defying woman who was literally hounded to death somehow managed to have the last laugh.
The biography of one of the most famous abortionists of the nineteenth century-and a story that has unmistakable parallels to the current war on reproductive rights
For forty years in the mid-nineteenth century, "Madame Restell," the nom de guerre of the most successful female physician in America, sold birth control medication, attended women during their pregnancies, delivered their children, and performed abortions in a series of clinics run out of her home in New York City. It was the abortions that made her famous. "Restellism" became the term her detractors used to indict her.
I bought a bookstore when I was twenty-five, knowing nothing about business but knowing I loved books. It was the happiest I’ve ever been, professionally, and also the most broke. At some point, I came to my senses, sold my store, and got a job working in a library. I’m a library director now, and I don’t get to recommend books as much as I used to when I didn’t have to do things like think about the budget and remove dead mice from the cellar. Still, I get to work around books, and I overhear and occasionally insert myself into a fair number of book-related conversations.
Weike Wang is kind of a master at dry, unadorned, razor-sharp writing. This book made me both cry and laugh. Joan is doing perfectly fine—great, even—if anyone asks her. Her life is efficient and successful and—empty.
When her father dies, her mother returns from China, and their subsequent interactions force Joan to stop just going through the motions and actually take a look at her life. This book is sweet but not saccharine, and its humor comes from Joan’s quirky observations which felt very relatable to me.
NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE • A witty, moving, piercingly insightful new novel about a marvelously complicated woman who can’t be anyone but herself, from the award-winning author of Chemistry
LONGLISTED FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL • “A deeply felt portrait . . . With gimlet-eyed observation laced with darkly biting wit, Weike Wang masterfully probes the existential uncertainty of being other in America.”—Celeste Ng, author of Little Fires Everywhere
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, NPR, The Washington Post
An Heir of Realms tells the tale of two young heroines—a dragon rider and a portal jumper—who fight dragon-like parasites to save their realms from extinction.
Rhoswen is training as a Realm Rider to work with dragons and burn away the Narxon swarming into her realm. Rhoswen’s dream is to…
I’ve been a journalist since high school and I spent 33 years as a reporter for The Washington Post, mostly as a foreign correspondent based in Asia, Africa, and Paris. My book Out Of America chronicled my three years as a correspondent in Africa during some of its most tumultuous events, the Somalia intervention, and the Rwanda genocide. I’ve always thought a well-crafted novel often captures a place or a time better than nonfiction — books like The Quiet American about the Vietnam War, and The Year of Living Dangerously about Indonesia. I now teach a university course on The Role of the Journalist in Popular Fiction, Film and Comics.
Okay, this fine novel is only partially set in Africa, in Uganda, where intrepid fictional journalist Daniel McFarland treks into the jungles to find and interview the leader of a rebel group based on the Lords Resistance Army. Told from the vantage point of world-weary photographer Nicky Bettencourt, the action later shift to East Timor during the fight for independence against Indonesia. This novel comes as close as any to describe the real lives of foreign correspondents — the unnecessary risks, the loneliness of life lived constantly on the road. It’s beautifully written, a good read, and reeks of authenticity.
Photojournalist Nicky Bettencourt thinks he's seen everything until he teams up with the legendary war correspondent Daniel McFarland. To Daniel, the story is everything; people come later. But after a plane crash nearly takes his life, Daniel begins to see the world in a different way. He falls in love with Julia Cadell, an idealistic British doctor, and together they find refuge at an old canal house in the center of London. Soon after, Nicky, Daniel, and Julia are called to East Timor, where the government has fled and the entire country is a war zone, and Daniel must decide…
I think our collective fascination with medical training is understandable. What bizarre sorcery molds otherwise sensible college graduates into fully functioning physicians? Is it possible to maintain your humanity in the process? Or any semblance of a normal relationship? While my book remains the only novel about medical school training, many great physician memoirs detail the typically exhausting, frequently bizarre, and ultimately gratifying experience of becoming a doctor. After graduating from Wesleyan University, I obtained my medical degree at New York University School of Medicine and trained in the primary care internal medicine program at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. I live in Maryland with my wife and two children.
Written as a series of essays focusing on her experiences with individual patients, Dr. Ofri walks us through the entirety of her training. As she grows in confidence, she learns how to heal her patients and herself.
Dr. Ofri had a life between college and medical school (unlike me), so even though she is older than I am, she started at NYU/Bellevue the year after I graduated. I enjoyed reading how patient care had progressed at Bellevue in the years following my great escape.
A “finely gifted writer” shares “fifteen brilliantly written episodes covering the years from studenthood to the end of medical residency” (Oliver Sacks, MD, author of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat)
Singular Intimacies is the story of becoming a doctor by immersion at Bellevue Hospital, the oldest public hospital in the country—and perhaps the most legendary. It is both the classic inner-city hospital and a unique amalgam of history, insanity, beauty, and intellect. When Danielle Ofri enters these 250-year-old doors as a tentative medical student, she is immediately plunged into the teeming world of urban medicine: mysterious…
I love to laugh. Quite often it’s at inappropriate times or at someone else’s expense, but either way, it’s a huge part of who I am. Second only to prayer, I find laughter to be the best remedy for a difficult situation. It’s hard to be sad when you’re laughing, and as a writer who puts characters into very challenging positions, that’s always at the forefront of my mind. While readers may not always relate to the exact circumstance my characters are in, they may very well find common ground in the levity they seek when trying to survive it.
This book was Higgins’ debut and holy moly does it deliver! It’s endearing but not in a sappy way, sweet but not to the point of annoyance, swoony but not in a “I need Lava Soap" way, and most importantly it’s laugh-out-loud funny! Just like her many other books since, her characters are perfectly flawed with makes them beyond relatable and oh-so addictive! A great book to get to know this author!
“This emotional journey…is filled with drama, laughter and tears andsqueezes the heart. It should be on every bedside table in the country!” —#1 New YorkTimes bestselling author Robyn Carr
Don't miss this deliciously romantic read from New York Times bestselling author KristanHiggins!
Millie Barnes is this close to finally achieving her perfectlife…
Rewarding job as a local doctor on Cape Cod? Check. Cute cottage of hervery own? Check. Adorable dog suitable for walks past attractive locals? Check! All sheneeds is for golden boy and former crush Joe Carpenter to notice her, and Millie will beset.
"A haunting YA mystery. Touching on everything from police ineptitude and community solidarity to the endless frustration of being patronized as a young person, this paranormal thriller confidently combines timely and relatable themes within a page-turning storyline." - Self-Publishing Review
"Biel's writing is fast-paced and sharp!" - author Christy Wopat…
I’ve loved biology and medicine since the fifth grade when I learned about white blood cells and their function. For thirty years, I worked in intensive care where adrenaline levels run high. A good thriller does the same. It keeps my heart beating fast and my attention completely focused. Yet also, I’m a mother of three boys, and I’ve always worked in pediatrics and neonatology. I love kids, and I love being a mom. The heart in these books makes them more than simply an adrenaline fix on the page. I find the blend of heart with page-turning intrigue makes for a perfect read.
An excellent, well-known medical thriller author, Tess Gerritsen, gets it right every time.
This book has the perfect proportion of medicine, suspense, characters, and heart. I love the protagonist, a strong, independent woman who needs nobody, but is vulnerable and has a huge heart. She does the unthinkable by accidentally killing her patient. Gravely affected by her fatal mistake, she nearly quits medicine.
But I love this character and cheer her on! She rises up and fights back. In the end, finding love was the icing on the cake. She is the perfect heroine in a fast-paced thriller, with plenty of human emotion.
For David Ransom, it begins as an open-and-shut case. Malpractice. As attorney for a grieving family, he's determined to hang a negligent doctor. Then Dr. Kate Chesne storms into his office, dating him to seek out the truth -- that she's being framed.
First, it was Kate's career that was in jeopardy. Then, when another body is discovered, David begins to believe her. Suddenly, it's much more. Somewhere in the Honolulu hospital, a killer walks freely among patients and staff. And now David finds himself asking the same questions Kate is desperate to have answered. Who is next? And why?
