2 Books Like Raiders, Rulers, and Traders

As anyone who has read my novels knows, I am fascinated by nomadic life on the Eurasian steppe, especially the role of women in that society. So I am always on the alert for fiction—and even nonfiction, as my next pick will show—set in the grasslands that run from China to the Black Sea. Vast but scarcely populated, subject to extremes of climate, inhospitable to agriculture but perfect for maintaining large herds of grazing animals, the steppes gave rise to a warrior culture based on archery and horses that maintained itself almost unchanged into the 19th century, when modern weaponry imperiled the ancient ways.

Lindbergh’s novel traces the life and career of a leader among the Sauromatae, a people who may have given rise to the myth of the Amazons, recorded by the Greek historian Herodotus in the fifth century BCE. We meet her heroine, Akmaral, in her final hours,… show more.

Andrea Penrose is well known for her Regency-era historical mysteries, but this fictional biography is a departure for her. The titular Diamond is Lady Hester Stanhope, tagged even today with adjectives such as “notorious” and “eccentric” for her adventures as an archaeologist in the Middle East. The novel focuses on her life before she abandons England, revealing the factors that led to her decision. It opens with Lady Hester fleeing her country estate for London, where she already has a reputation as outspoken, passionate, and “different.” Although at twenty-four, she is regarded as almost too old to wed, her ties to the politically powerful Pitt family mean that she is still a “catch” for men of ambition.

Lady Hester wants none of it. She’d rather dress in men’s clothes and ride hell-for-leather across the moors. And so the stage is set for what will become, over the course of the… show more.