Books like The Lady's Slipper

Ms. Patzer’s writing is lilting and emotional in its building of character and setting in old Italy. You’ll feel you are right there as a young woman struggles with her mysterious past, a forbidden love, and the cruel superstitions that stand in her way. I rooted for Olivia, who has no idea what danger her very birth has caused.

I fell in love with the atmosphere and plot. Also, the different setting not normally seen in most historicals: 13th century Tuscany. I could taste the food, smell the aromas, and see the sweeping countryside. The life in a convent felt authentic, and the drama, the heroine’s determination to discover her past, kept me reading.

Set in thirteenth-century England. Ms. Morris weaves a tale of turbulence, greed, murder, and much more. I loved her historical details in an era that must be difficult to research. Yvonne is a heroine you will instantly care about as her life is upended in so many ways. The fast pace had me riveted to the story. Ms. Morris has you walking the dank halls of a castle, breathing in the smoky fires, and brooding for Yvonne as she faces the demands and restrictions on medieval women who had little control over their lives. The political maneuverings around her are also well-researched. Each character stands out. A tour de force.

I’m a fan of Daphne du Maurier and Mary Stewart, and The Baron’s Wife reminded me of those stellar authors. A young wife, a mysterious, windswept residence, a man with a shady past, Ms. Andersen weaves these details together in an intriguing plot. Her descriptions of the ocean-battered shores of Cornwall at Wolfram Abbey, and the murder that may or may not have happened at Laura’s new husband’s hands, had me gripped to my seat. Laura grows braver each day as she tries to solve the mystery and believe in her husband. Emotionally charged, this novel is a nail-biter. This is Victorian Gothic at its best. One of my favorites.

This western showcases three strong and determined women of completely different backgrounds. I found something to appreciate about each one. Clara is under suspicion for poisoning her husband and flees west to start a new life. Selfish Mary Rose joins her, to put her past with husbands to rest. Emma finds them on the trail, falls in, but hides a terrible secret. Ms. Howard’s writing is clean and straightforward and always kept me engaged. How can they pool their resources and reach their goals? I liked how they came to trust and protect, no matter their flaws. Ms. Howard is excellent at characterization and this story taught me about female empowerment in difficult times. They thrive without help from men. As a horse lover, I enjoyed Emma’s horse training skills. 

This 1834 novel written by a physician/writer from Philadelphia holds its own with anything Poe or Melville ever wrote in terms of weirdness, psychological complexity, and sheer literary panache. 

It tells the story of a singularly unambitious young man who accidentally kills himself and then discovers that he has the power to reanimate the corpses of others who have just died. And so our hero finds himself living the lives of a rich man with terrible gout, a playboy, a misguided Quaker philanthropist, and – most shockingly – a rebel slave. 

Through it all, Sheppard Lee still maintains a sense of his own identity, even as his spirit becomes something of a puppet for its new physical manifestations. Both philosophical and darkly comic, this recently rediscovered work should be a classic.

For conditions after the War, this book describes parts of the South that had been the wealthiest (and most exploitative). Easton was a Quaker and, thus, a pacifist. I felt I was there and being forgiven for what I had done or failed to do. Again and again, Easton is in the room with Klansmen, Army officers, and Black and White and poor and rich public officials.

American civil violence is his salient theme. To give three later examples of this theme: Don’t argue with Trump—shoot him. Don’t argue with JFK—shoot him. And most of all, don’t argue with Lincoln, a bigger leader—shoot him and make a theatrical event of it.  

This is a book I both adore and abhor. Why would I say such a thing? Because my heart physically hurt in the reading of it.

On the surface, the confident, scientifically minded hero has everything, including a disdain for anyone “lower” than him. But when he’s felled in an instant, everything changes. He cannot communicate—at all—until the lowly daughter of a fellow numerist finds a way to break through the strange walls that now inhabit his brain…

Experiencing these two falling in love was both poignant and yet destructive to my peace of mind. This is one of those books I set down, yes for several months, because I could not bear for it to end, and I needed to fortify myself before reading through to its conclusion.

Mary Dyer is a forgotten American hero, who suffered unbelievably for her faith. In early Boston Quakers, Baptists, Jews, Catholics—everyone but the Puritans—were banished. She became a Quaker missionary and led what became a hopeless cause: freedom of worship. Her whole story is painful, shocking, and cannot be summed up here without spoilers. The Puritan men who settled the Bay Colony hated and feared women who spoke up. They banished or destroyed them.

Maria Mitchell, raised as a Nantucket Quaker, was the first woman to discover and name a new comet, no easy task in the 1840s when women were not meant to study astronomy, let alone when her only instrument was a small telescope on an island roof. Brill takes artistic license with Mitchell’s story, adding nuance and detail likely outside the scope of her research, and delivers a riveting tale of a woman determined to live her dreams, no matter how high the barriers to achieving them.  

I love this book because it discusses how we can experience God more deeply in everyday language. It’s not preachy and not “religious.” In fact, one of my favorite quotes from it is: “Religion as a dull habit is not what Christ lived and died for.” The essays are simple, profound and life changing.