Historical Fiction or Nonfiction about Women's History

Participating in the Books & Bites Bingo Reading Challenge? Try these books for the prompt, historical fiction or nonfiction about women's history.

Updated February 7, 2024
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Outlawed
North, Anna
Paper Book
In the year of our Lord 1894, I became an outlaw. The day of her wedding, 17-year-old Ada's life looks good; she loves her husband, and she loves working as an apprentice to her mother, a respected midwife. But after a year of marriage and no pregnancy, in a town where barren women are...
Eve : how the female body drove 200 million years of human evolution
Bohannon, Cat
Paper Book
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER FOYLE'S NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023 LONGLISTED FOR BLACKWELL'S NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023 A GUARDIAN, TELEGRAPH and PROSPECTBEST BOOK OF 2023 How did wet nurses drive civilization? Are women always the weaker sex?...
The picture bride
Yi, Kŭm-i
Paper Book
Different fates await each of these women. Hongju, who dreams of a marriage of 'natural love', meets a man who looks twenty years older than his photograph; Songhwa, who wants to escape from her life of ridicule as the granddaughter of a shaman, meets a lazy drunkard. And then there's Willow, whose...
The Alice network : a novel
Quinn, Kate
Paper Book
Don't miss the thrilling new novel from Kate Quinn, The Briar Club, coming July 9th! New York Times and USA Today Bestseller An NPR's Best Book of the Year  A Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick! The 2017 Girly Book Club Book of the Year! A Summer...
The dark queens : a gripping tale of power, ambition and murderous rivalry in early medieval France
Puhak, Shelley
Paper Book
A vivid double biography of two fearless early medieval queens. 'Brings the Merovingian empire to thrilling, bewildering, horrifying life' Helen Castor 'Restores two half-forgotten and much-mythologized queens to their proper place in medieval history' Dan Jones...
Lady Tan's circle of women : a novel
See, Lisa
Paper Book
*NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!* From "one of those special writers capable of delivering both poetry and plot" (The New York Times Book Review) an immersive historical novel inspired by the true story of a woman physician in 15th-century China--perfect for fans of...
The dictionary of lost words
Williams, Pip
Paper Book
Lone women : a novel
LaValle, Victor
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * Blue skies, empty land--and enough wide-open space to hide a horrifying secret. A woman with a past, a mysterious trunk, a town on the edge of nowhere, and an "absorbing, powerful" (BuzzFeed) new vision of the American West, from the award-winning author of...
The bookbinder of Jericho
Williams, Pip
Paper Book
"It is 1914, and as the war draws the young men of Britain away to fight, women must keep the nation running. Two of those women are Peggy and Maude, twin sisters who live on a narrowboat in Oxford and work in the bindery at the university press. Ambitious, intelligent Peggy has been told for most...
Without children : the long history of not being a mother
O'Donnell Heffington, Peggy
Paper Book
A historian explores the complicated relationship between womanhood and motherhood in this "timely, refreshingly open-hearted study of the choices women make and the cards they're dealt" (Ada Calhoun, author of Why We Can't Sleep). In an...
All that she carried : the journey of Ashley's sack, a Black family keepsake
Miles, Tiya
Paper Book
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER * NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A renowned historian traces the life of a single object handed down through three generations of Black women to craft a "deeply layered and insightful" (The Washington Post) testament to people who are left out...
The color purple
Walker, Alice
Paper Book
A PBS Great American Read Top 100 Pick Winner of the Pulitzer Prize * Winner of the National Book Award   Published to unprecedented acclaim,The Color Purple established Alice Walker as a major voice in...
The dressmakers of Prospect Heights : a novel
Zeldis, Kitty
Paper Book
"A haunting meditation on the bonds between mothers and daughters. Zeldis offers a fascinating look into historic New York City and New Orleans, and her skill as a storyteller is matched by her compassion for her characters. What a beautiful read."--Fiona Davis, New York Times bestselling author...
On the rooftop
Sexton, Margaret Wilkerson
Paper Book
A Reese's Book Club Pick "An utterly original and brilliant story." -Reese Witherspoon A stunning novel about a mother whose dream of musical stardom for her three daughters collides with the daughters' ambitions for their own lives--set against the backdrop of gentrifying 1950s San...
Godmersham Park
Hornby, Gill
Paper Book
Early evening, 1804- Anne Sharpe arrives at Godmersham Park in Kent. Alone and desperately in need of an independent income, she is to become a governess to twelve-year-old Fanny Austen. But her new role in this large household where she is neither a servant nor a...
Weyward
Hart, Emilia
Paper Book
*As seen on BBC's BETWEEN THE COVERS* A #2 Times bestseller* A New York Times bestseller OVER 500,000 COPIES SOLD WORLDWIDEPRE-ORDER EMILIA HART'S STUNNING NEW BOOK THE SIRENS NOW âe~Humming with a sly, exhilarating magicâe(tm) BRIDGET COLLINS âe~A much-heralded epicâe...
The house of Eve : a novel
Johnson, Sadeqa
Paper Book
"Amazing...I was completely surprised by the ending of this beautifully told and written book." --Reese Witherspoon "A triumph of historical fiction" (The Washington Post), an instant New York Times bestseller, and a Reese's Book Club pick, set in 1950s...

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