As twenty-first century Western women, we enjoy a freedom to choose the direction of our lives which our predecessors in ages past would truly envy. But even during the years when the paths open to women were restricted and their options dictated by family and social norms, there were iconoclasts who refused to settle for the conventional. Women whose successes in the face of societal opposition paved the way for the freedoms we now enjoy.
We begin chronologically with THE DIAMOND OF LONDON by Andrea Penrose, which explores in depth the early life that made Lady Hester Stanhope into the explorer and adventurer for which she is famed. Though born to a life of privilege, like every woman of her time, Hetty was expected to find a husband, manage a household and raise children. But fiercely intelligent, determined and adventurous, Hetty knew from an early age that she wanted more. On the advice of social arbitrar Beau Brummel, she conquers Society by accentuating her differences, breaking norms by smoking in public, drinking brandy—and contesting the opinions of men. She’s protected by her uncle, renowned statesman William Pitt the Younger, for whom, when he becomes Prime Minister, she acts as private secretary. She weathers a tumultuous love affair with her wild and unpredictable cousin, Lord Camelford; when she finally decides to marry, barely survives the disappointment when her lover, Granville Leverson Gower, betrays her to marry another. Recovering from that bitter experience to find new love with Lieutenant General John Moore, she is once again devastated when he dies during the British retreat from Corunna. Penrose ends her account when Hetty, with no home of her own, leaves England with her son James, never to return—an “exile” that wasn’t a retreat, but rather the impetus that launched her into her new life as an explorer, archaeologist and adventurer. Penrose’s novel captures the years that turned an outstanding woman into a legend.
Moving farther into the nineteenth century, we have FINDING MARGARET FULLER by Alison Pataki. Brilliant, beautiful Margaret is invited by Ralph Waldo Emerson to join his group of Enlightenment thinkers, where she becomes both muse and inspiration to Emerson, Louisa May Alcott and Henry David Thoreau. Dissatisfied with mere philosophizing, Margaret moves on to Boston, where she helps found and edit The Dial magazine, hosts salons for students and involves herself in all the events of the city. She wins the admiration of famous editor Horace Greeley, who offers her a job as the first female foreign news correspondent. Never content to just observe, in Italy she becomes the lover of a Roman count and throws herself into the fight for Italian unification. Pataki offers us an intimate glimpse of a passionate woman who was never content to accept the ordinary.
We follow this with a story that explores a still-unresolved mystery in THE HONEYMOON by Dinitia Smith. An intelligent country girl her elders considered too plain to successfully marry, Mary Ann Evans made the most of her education, daring to write novels in an era where few female writers succeeded. But, writing under her male nom de plume George Eliot, Mary Ann became the most famous writer of her day, finding personal satisfaction in a scandalous but enduring partnership with the married George Henry Lewes. Her lover’s death plunges Eliot into grief and uncertainty; at age sixty, she must face the prospect of increasing physical frailty and loneliness. She counters this by marrying John Walter Cross, a man twenty years younger, and it is his attempted suicide on their honeymoon in Venice that creates the mystery at the heart of the novel. Drawing on Eliot’s own works and diaries, Smith paints a vivid picture of the inner life of this gifted but also conflicted writer.
We finish near the end of the nineteenth century with MADEMOISELLE EIFFEL by Aimie K Runyan. Gifted with an education as thorough as any son’s, Claire Eiffel, daughter of architect Gustave Eiffel, must abandon her dreams of an art career to take over management of the household and younger children after the death of her mother when she is only fourteen. As she proves her competence, her father involves her in his work as well, engaging her as his travel companion, private secretary and confidante. When this closeness is threatened by Gustave’s increasing involvement with his protégé, Adolphe Salles, Claire resents being displaced. But animosity slowly becomes friendship, and then love as the two marry in 1885. Returning to the center of her father’s life, Claire assists on her father’s most famous commission, the iron tower built to celebrate the 1889 World’s Fair. But when Gustave moves from that triumph to a disastrous project to construct a canal through Panama, Claire must fight to restore both her father’s freedom and reputation. Along with its richly-detailed descriptions of the City of Light, Runyan’s novel illumines the life of a woman who was brilliant in her own right, who, like so many others standing in the shadow of genius, had her contributions dismissed or overlooked.
Ready to inspire yourself by learning about the lives of women who insisted on going beyond the ordinary, stretching and expanding the boundaries that limit what a woman could or couldn’t be? Enjoy this quartet of nineteenth-century heroines!
Real, intense, passionate historical romance
Award-winning romance author Julia Justiss, who has written more than thirty historical novels and novellas set in the English Regency and the American West, just completed her first contemporary series set in the fictional Hill Country town of Whiskey River, Texas.
A voracious reader who began jotting down plot ideas for Nancy Drew novels in her third grade spiral, Julia has published poetry and worked as a business journalist.
She and her husband live in East Texas, where she continues to craft the stories she loves. Check her website for details about her books, chat with her on social media, and follow her on Bookbub and Amazon to receive notices about her latest releases.
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