For ages we’ve devoured stories about gangsters and cowboys, thieves and pirates, and all manner of scoundrels, but they nearly always feature male protagonists. Suddenly, there’s a rise in novels featuring women on the other side of the law, their trials and adventures, and it made me think about the appeal of lawless heroines whose lives are a shade darker than the rest. Why the interest?
Lawless Women make for nuanced and fascinating characters! Characters that struggle with difficult choices and don’t always do the right thing are not only relatable, but interesting to discuss with our book clubs. Are their actions justifiable? What would it be like to be the head of a female gang or a mastermind courtesan who assassinates traitors and spies? Who befriends them and why? These characters have the kind of lives most of us would never consider, but we’re able to safely live vicariously through their journeys on the page.
Lawless Women are also characters who completely burn down stereotypes that surround the typical female roles from their particular era. You know that saying “well-behaved women rarely make history”? It’s definitely true! Just ask any historical novelist. So what are you waiting for?
Get your hands on these juicy historical novels that feature lawless heroines that have recently released or are coming later this year.
A True Account Hannah Masury’s Sojourn Amongst the Pyrates, Written by Herself by Katherine Howe
In Boston, as the Golden Age of Piracy comes to a bloody close, Hannah Masury – bound out to service at a waterfront inn since childhood – is ready to take her life into her own hands. When a man is hanged for piracy in the town square and whispers of a treasure in the Caribbean spread, Hannah is forced to flee for her life, disguising herself as a cabin boy in the pitiless crew of the notorious pirate Edward “Ned” Low. To earn the freedom to choose a path for herself, Hannah must hunt down the treasure and change the tides. Meanwhile, professor Marian Beresford pieces Hannah’s story together in 1930, seeing her own lack of freedom reflected back at her as she watches Hannah’s transformation. At the center of Hannah Masury’s account, however, lies a centuries-old mystery that Marian is determined to solve, just as Hannah may have been determined to take it to her grave. (Nov 2023)
Queens of London by Heather Webb
When Alice Diamond, AKA “Diamond Annie,” is elected the Queen of the Forty Elephants, she’s determined to take the all-girl gang to new heights. She’s ambitious, tough as nails, and a brilliant mastermind, with a plan to create a dynasty the likes of which no one has ever seen. Too bad she’s now the target for one of Britain’s first female policewomen. Officer Lilian Wyles isn’t merely one of the first female detectives at Scotland Yard, she’s one of the best detectives on the force. Even so, she’ll have to win a big score to prove herself, to break free from the “women’s work” she’s been assigned. When she hears about the large-scale heist in the works to fund Alice’s new dynasty, she realizes she has the chance she’s been looking for―and the added bonus of putting Diamond Annie out of business permanently. A tale of dark glamour and sisterhood, Queens of London is a look at Britain’s first female crime syndicate, the ever-shifting meaning of justice, and the way women claim their power by any means necessary. (Feb 2024)
The Assassin of Venice by Alyssa Palombo
Valentina Riccardi is many things: beautiful, cultured, deadly. As one of Venice’s famous courtesans, she’s perfectly positioned to seduce powerful men, get them alone, and assassinate them. Spies. Traitors. Who they are doesn’t matter—only that they made an enemy of the Council of Ten, the shadowy and seemingly omniscient power from which Valentina takes her orders without question. Venice is her home, and after losing everything once before to an invading army, there is nothing she won’t do to protect her city, for there is nothing she loves more. Almost nothing. (June 2024)
The Last Twelve Miles by Erika Robuck
In the Prohibition Rum Wars, the Coast Guard is losing. But the Coast Guard has a new, secret weapon―one of the husband-and-wife pair who invented cryptanalysis and trained Great War soldiers―to crack smuggler codes, intercept traffic, and destroy the trade, one skiff at a time. That secret weapon is a 5’2 mastermind in heels, who also happens to be a wife and mother: Mrs. Elizebeth Smith Friedman. Enter Marie Waite―wife of a rumrunner and mother of two little ones―notices discrepancies in cargo, she insists on accompanying her husband, Charlie, on a run from their home in Miami to Nassau. So begins Marie’s plan to rise as rumrunner royalty long enough to get her family in the black. What she didn’t count on was that the more sophisticated her operation grows, the more she comes on the radar of the feds, nabbing criminals by the daily dozen. (June 2024)
