I tried very hard to not have this be all nonfiction and was able to go half and half this time. Yay! For fiction, we have a historical romance and a fantasy novella. For nonfiction, I’m recommending books on history and pop culture.
The Fireborne Blade
If you’ve read and liked Joe Abercrombie’s books, I’d say this novella is similar though not quite as gritty. I also highly recommend you look at the cover of the sequel, which features a unicorn kitten with wings.
Kill the dragon. Find the blade. Reclaim her honor.
It’s that, or end up like countless knights before her, as a puddle of gore and molten armor.
Maddileh is a knight. There aren’t many women in her line of work, and it often feels like the sneering and contempt from her peers is harder to stomach than the actual dragon slaying. But she’s a knight, and made of sterner stuff.
A minor infraction forces her to redeem her honor in the most dramatic way possible, she must retrieve the fabled Fireborne Blade from its keeper, legendary dragon the White Lady, or die trying. If history tells us anything, it’s that “die trying” is where to wager your coin.
Maddileh’s tale contains a rich history of dragons, ill-fated knights, scheming squires, and sapphic love, with deceptions and double-crosses that will keep you guessing right up to its dramatic conclusion. Ultimately, The Fireborne Blade is about the roles we refuse to accept, and of the place we make for ourselves in the world.
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The Lady Who Came in from the Cold
I sometimes like to highly community recommendations because not everyone is a reader of the comments! Karin recommended this recently and it features a marriage in trouble and the heroine is a former spy.
A Wife Disgraced
A spy during the Napoleonic Wars, Lady Pandora Blackwood gave up espionage for love. She has shared everything with her husband… except the truth of her past. Twelve joyous years and three children later, her dark history rises to threaten everything she holds dear. Now she must face her greatest fear: can her husband love her for who she really is?
A Husband Wronged
Former officer Marcus Harrington, the Marquess of Blackwood, didn’t believe in love until he met his beautiful Penny. His devoted marchioness by day and his sensual wanton by night, she’s everything he’s ever wanted… until her betrayal shatters him. When his world comes crashing down, he is left to question: was their perfect marriage real or just a dream?
’Tis the Season for Miracles
As a cold winter grips Regency London, the estranged lovers come together in a heated reunion. Sizzling passion paves the way toward forgiveness, yet buried secrets and hidden enemies block the road to redemption. This Christmas, a wife will stop at nothing to win her beloved back… and a husband will discover that love’s reality exceeds his wildest dreams.
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Madame Restell
This is nonfiction about a woman who ran an abortion clinic in New York in the late 1800s. The amount of research is astounding and certainly adds some (depressing) historical perspective to a very current issue.
Discover the true story of a self-taught surgeon and trailblazing figure in medical history—Madame Restell, a revolutionary surgeon who fought for women’s rights and healthcare in Gilded Age New York.
An industrious immigrant who built her business from the ground up, Madame Restell was a self-taught surgeon on the cutting edge of healthcare in pre-Gilded Age New York, and her bustling “boarding house” provided birth control, abortions, and medical assistance to thousands of women—rich and poor alike. As her practice expanded, her notoriety swelled, and Restell established her-self as a prime target for tabloids, threats, and lawsuits galore. But far from fading into the background, she defiantly flaunted her wealth, parading across the city in designer clothes, expensive jewelry, and bejeweled carriages, rubbing her success in the faces of the many politicians, publishers, fellow physicians, and religious figures determined to bring her down.
Unfortunately for Madame Restell, her rise to the top of her field coincided with “the greatest scam you’ve never heard about”—the campaign to curtail women’s power by restricting their access to both healthcare and careers of their own. Powerful, secular men—threatened by women’s burgeoning independence—were eager to declare abortion sinful, a position endorsed by newly-minted male MDs who longed to edge out their feminine competition and turn medicine into a standardized, male-only practice. By unraveling the misogynistic and misleading lies that put women’s lives in jeopardy, Wright simultaneously restores Restell to her rightful place in history and obliterates the faulty reasoning underlying the very foundation of what has since been dubbed the “pro-life” movement.
Thought-provoking, character-driven, boldly written, and feminist as hell, Madame Restell is required reading for anyone and everyone who believes that when it comes to women’s rights, women’s bodies, and women’s history, women should have the last word.
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With Love, Mommie Dearest
This movie was part of my childhood, namely because my grandma and mom quoted it a lot (funnily enough they also had a contentious and abusive relationship) and because all hail Floridian queen Faye Dunaway. If you love Hollywood deep dives and have a fondness for Mommie Dearest, check this one out.
When she died in 1977, Joan Crawford was remembered as an icon of Hollywood’s Golden Age—until publication the following year of her daughter’s memoir, Mommie Dearest.
Christina Crawford’s book was an immediate bestseller, combining the infrequently discussed topic of child abuse with the draw of Hollywood drama.
But when Paramount Pictures released the film version, starring Faye Dunaway as Crawford, it was panned, and it remains one of the most legendary critical bombs in film history. The lavish, big-screen adaptation drew unexpected laughter for its over the top the scenes depicting life in the Crawford household. Rarely have such good intentions been met with such ridicule.
Despite this, the movie was a commercial success and remains, four decades later, immensely popular as an unintentional camp classic. Based on new interviews with people connected to the book and the film—from cast and crew members to industry insiders—With Love, Mommie Dearest details the writing and selling of Christina’s book and the aftermath of its publication, as well as the filming of the motion picture, whose backstage drama almost surpassed what was viewed on-screen in the film.
Hollywood historian A. Ashley Hoff explores the phenomenon, the camp, and the very real social issues addressed by the book and film.
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