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My Notorious Life

Kate Manning · back to the book

What’s in it

Tap a tag: ❤ = this matters to me · tap again ✕ = don’t care · again to reset. The list below updates each time.

24 books with the same feel

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❤️

The Red Tent

Anita Diamant · 321 pages

Her name is Dinah. In the Bible, her life is only hinted at in a brief and violent detour within the more familiar chapters of the Book of Genesis that are about her father, Jacob, and his dozen sons. Told in Dinah's voice, this novel reveals the traditions and turmoils of ancient womanhood--the world of the red tent. It begins with the story of her mothers--Leah, Rachel, Zilpah, and Bilhah--the f

Reproductive HealthHealerFeminismHistorical Fiction
❤️

Midwives

Chris Bohjalian · 312 pages

Sibyl is a respected midwife, accused of murder after she performs a caesarian on a mother whom she believes to have died of a stroke during a long and difficult labour. A trial ensues to decide whether Sibyl has committed murder. The story is told from Sibyl's daughter's viewpoint.

HealerReproductive HealthFeminismFirst Person Narrator
❤️

The Birth House

Ami McKay · 387 pages

An arresting portrait of the struggles that women faced for control of their own bodies, The Birth House is the story of Dora Rare—the first daughter in five generations of Rares.As apprentice to the outspoken Acadian midwife Miss Babineau, Dora learns to assist the women of an isolated Nova Scotian village through infertility, difficult labors, breech births, unwanted pregnancies, and unfulfillin

HealerReproductive HealthFeminismHistorical Fiction
❤️

Terrible Virtue

Ellen Feldman · 274 pages

A fictional portrait of one of the most influential figures of the twentieth century follows the founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, who sacrificed two husbands, three children, and scores of lovers in her fight for sexual equality and freedom. The daughter of a hard-drinking, smooth-tongued free thinker and a mother worn down by thirteen children, Margaret Sanger vowed her life would

Reproductive HealthFeminismNew York CityHistorical Fiction
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Murder on Waverly Place

Victoria Thompson

Victoria Thompson once again “vividly recreates the gaslit world of New York.”(Publishers Weekly)Sarah Brandt is not completely surprised when her very proper mother asks her to attend a seance. She knows that Mrs. Decker still carries great guilt over the death of her older daughter, Maggie. So Sarah accompanies her and the spiritualist does seem to contact Maggie—convincing Mrs. Decker to attend

HealerNew York CityVictorian EraHistorical Fiction
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The Chaperone

Laura Moriarty · 419 pages

"A novel about the friendship between an adolescent, pre-movie-star Louise Brooks, and the 36-year-old woman who chaperones her to New York City for a summer, in 1922, and how it changes both their lives"--

OrphansNew York CityFeminismHistorical Fiction
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Meet Samantha: An American Girl

Susan S. Adler · 61 pages

In 1904, nine-year-old Samantha, an orphan living with her wealthy grandmother, and her servant friend Nellie have a midnight adventure when they try to find out what has happened to the seamstress who suddenly left her job.

OrphansVictorian EraFeminismHistorical Fiction
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Belle Cora

Phillip Margulies · 719 pages

A sweeping historical tale based on the life and times of the daughter of a New York merchant finds the orphaned Belle suffering at the hands of a rival cousin before working as a prostitute and transforming herself repeatedly to win the love and life she desires.

OrphansNew York CityHistorical FictionFirst Person Narrator
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A Kiss For Midwinter

Courtney Milan · 129 pages

"Miss Lydia Charingford is always cheerful, and never more so than at Christmas time. But no matter how hard she smiles, she can't forget the youthful mistake that could have ruined her reputation. Even though the worst of her indiscretion was kept secret, one other person knows the truth of those dark days: the sarcastic Doctor Jonas Grantham. She wants nothing to do with him ... or the butterfli

HealerVictorian EraFeminismHistorical Fiction
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The Secret Garden

Frances Hodgson Burnett · 256 pages

A ten-year-old orphan comes to live in a lonely house on the Yorkshire moors where she discovers an invalid cousin and the mysteries of a locked garden.

HealerOrphansVictorian EraFemale Lead
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Year of Wonders

Geraldine Brooks · 310 pages

This is the story of a young woman's struggle to save her family and her soul during the year of 1666, when plague suddenly visits her small Derbyshire village and the villagers, inspired by a charismatic preacher, elect to quarantine themselves.

HealerFeminismHistorical FictionFirst Person Narrator
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The Clan of the Cave Bear

Jean M. Auel · 497 pages

The Clan of the Cave Bear is a 1980 novel and epic work of prehistoric fiction by Jean M. Auel about prehistoric times. It is the first book in the Earth's Children book series, which speculates on the possibilities of interactions between Neanderthal and modern Cro-Magnon humans. ---------- Also contained in: [Earth's Children](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL2746374W)

HealerOrphansFeminismHistorical Fiction
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Jane Eyre

Evelyn Attwood · 160 pages

OrphansVictorian EraFeminismFirst Person Narrator
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Illuminations

Mary Sharratt

HealerFeminismHistorical FictionFirst Person Narrator
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The Autobiography of a Turkish Girl

Resat Nuri Guntekin · 328 pages

OrphansHealerFirst Person NarratorFemale Lead
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These Shallow Graves

Jennifer Donnelly · 491 pages

Jo Montfort is beautiful and rich, and soon like all the girls in her class she ll graduate from finishing school and be married off to a wealthy bachelor. Which is the last thing she wants. Jo dreams of becoming a writer a newspaper reporter like the trailblazing Nellie Bly. Wild aspirations aside, Jo s life seems perfect until tragedy strikes.

New York CityVictorian EraFeminismHistorical Fiction
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A Spy in the House

Y.S. Lee · 335 pages

Rescued from the gallows in 1850s London, young orphan and thief Mary Quinn is offered a place at Miss Scrimshaw's Academy for Girls where she is trained to be part of an all-female investigative unit called The Agency and, at age seventeen, she infiltrates a rich merchant's home in hopes of tracing his missing cargo ships.

OrphansFeminismVictorian EraHistorical Fiction
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An Inconvenient Wife

Megan Chance · 418 pages

AN INCONVENIENT WIFE is a rich blend of suspense, social history (America in the 1880s), and passion. Chance delivers a powerfully written page-turner about a woman's struggle to escape the confines of her time, class, and gender. Literary historical fiction is an extremely popular genre, as demonstrated by such bestsellers as Matthew Pearl's "The Dante Club (Random House, 2/03) and Michael Fabe

New York CityFeminismVictorian EraHistorical Fiction
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The Egyptian

Mika Waltari · 507 pages

HealerOrphansFirst Person NarratorHistorical Fiction
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Pope Joan

Donna Woolfolk Cross · 448 pages

HealerFeminismHistorical FictionRags to Riches
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Changes for Samantha: A Winter Story

Valerie Tripp · 66 pages

When she discovers that Nellie and her sisters have been sent to an orphanage, Samantha, now living with her aunt and uncle in New York City, tries to help her friends as much as she can.

OrphansNew York CityVictorian EraHistorical Fiction
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Secondhand Charm

Julie Berry · 352 pages

In a secluded village, magic sparkles on the edges of the forest. There, a young girl named Evie possesses unusually strong powers as a healer. A gypsy's charms—no more than trinkets when worn by others—are remarkably potent when Evie ties them around her neck. Her talents, and charms, have not escaped the notice of the shy stonemason's apprentice. But Evie wants more than a quiet village and the

HealerOrphansFirst Person NarratorFemale Lead
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The Glass of Time

Michael Cox · 586 pages

Taking a job as a Victorian lady's maid in the household of baroness Tansor, nineteen-year-old orphan Esperanza Gorst hides the truth about her mission to uncover her mistress's secrets about a past injustice that has affected Esperanza's own life. By the author of The Meaning of Night.

OrphansVictorian EraFirst Person NarratorHistorical Fiction
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Jane Steele

Lyndsay Faye · 432 pages

A Gothic retelling of Jane Eyre. Like the heroine of the novel she adores, Jane Steele suffers cruelly at the hands of her aunt and schoolmaster. And like Jane Eyre, they call her wicked - but in her case, she fears the accusation is true. When she flees, she leaves behind the corpses of her tormentors. A fugitive navigating London's underbelly, Jane rights wrongs on behalf of the have-nots

OrphansVictorian EraHistorical FictionFirst Person Narrator

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