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Women’s History Month is the perfect time to learn about badass women of days gone by — but we also want to turn the spotlight onto women who are making history right now!
We’re kicking off Women’s History Month with a list of fresh new reads, including an eclectic mix of fiction and nonfiction, focusing on women past, present and future. From inspiring young readers with true stories of historical women who embody “shakti,” to having career questions answered by top women execs, to enjoying new female-led fantasy and sci-fi from some of the best women authors writing today, you’ll find your next great read on this list!
The Epic Mentor Guide: Insider Advice for Girls Eyeing the Workforce from 180 Boss Women Who Know by Illana Raia
The Epic Mentor Guide matches questions from girls eyeing and entering the workforce with answers from 180 boss women already there. Including interviews with TheSkimm founders, NASA astronauts, Olympic athletes and execs at companies like Billboard, Spotify, ESPN, NIKE, LEGO, TikTok, Google and the NYSE, this useful guide answers girls’ questions about their dream industries, covering diversity and inclusion, raising hands, speaking up and standing out. Created by Illana Raia, founder of the mentorship platform Être, and featuring women who remember what it felt like to take that first step on their career path, this book is for every girl building a future, from epic women who are building the pipeline.
Journey to the Heart Stone by Catherine Raphael
Journey to the Heart Stone is an epic fantasy full of adventure and intrigue about a heroine on a dangerous mission to restore her tribe’s matriarchal rule. The peaceful matriarchal societies of the Minca, Dute and Carroo tribes were destroyed when power-hungry Vestor assassinated his sister, the Mother Minca, and plunged the land into war, famine and despair. To restore balance, Vestor’s niece, Cora, takes on a treacherous quest to reunite emissaries of the three tribes at the Heart Stone — if she can find them. If she succeeds, she can overthrow her evil uncle and take her rightful place as Mother Minca. If she fails, she risks not only her own life, but the lives of everyone she loves.
CW: Violence, war themes.
Moral Code by Lois Melbourne and Ross Melbourne
Moral Code is a richly detailed science-fiction novel that follows Dr. Keira Stetson who is seeking to engineer ethical artificial intelligence: AI with a conscience. Intrigued (and alarmed) by her colleague Roy Brandt’s mysterious nanite technology, SmartDust, Keira merges her company with Brandt’s, embedding her trademark Moral Operating System in Brandt’s nanite tech to rein in its power. But when corporate raiders and the military seek to weaponize Brandt’s nanites, Keira must fight to keep the tech out of the wrong hands … before it’s too late.
CW: Attempted sexual assault, mention of violence against a minor, mention of sexual manipulation / trafficking of teens
The Hidden Heir by Rose D. Patruno
The Hidden Heir is the first novel in a thrilling new adult fantasy series, and follows magical Inga through her supernatural lessons with the handsome yet mystifying Biagio, and on an otherworldly journey to protect her family from the sorcerer hunting them. When long-forgotten family secrets begin to resurface, including a millennia-old sorcerer hunting Inga’s family, and young women suddenly disappearing across London, Inga must fight to secure her own fate, and the fate of those around her. Perfect for fans of the Off-Campus series and those who are over the alpha male trope!
CW: Discrimination (based on magical status), mention of child abuse, mention of slavery, mention of domestic abuse, mention of torture, allusion to (implied) abortion
Finding Jackie: A Life Reinvented by Oline Eaton
She was an era’s most celebrated, exposed, beloved, reviled, written about, and followed “star of life.” Jackie’s story — treated like a national soap opera and transmitted through newspapers, magazines, images, and TV during the 1960s and 1970s — became wired into America’s emotional grid. Touching down everywhere from London, Paris, the Watergate, and 1040 Fifth Avenue to Skorpios, Athens, Capri, and Phnom Penh, Finding Jackie returns Jackie’s narrative to its original context of a serialized drama unfurling alongside the Civil Rights movement, women’s liberation, and the Vietnam War.
The Child Riddler by Angela GreenmanIn The Child Riddler, Zoe Lorel has reached a good place in her life, despite the angry scars she carries from her childhood training, Her world is mostly perfect — until she is sent to abduct a 9-year-old girl. The girl is the only one who knows the riddle that holds the code to unleash the most lethal weapon on earth: the first ever “invisibility” nanoweapon, a cloaking spider bot. But Zoe’s agency isn’t the only one after the child. And when enemies reveal the invisibility weapon’s existence to underground arms dealers, every government and terrorist organization in the world want to find that little girl. Can Zoe protect the young girl and still protect the one thing she cares more about than anything else?
Shakti Girls by Shetal Shah
As a former history teacher at all-girls schools, Shetal Shah loved seeing young girls become inspired by powerful historical women, but there was one problem: She never saw any books in the classroom featuring Indian or Indian-American women like herself, so she decided to write one! Her new, beautifully illustrated book for kids ages 5 and up, Shakti Girls features the stories of 13 incredible Indian women who made an international impact in science, politics, math, activism and sports, and who embody “shakti”: feminine energy and strength, power, and a force to be reckoned with. A short glossary of English and Hindi words is provided on each page, and richly colored illustrations accompany the stories which are told in verse.
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