Women in Historical Fiction for Women’s History Month

The woman who discovered the double helix structure of DNA never won the Nobel Prize. Instead, that went to the men who used her research and claimed it for themselves, men whose names are written down in history books. Many people now know that Rosalind Franklin was the true genius behind the discovery of DNA’s structure, but in this historical novel, Benedict show just how relentless this pioneering scientist was in her experiments. And how her contributions were erased by the men around her.

Sisters in Arms tells the true story of the first and only all-Black battalion of the Women’s Army Corps during World War II. Grace Steele and Eliza Jones may come from very different backgrounds, but they’re going into the WAAC on equal footing, as the first class of female officers the army has ever seen, and the first group of Black women allowed to serve as part of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion. Overseas, the women of the Six Triple Eight will ensure that American servicemen receive world from their loved ones back home. But first, they’ll have to make it through bootcamp, and prove that in this experiment so many are determined to see fail, that they are tougher and more perfect than anyone.

When almost all the men are killed during a terrible storm in an isolated village in Finnmark, Norway, the women band together to keep their society afloat. But to outsiders, like the newly appointed Scottish witch hunter Absalom, this independence is something sinister that must be stamped out. To him, women in power–women surviving and thriving without men–is an affront to God. But his new, young wife and villagers like Maren Bergensdatter, who lost her father and brother to the sea, will not bend or break that easily.

Three very different women running to and from Key West face the unbridled fury of nature over one fateful weekend that would go down in history. One woman fleeing an abusive marriage, one searching for her missing brother, and one on a honeymoon with a man she barely knows find their lives forever changes as a hurricane barrels toward Key West in the 1930s, a devastating event that would eventually go by the name of The Labor Day Hurricane.

Past and present collide when August runs into a childhood friend who brings up memories of their time as girls together in 1970s Brooklyn. It was a time of friendship and possibility, but also heartache, as they learned that being girls and growing up isn’t always easy.