BookBrowse Editorial Review
The Lost Book of Elizabeth Barton: A Novel
by Jennifer N. Brown
(6/10/2026)
Brown's descriptions of the English countryside, both in the 1500s and today, are beautiful, and the book's scenes of academic life are perfectly, specifically rendered... But perhaps the most masterful aspect of the novel is Brown's breadcrumbing of clues. Even the most astute readers, however, will gasp more than once through this twist-filled plot.
BookBrowse Editorial Review
Homebound: A Novel
by Portia Elan
(5/6/2026)
This depth of character is a strong element of Elan's writing; another compelling quality is the variety of forms and styles she employs for the various characters... I won't spoil how the reader gets to see the story of Lieutenant California Solo, a mysterious heroine whose rescue mission in outer space connects the rest of the stories, but suffice to say that Solo's narration was my favorite part of the book, in no small part due to Elan's unique style of presenting Solo's story.
BookBrowse Editorial Review
As Many Souls as Stars by Natasha Siegel
(1/14/2026)
The sexual tension is strong between the two main characters throughout the novel, and Siegel emphasizes their physical closeness and attraction in multiple key scenes... The story is a playful, charged cat-in-mouse game—while Miriam is ostensibly hunting Cybil/Esther/Rosamund down for her soul, and the Harding in each generation is ostensibly focused on breaking the curse, the characters often become distracted by their desire for one another.
BookBrowse Editorial Review
Bog Queen: A Novel
by Anna North
(10/22/2025)
North paints a vibrant, lively portrait of Celtic England, from small villages to large Roman cities, and also draws a parallel between the post-Brexit world of Alice's storyline and the rapidly globalizing, Romanizing world that the druid inhabits. Both young women travel to new places: Alice comes from the hot, dry American Southwest to England, and the druid leaves her cold, isolated village to meet the region's king in his urbanized capital city. From just her short visit, it's clear that th
BookBrowse Editorial Review
The Frozen River: A Novel
by Ariel Lawhon
(2/7/2024)
Martha's stories of attending births and delivering babies are some of the best scenes, allowing Lawhon to demonstrate her talent for capturing dramatic events while also developing full, well-rounded characters, even when they only appear for a few pages. The Frozen River is Martha Ballard's story, developed down to the finest details in a way that A Midwife's Tale, given its purpose as a work of academic literature and its source's brevity, could not be. For fans of historical fi
BookBrowse Editorial Review
The Dance of the Dolls by Lucy Ashe
(9/6/2023)
Much of the story occurs in a tight space of time — though the book itself stretches through several months, the action on the page concentrates on the same performances, the same parties, and even the same conversations between characters' chapters. This makes it somewhat confusing to follow the plot, as the thread becomes tangled and readers see the same situations playing out repeatedly. Regardless of any confusion brought on by multiple narrators, each point-of-view character is more t
BookBrowse Editorial Review
Ink Blood Sister Scribe: A Novel
by Emma Törzs
(6/21/2023)
In Ink Blood Sister Scribe, magic flows through some families like blood, and the worldbuilding perfectly exemplifies that concept by making blood necessary for ritual spellwork. Descriptions of the ink-making process, from selecting the herbal components to drawing large quantities of blood to infusing the ink with magic, range from heart-wrenchingly intimate to chillingly clinical. Although some things stay behind the magician's curtain, the system of magic is well developed and explain
BookBrowse Editorial Review
Beyond That, the Sea: A Novel
by Laura Spence-Ash
(4/19/2023)
Life seems to dangle, frozen, and each moment is perfectly captured by Spence-Ash, whose incredibly compelling descriptive narrative opens brief windows into the characters' lives. We also follow Beatrix's parents, back in London, in stark contrast to the life their daughter leads. Though she longs to return home, she is aware that her experiences of growing up will now always be split between two families in two countries — two very different worlds. The characters' stories do not conclud
BookBrowse Editorial Review
The New Life: A Novel
by Tom Crewe
(3/1/2023)
The protagonists of The New Life are based on two real-life figures — John Addington Symond and Havelock Ellis — who co-wrote a historical-scientific text called Sexual Inversion, just like in the novel. However, as Crewe mentions in his afterword, he fictionalized these figures through his characterization of their interactions. In reality, the two never met, communicating exclusively through mail, and Symond died before the book was published, whereas in The New Li
BookBrowse Editorial Review
Factory Girls by Michelle Gallen
(1/18/2023)
Gallen walks her narrative tightrope perfectly, balancing within Maeve's first-person account a story grounded in the horrific realities around her with the more ordinary — but still impactful, both to the protagonist and to readers — pains of growing up and of seeing one's girlhood fading rapidly away. Though Maeve (like Gallen) had a childhood scarred with violence, the harsh emergence into adulthood still comes as a shock. Gallen tempers this somewhat by adding flashback scenes th
BookBrowse Editorial Review
Act of Oblivion: A Novel
by Robert Harris
(11/2/2022)
Harris's choice to switch points of view between the colonels and Nayler works well for several reasons and gives the book its unique, humanizing flair. The technique allows him to make full use of both England and the American colonies as settings; between the multiple storylines, it is practically impossible for readers to get bored or guess what is coming next. During the London chapters, Harris adds another narrator — Frances Goffe, Whalley's daughter and William Goffe's wife. The auth
BookBrowse Editorial Review
The Swift and the Harrier by Minette Walters
(9/7/2022)
Walters presents her readers with many examples of brave women who, in their own ways, fight in the war. The male character whose bravery Walters focuses on the most is William Harrier, who of course forms the latter half of the titular duo with Jayne. Though their interactions seem too few and infrequent to generate the kind of relationship that develops between them by the end of the novel, the intensity of their similarities (their shared desire for independence, change and equality) certainl
BookBrowse Editorial Review
Four Treasures of the Sky: A Novel
by Jenny Tinghui Zhang
(5/4/2022)
Zhang depicts Daiyu's time in a San Francisco brothel delicately but forcefully — exactly as Daiyu wields her calligraphy brush. The stories of the young women among whom she lives and works are heartbreaking, and Zhang delivers feelings of real tension and urgency as Daiyu plans her escape. Despite hardship unimaginable to many, the times when Daiyu finds genuine joy in Four Treasures of the Sky filled me with happiness. Her love of storytelling may be the best example of this joy,
BookBrowse Editorial Review
Scoundrel: How a Convicted Murderer Persuaded the Women Who Loved Him, the Conservative Establishment, and the Courts to Set Him Free
by Sarah Weinman
(4/20/2022)
Of course, it is impossible to give a voice back to Edgar Smith's first victim, whose life he stole over six decades ago. But through the tireless work of Sarah Weinman, Scoundrel begins to resolve some of the issues that occur when those who inflict harm are given more attention than those they target. Rather than exploit the suffering of the women hurt by Smith (both of his wives, his mother, the woman he killed, the woman he tried to kill, the girlfriends sprinkled throughout his time
BookBrowse Editorial Review
Antoinette's Sister by Diana Giovinazzo
(3/2/2022)
Even though many people who pick up this book will know the ending of Marie Antoinette's life, fewer will know the details of Charlotte's. This intelligent queen was part of one of Europe's most powerful families; her mother, Maria Theresa, was the only female ruler of the Holy Roman Empire. Yet that is not to say that she is a perfect character. Especially after her sister's violent death, Charlotte takes her anti-France sentiment (which has led her to outlaw French customs and language in her
BookBrowse Editorial Review
A Net for Small Fishes by Lucy Jago
(1/5/2022)
On the whole, Jago paints a realistic, believable portrait of early 17th-century London. I particularly enjoyed her close attention to describing the dress of nobility; as her narrator Anne is a tailor and fashion designer, it made sense for those details to be the ones that stood out. Rather than focusing on James's relationships with his favorites, Jago places women at the center of this story in a way that is often not seen in historical narrative.
BookBrowse Editorial Review
The Turnout by Megan Abbott
(10/6/2021)
The Turnout showcases how the most beautiful things can hide the darkest ones within the shadows, and how, sometimes, we must go through horrific ordeals to reach the light. As in Give Me Your Hand, Abbott's 2018 novel about the grueling world of scientific research through the eyes of two high-school friends forever bound by a shocking secret, every line of prose in The Turnout sings with the author's unique, poetic voice. One of my favorite lines is her description of the
