Guest post written by author Tori Whitaker
Tori Whitaker is the bestselling author of Millicent Glenn’s Last Wish and A Matter of Happiness. She belongs to the Bourbon Women Association and the Historical Novel Society. Her work has appeared in the Historical Novels Review and Bookmarks magazine. Tori graduated from Indiana University, is an alum of the Yale Writers’ Workshop, and is recently retired from a national law firm where she served as chief marketing officer. She spent a decade in Detroit because of her husband’s career in the automotive industry. The two now reside near their children outside Atlanta and have been married for forty-five happy years.
When I think of powerhouse women, my mind doesn’t jump to high-ranking corporate officials, especially for historical fiction characters. In my second novel, A Matter of Happiness, a former 1920s flapper leaves her great-great-great niece with lessons that change her life. Love of family: that’s powerful. Yet here I explore other ways women are powerhouses—from a pioneer of flight to a heroine of war to a woman righting a wrong . . . and from one woman young and hungry to make her mark to one at the twilight of her career who changes a body of knowledge.
Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead
In this beautifully written epic story, Marian Graves is an infant in 1914 when a sinking ocean liner leaves her orphaned. She is raised by her uncle in Montana and meets two barnstorming pilots who set off in her a deep-seeded need to fly. A century later, movie star Hadley Baxter will play the adventurous pilot who’d gone missing while flying around the world. I loved how Marian faces challenges, decisions, mistakes, and losses but stays true to herself despite risks.
Code Name Hélène by Ariel Lawhon
Lawhon brings to life Nancy Wake: gutsy journalist, rich man’s wife, and one of the most daring undercover leaders of the French Resistance. This story is about one of my all-time favorite kick-butt heroines—and it’s based on a woman who really lived. Unforgettable imagery and dialogue.
Take My Hand by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
Erica and India are children in 1970s Alabama, poor and living in a shanty. Through Perkins-Valdez’s compassionate story-telling and exquisite sensory detail, we learn of how the federal government supported mistreatment of these girls’ bodies . . . and a legal trial that ensues. Civil Townsend had entered nursing to make a positive difference in her black community. And she does exactly that. Yet with her caring heart, she wishes she’d done more. I couldn’t hold back tears in reading this story, partly inspired by true events.
Woman on Fire by Lisa Barr
This novel might be a thriller, but it has some of the most heart wrenching flashbacks to WWII that I’ve read yet. The story surrounds a famous portrait stolen by Nazis and the two people racing to find it decades later: the dying man whose family was connected to the painting and a ruthless millionaire art collector. Jules Roth is the young journalist who risks her life, her rising career, and even her heart to find the painting first. A page turner!
The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish
Historian Helen Watt is near the end of her career when a trove of Jewish documents from the 1600s is discovered. She’s determined to identify the papers’ scribe—cementing her legacy in her field. But a rival academic craves the glory, too. Told in exquisite prose, this is a dual timeline story of two powerhouse women born centuries apart.
