Women Lead the Way

‘Looking at Women Looking at War’

If you read just one book, read Victoria Amelina’s Looking at Women Looking at War. When Russia invaded Ukraine three years ago this month, Amelina was a novelist living in Kyiv with her husband and son. War changed everything for the young woman who felt she had to do more. She volunteered to be a war crime researcher; she would bear witness to the atrocities inflicted on her country. Amelina began a diary detailing remarkable everyday women – and men – in the pursuit of justice for these resilient people fighting for their lives, their country, and their future. It is a powerful book, made even more remarkable because it is unfinished. Victoria Amelina died by missile attack July 1, 2023, while sitting in a café.

‘Tell Me What You Did’

I could not put down Carter Wilson’s Tell Me What You Did. Poe Webb was witness to her mother’s brutal murder when she was just thirteen. Now Poe hosts a popular true crime podcast inviting anyone who committed a crime to come on the show and talk about it. Her latest guest claims to be her mother’s murderer. But how can that be when Poe knows she killed the man responsible seven years ago? This thriller will keep you engaged and terrified for Poe who is equally hunter and hunted as she searches for the truth.

‘The Electric Love Song of Fleischel Berger’

Water and death and love consume David Rocklin’s haunting and beautiful The Electric Love Song of Fleischl Berger. Fleischl will always feel the pain of his mother’s death, and his near drowning at birth in the water off the Baltic Sea. Fleischl’s journey will take him from a small seaside village to Berlin, and the confluence of the Nazi rise to power with his own silent movie career. The book expertly explores the history of psychiatry and the invention of the EEG (the electroencephalogram – a real invention) which tests abnormalities in the brain waves. 

‘Homeseeking’

Karissa Chen writes a profoundly moving story that spans continents and generations in Homeseeking. Childhood friends in Shanghai, Succhi and Haiwen become separated by civil war when Haiwen enlists before he can propose to her. They will spend decades and travel the globe separately before unexpectedly reuniting in California. Although the romance is the heart of the story, Chen explores what and where home is, moving the story forward and backwards in time in a unique and heartfelt way.

‘Babylonia’

Babylonia by Costanza Casati will grab you on the first page. A historical epic, it is set in ancient Assyria. Semiramis is a poor girl living with an adopted parent who hits and hates her. When the conquering army marches through her village, she takes an opportunity to leave with the commanding general. Traveling to her new home – the capital of Assyria, Kalhu – Semiramis discovers her new husband’s close connection to the king, who despises her. Despite all the intrigues at court, Semiramis will claw her way to queenship (not a spoiler as this is based on myth and history). Casati keeps the story shooting forward with brutal battles, a deep love connection between the leading characters, and a woman’s place in power. As a side note, for fellow writers it is a masterclass in place, pace and prose.

‘Mask of the Deer Woman’

Laurie L. Dove introduces us to Carrie Starr in her new thriller Mask of the Deer Woman. A former Chicago detective, Carrie is out of work and forced to take the only job she can scrounge up, working as the lone marshal patrolling thousands of harsh acres on a reservation in Oklahoma. She doesn’t like it there, though it is where her father lived before marrying a white woman. Consumed with grief and alcohol for the loss of her daughter and her former life, Carrie dismisses the complaint of a woman who reports her daughter missing. It develops that over a dozen indigenous girls have vanished without a trace, or a proper investigation. Complicating her reluctant investigation is an oil company that wants to start fracking on the reservation. Everyone has a stake in keeping the missing girls missing.

‘We Rip the World Apart’

Kareela, a twenty-four-year-old mixed-race girl discovers she’s pregnant in the heartbreaking and page turning We Rip the World Apart by Charlene Carr. She is as conflicted about keeping the pregnancy as she is about keeping the boyfriend. Evelyn is her estranged mother, a white woman who married Kareela’s Jamaican father and fled the violence on the island in the 1980s. Rounding out a trio of complicated women is Violet, Evelyn’s mother-in-law, losing the last vestiges of independence. When Kareela’s brother is murdered, the women are shattered, each clinging to long buried secrets. I loved this one so much. It is as much about fear and what that does to us, as it is about how not speaking up can tear a family apart.

‘You’ll Never Believe Me’

I would be remiss if I did not leave you with one hilarious read about a grifter unapologetically kiting checks and landing in jail. Pick up Kari Ferrell’s memoir, You’ll Never Believe Me.