I had the opportunity to join the “Celebrating Forgotten Women in History” book event hosted by Sourcebooks, featuring authors Marie Benedict, Kate Moore, Heather Webb, and Katharine Gregorio to discuss their latest books in celebration of Women’s History Month.

Each of these books are based on true events involving women in our history that we often don’t hear about. From DNA discovery to immigration journeys, these books will inspire, educate, and transform what we know of our past.

I must say that each and every single one of these ladies is absolutely amazing. Not only are their books about inspiring women in history, but they themselves are an inspiration too!

Take a look at these incredible stories and snag a copy from your local bookstore, or order at Bookshop.org using our affiliate links below.

 

“To offer a new lens for people to look at the past with, and shift the way we look at our world through that new lens.”

Marie Benedict

About the Book

Celebrating Women’s History Month with these fabulous authors

Her Hidden Genius

Author: Marie Benedict
Pages: 304
ISBN: 1728229391
Genre: Cultural, History
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Released: January 25, 2022

Goodreads

Synopsis

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Mystery of Mrs. Christie and The Only Woman in the Room.

Rosalind Franklin has always been an outsider―brilliant, but different. Whether working at the laboratory she adored in Paris or toiling at a university in London, she feels closest to the science, those unchanging laws of physics and chemistry that guide her experiments. When she is assigned to work on DNA, she believes she can unearth its secrets.

Rosalind knows if she just takes one more X-ray picture―one more after thousands―she can unlock the building blocks of life. Never again will she have to listen to her colleagues complain about her, especially Maurice Wilkins who'd rather conspire about genetics with James Watson and Francis Crick than work alongside her.
Then it finally happens―the double helix structure of DNA reveals itself to her with perfect clarity. But what unfolds next, Rosalind could have never predicted.

Marie Benedict's powerful new novel shines a light on a woman who sacrificed her life to discover the nature of our very DNA, a woman whose world-changing contributions were hidden by the men around her but whose relentless drive advanced our understanding of humankind.


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Our Review

 

The act of reading in itself is a tribute to the women I write about; it’s such an important thing to me that their stories are being remembered.

Kate Moore

About the Book

Celebrating Women’s History Month with these fabulous authors

The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear

Author: Kate Moore
Pages: 560
ISBN: 1492696722
Genre: History, Nonfiction
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Released: June 22, 2021

Goodreads

Synopsis

From the award-winning, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Radium Girls.

1860: As the clash between the states rolls slowly to a boil, Elizabeth Packard, housewife and mother of six, is facing her own battle. The enemy sits across the table and sleeps in the next room. Her husband of twenty-one years is plotting against her because he feels increasingly threatened - by Elizabeth's intellect, independence, and unwillingness to stifle her own thoughts. So Theophilus makes a plan to put his wife back in her place. One summer morning, he has her committed to an insane asylum.

The horrific conditions inside the Illinois State Hospital in Jacksonville, Illinois, are overseen by Dr. Andrew McFarland, a man who will prove to be even more dangerous to Elizabeth than her traitorous husband. But most disturbing is that Elizabeth is not the only sane woman confined to the institution. There are many rational women on her ward who tell the same story: they've been committed not because they need medical treatment, but to keep them in line - conveniently labeled "crazy" so their voices are ignored.

No one is willing to fight for their freedom and, disenfranchised both by gender and the stigma of their supposed madness, they cannot possibly fight for themselves. But Elizabeth is about to discover that the merit of losing everything is that you then have nothing to lose...


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Our Review

 

“I like to show that there’s more than one side to things, and that they are rarely black and white. The beauty is in the gray.”

HEATHER wEBB

About the Book

Celebrating Women’s History Month with these fabulous authors

The Next Ship Home: A Novel of Ellis Island

Author: Heather Webb
Pages: 432
ISBN: 1728243149
Genre: Historical Fiction, History
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Released: February 8, 2022

Goodreads

Synopsis

From the USA Today bestselling and award-winning author, Heather Webb.

Ellis Island, 1902: Two women band together to hold America to its promise: "Give me your tired, your poor..."

Francesca arrives on the shores of America, her sights set on a better life than the one she left in Italy. That same day, aspiring linguist Alma reports to her first day of work at the immigrant processing center. Ellis, though, is not the refuge it first appears thanks to President Roosevelt's attempts to deter crime. Francesca and Alma will have to rely on each other to escape its corruption and claim the American dreams they were promised.

A thoughtful historical inspired by true events, this novel probes America's history of prejudice and exclusion—when entry at Ellis Island promised a better life but often delivered something drastically different, immigrants needed strength, resilience, and friendship to fight for their futures.


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Our Review

 

“This book is an example of one person being able to change the world; that just one individual can make a difference.

KATHARINE GREGORIO

About the Book

Celebrating Women’s History Month with these fabulous authors

The Double Life of Katharine Clark: The Untold Story of the Fearless Journalist Who Risked Her Life for Truth and Justice

Author: Katharine Gregorio
Pages: 384
ISBN: 1728248418
Genre: Nonfiction
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Released: April 15, 2022

Goodreads

Synopsis

In 1955, Katharine Clark, the first American woman wire reporter behind the Iron Curtain, saw something none of her male colleagues did. What followed became one of the most unusual adventure stories of the Cold War.

While on assignment in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, Clark befriended a man who, by many definitions, was her enemy. But she saw something in Milovan Djilas, a high-ranking Communist leader who dared to question the ideology he helped establish, that made her want to work with him. It became the assignment of her life.

Against the backdrop of protests in Poland and a revolution in Hungary, she risked her life to ensure Djilas's work made it past the watchful eye of the Yugoslavian secret police to the West. She single-handedly was responsible for smuggling his scathing anti-Communism manifesto, The New Class, out of Yugoslavia and into the hands of American publishers. The New Class would go on to sell three million copies worldwide, become a New York Times bestseller, be translated into over 60 languages, and be used by the CIA in its covert book program.

Meticulously researched and written by Clark's great-niece, Katharine Gregorio, The Double Life of Katharine Clark illuminates a largely untold chapter of the twentieth century. It shows how a strong-willed, fiercely independent woman with an ardent commitment to truth, justice and freedom put her life on the line to share ideas with the world, ultimately transforming both herself―and history―in the process.


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Our Review

 

About the Authors

About Heather Webb

Heather Webb is the USA Today bestselling and award-winning author of seven historical novels. In 2015, Rodin’s Lover was a Goodread’s Top Pick, and in 2018, Last Christmas in Paris won the Women’s Fiction Writers Association STAR Award. Meet Me in Monaco, was selected as a finalist for the 2020 Goldsboro RNA award in the UK, as well as the 2019 Digital Book World’s Fiction prize. To date, Heather’s books have been translated to sixteen languages. She lives in New England with her family, a mischievous kitten, and one feisty rabbit.

About Kate Moore

Kate Moore is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Radium Girls, which won the 2017 Goodreads Choice Award for Best History, was voted U.S. librarians’ favorite nonfiction book of 2017, and was named a Notable Nonfiction Book of 2018 by the American Library Association.

Since publication, Kate has personally presented the story of the radium girls in close to thirty states. Her latest book, The Woman They Could Not Silence, publishes in June 2021.

A British writer based in London, Kate writes across a variety of genres and has had multiple titles on the Sunday Times bestseller list. She has written more than fifteen books and her work has been translated into more than 12 languages.

Her passion as a writer is to help people to have a voice, especially those silenced through injustice. With every book, she hopes to take readers on a visceral journey so that they too can experience the extraordinary lives of others.

About Katharine Gregorio

Katharine Gregorio was inspired to write The Double Life of Katharine Clark when she uncovered a family secret about her great-aunt who worked as a foreign correspondent in Europe during the height of the Cold War.  Years in the making, Katharine leveraged her degrees in history from Dartmouth College and international relations from The London School of Economics & Political Science in her quest to unravel the story.  She also holds a masters in business administration from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business.  Katharine resides with her family in San Francisco.

About Marie Benedict

Marie Benedict is a lawyer with more than ten years' experience as a litigator at two of the country's premier law firms, who found her calling unearthing the hidden historical stories of women. Her mission is to excavate from the past the most important, complex and fascinating women of history and bring them into the light of present-day where we can finally perceive the breadth of their contributions as well as the insights they bring to modern day issues.

Author of The Other Einstein, Carnegie’s Maid, The Only Woman in the Room, and Lady Clementine, The Mystery of Mrs. Christie, The Personal Librarian, and Her Hidden Genius, views herself as an archaeologist, telling the untold stories of women. She is a lawyer in Pittsburgh, where she lives with her family.

Writing as Heather Terrell, Marie also published the historical novels The Chrysalis, The Map Thief, and Brigid of Kildare. ​Marie's novels have been translated into twenty-nine languages.

 

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