Historical Activists

Fighting for what's right AND each other

Jul 21, 2023

Between women’s rights, workers rights, and reproductive healthcare rights, these three books have you covered with characters who fight the good fight in and out of the bedroom.

A Rogue of One's Own by Evie Dunmore. One of the earliest romance novels I read in my current 1.5 year sprint, and it remains one of my favorites.

Lady Lucie is the leader of a group of Oxford suffragettes with the current goal of overturning the Married Ladies Property Act which was the statute barring women from owning anything (personal property, a business, a home) once they were married. She’s carved out a little life for herself to wage this war thanks to the inheritance from a kooky aunt who didn’t mind she wasn’t behaving the way her parents wanted; a little house, a housekeeper, and a cat named Boudicca. Next up, she’s got her eye on a publishing company so she can use a popular women’s magazine’s circulation to publish findings of a survey she and her crew had taken about the woes of married women.

Unfortunately, instead of her shares giving her the majority of the publishing company, she finds herself the co-owner in equal part to an old frenemy, Tristan “coded as bisexual, openly a disaster” Ballentine, who has his own reasons for wanting a new business venture. He’s as dissatisfied as Lucy is about the situation, since he’s sure her little activist publication will immediately tank the business and he needs something financially sustainable. But as they work together and unlearn some of their biases, it becomes clear that they have a lot more in common than they expected, and perhaps they can gain more as allies towards both of their causes.

There are certain scenes from this book that are so perfect I will reread just them when I need a boost. The letter sorting scene! IYKYK

Rating: 5/5

How hot? 🔥🔥🔥

The Rebel and the Rake by Emily Sullivan. Two people with hidden pasts and motives, Rafe Davies and Miss Sylvia Sparrow, find themselves at a house party together and bonded by a blackmailing plot that could throw off the rest of their lives. Rafe’s an undercover spy who has complicated feelings about crown and country, and Sylvia’s working as a secretary and lady’s companion hiding from a past where she was turned out of a social reform group for suggesting women’s suffrage ought to be included in the conversation. Can a renowned (if slightly publicly over-exaggerated) rake and a feisty bluestocking work together long enough to solve their problems and fall in love?

I mean. Yes.

Forced proximity, check! Checkered pasts, check! Loudly being pro-women and laborers on page, check check check! Emily Sullivan only has three books out so far (same as Evie Dunmore, actually, though she’s got a new one coming up this year) but they’re all bangers, so if you love fiercely feminist historical romance, add her to your library holds right away.

Rating: 4.75/5

How hot? 🔥🔥🔥🔥

The Duke Gets Even by Joanna Shupe. Joanna Shupe’s latest is the finale of her Fifth Avenue Rebels series, and you really should read it in order, because these two dopes have been circling each other for three books now and it’s finally their turn for a happily ever after!

The stuffy, proper Duke of Lockwood is broke and in NYC on the hunt for an heiress. He’s been jilted on multiple occasions by a rich young woman whose reputation is beyond reproach, twice by heroines from earlier in the series as a major plot point, and he’s running out of options to revive his flagging estate back in England.

So naturally, Nellie Young is a terrible choice, what with her ruining her own reputation years prior to escape the shackles of matrimony. However, her life of freedom isn’t quite as fulfilling these days, because of a sexy encounter with a stranger who turned out to be a duke about to get engaged to her best friend (wonder who he turned out to be…) that’s left her feeling all sorts of ways, and all her friends finding their happy ever afters and leaving her more alone than before.

Nellie’s past might be forgiven as Lockwood falls deeper in love with her against his prejudices (if she’ll even have him, which she’s on the fence about), but now she’s also embroiled in advocating for women’s healthcare rights and has been personally paying for contraceptives for low income women which has gotten her into some hot water with authorities, and she shows no signs of backing down from this fight that’s, sadly, still relevant even in 2023.