Bargain @ $1.99-$2.99 for some historical fiction about historical women, by modern women novelists (prices should be the same in the usual stores in Canada & the US):
@ $1.99 (non-couponable) from Crown/Archetype and HarperCollins:
- Nefertiti by Michelle Moran (Wikipedia), 1st in a series of standalones about Egyptian royalty, this one about the chief consort (Wikipedia) of the heretic pharoah Akhenaten, fabled as the most beautiful woman in the world.
- Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross (Wikipedia), building on the popular legend of the probably-fictional medieval female pope (Wikipedia).
- The Countess: A Novel of Elizabeth Bathory by Rebecca Johns (Wikipedia), about the infamous 16th century Hungarian noblewoman (Wikipedia) reputed to be among the inspirations for the Dracula legends.
- The Royal Nanny by Karen Harper (SYKM, Wikipedia; also the author of a series of historical murder mysteries starring Elizabeth I, of which I've read a couple that seemed reasonably well-done), about Charlotte Bill (Wikipedia), who was a nanny to the children of the future King George V & Queen Mary, whom I first learned about from a Stephen Poliakoff film, The Lost Prince (Wikipedia), which is pretty decent (I have a Blu-Ray copy somewhere). ETA: some of her romantic suspense novels are also on sale for $0.99-$2.99, if you're interested.
- Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates (Wikipedia), about Marilyn Monroe. This one was a finalist for the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, according to its Wikipedia entry.
@ $2.99 (couponable/VIP-eligible) from Sourcebooks Landmark:
The Tudor Rose by the late Margaret Campbell Barnes (
Fantastic Fiction), a vintage historical novel about Elizabeth of York (
Wikipedia), 3rd in her Shadows of the Crown sequence about famous troubled English queens, originally published in 1953.
@ $1.99 (non-couponable) from the Random Penguin House's Ballantine Books acquisition for an sfnal novel:
The Virgin's Daughter by Laura Andersen (
ISFDB), 1st in her Tudor Legacy trilogy of speculative what-if alternate history drama novels, this one positing what if Elizabeth I had married and had a legitimate daughter as her heir (the author has previously written a trilogy about what-if Anne Boleyn had given Henry VIII a living son, and apparently this is the sequel to that), which looks mildly interesting, and a decent low cost to try.