Racheline Maltese, one of the authors of Serial Box’s Tremontaine, shares a list of 10 diverse books with powerful protagonists.
About ‘Tremontaine’
Welcome to Tremontaine, where ambition, love affairs, and rivalries dance with deadly results. In this serial, Ellen Kushner and a team of writers return readers to the world of scandal and swordplay introduced in her cult-classic novel Swordspoint. Readers familiar with the series will find a welcome homecoming while new fans will learn what makes Riverside a place they will want to visit again and again. Tremontaine follows Diane, Duchess Tremontaine, whose beauty is matched only by her cunning; Rafe Fenton, a handsome young scholar with more passion than sense; Ixkaab Balam, a tradeswoman from afar with skill for swords and secrets; and Micah, a gentle genius whose discoveries herald revolution. Sparks fly as these four lives intersect in a world where politics is everything, and outcasts are the tastemakers. Tread carefully, dear reader, and keep your wit as sharp as your steel.
10 books for women who take no shit by Racheline Maltese
As I’ve worked as a writer and producer on the third season of serialized-fiction project Tremontaine, one of our directives has been to focus on the “three queens” of the city in which this fantasy of manners and swordplay transpires. With widely different personal backgrounds, styles, and agendas, the women of Tremontaine are strong, but more importantly, they are fully present, and wildly sick of other people trying to control their destinies.
In fact, books centering on complex women who — whether they’re warriors, witches, politicians, or party girls — take no shit, is one thing I can’t get enough of in 2017 (also known as this-year-of-I-really-hope-this-mess-is-just-a-computer simulation).
With power, anger, humor, cleverness, and slyness, here are some books I’m reading, not just for escape, but for some serious how-to-cope.
‘Dreadnought’ by April Daniels
For Danny Tozer, becoming a superhero should be awesome. But when this transgender girl gets the body she’s always thought she should have, along with a bunch of superpowers, she not only has to save the world, but deal with all sorts of day-to-day hassles — like the best friend who thinks he’s now totally entitled to date her. Danny is practical, funny, and, despite being in way over her head, really good in a crisis — which is generally what you want when an evil cyborg shows up.
‘Dread Nation’ by Justina Ireland
Despite not being out until April 2018, this may be the book you see on every list this year. With an alternate history setting that involves the Civil War having been interrupted by zombies, it’s easy to see why. Jane McKeene, a combat-trained bisexual heroine of color, is the star of Dread Nation’s action, politics, and incredibly detailed world-building. Jane shines as a heroine who knows the rules — and what she thinks of them. Justina Ireland’s vision successfully dodges many of the pitfalls common to alternate history projects with stunning precision while also managing to make zombies interesting again.
‘Winterlong’ by Elizabeth Hand
Wendy Wanders lives in a post-apocalyptic Washington D.C., where the truth of our current society has been lost to myth. Able to access the emotions of those around her and rendered wildly vulnerable because of that gift, Wendy embarks on a journey to reunite with her long-lost brother, Raphael, who may also be the embodiment of a boy named Death. As she travels through the Narrow Forest, past the Sorrowful Lincoln and the Great Obelisk surely built by the ancient Egyptians, Wendy’s curiosity, perseverance, and cleverness help her navigate a world as disturbing as it is gorgeous.
‘The Suffragette Scandal’ by Courtney Milan
Newspaperwoman Frederica “Free” Marshall has a newspaper to run, a world to change, and a whole lot of enemies to deal with. Luckily, she also has Edward, a roguish forger, on her side. Too bad he’s lying to her about all sorts of things while he works to get revenge on his own duplicitous family. Free is a fantastic heroine who knows what she wants and is willing to figure out what to do to get it. When people say the romance genre is feminist, this book is just one of the great adventures they mean.
‘Neuromancer’ by William Gibson
While not the book that coined the word cyberspace, Neuromancer is arguably the book that brought the term into popular usage. But while the book’s protagonist is a human disaster of a hacker named Case, the real star of the story is Molly Millions, the cybernetically enhanced bodyguard with a crappy past assigned to protect him. Molly is more than willing to be Case’s partner in crime, but she’s super not into doing emotional labor for him, even after they fall into bed together. Molly kicks ass, takes names, fends for herself, and remains incredibly human all while having good boundaries and retractable razor claws embedded under her nails.
‘Gunpowder Alchemy’ by Jeannie Lin
In this steampunk series opener set during the Opium War, Jin Soling is a woman struggling to keep her family together after the execution of her father. When she comes to the attention of the Crown Prince, Soling winds up on a dangerous mission with an unfortunate ally. Practical and daring, Soling is a woman who does what’s necessary and takes opportunity as it comes, all while juggling demands from often competing loyalties in a complex society filled with political intrigue.
‘Black Wine’ by Candas Jane Dorsey
Set in a haunting fantasy world, Black Wine’s three heroines (a young girl who is enslaved, a woman searching for her mother, and another leaving a husband she doesn’t love and never wanted) thrive in a complex, poetic, and braided narrative. Dorsey’s first novel is wildly literary, hauntingly poetic, and despite being a multi-award winner, too often overlooked. Sparse and relying on archetypal imagery, Black Wine is a quick read likely to become a regular reread for anyone interested in narratives about female identity, destiny, and self-determination.
‘Dawn’ (The Xenogenesis Trilogy, book 1) by Octavia Butler
An alien species charges Lilith Iyapo with leading an effort to repopulate earth centuries after nuclear fire has all but destroyed it. But humanity, saved by this alien species, also must merge with it to survive, and the lost world Lilith remembers will not be the one restored. With a focus on collaboration and necessity, Dawn highlights female power in a manner that is more communal than often shows up in the land of “strong female characters.” Both hopeful and horrifying, The Xenogenesis Trilogy as a whole asks powerful questions about gender, monogamy, and identity, all while creating a world so immersive putting the book down is disorienting.
‘Bollywood and the Beast’ (Bollywood Confidential series, book 3) by Suleikha Snyder
I love backstage stories, and I particularly love this one for its Bollywood setting, its navigation of public and private, and it’s clarity that fame isn’t always fun. An ingénue with a lot to prove and a big mouth, American-born Rakhee Varma struggles to make her Bollywood career work while feeling like a fish out of water. Not one to hide her emotions, or her displeasure at the rules that govern her career, Rakhee eventually winds up hiding out at her costar’s estate with his incredibly rude brother, a washed up action hero severely injured in a stunt gone wrong. This is the third book in a romance series that you can read in any order and I’d recommend all of them for distinctive heroines who make their own rules personally and professionally.
‘The Wreath’ (Kristin Lavransdatter series, book 1) by Sigrid Undset
A trilogy about a woman in 14th century Norway, the Kristin Lavransdatter books are richly imagined and focus on the push and pull between the rules governing a woman’s life and her rebellious and at times shocking response to them. Kristin waivers between hero and antihero throughout the series, as she flouts social and religious convention to pursue her desires, eventually winding up complicit in the untimely death of another woman. While the series, published in the early 1920s, repeatedly has Kristin do some sort of penance for her deeds, her will to shape her own life always seems to win out and shine through, despite some of the moralizing of the series’ structure.
About the author
Racheline Maltese can fly a plane, sail a boat, and ride a horse, but has no idea how to drive a car. With Erin McRae she writes romance about fame, public life, and other forms of witchcraft. Racheline is also widely published in non-fiction and poetry and teaches at the Brooklyn Writers Project. Inclusive of her work as a producer and writer on Serial Box Publishing’s Tremontaine, she has been a part of multiple projects short-listed for awards such as the Locus, Hugo, and Rainbow. You can find her at Avian30.com and on Twitter at @racheline_m