Historical Fiction Womens Rights

Maggie Lena Walker was ambitious and unafraid. Her childhood in 19th-century Virginia helping her mother with her laundry service opened her eyes to the overwhelming discrepancy between the Black residents and her mother’s affluent white clients. She vowed to not only secure the same kind of home and finery for herself, but she would also help others in her community achieve the same.

As Alexandra Winslow climbs the ladder of publishing success, she resolutely adheres to her father's caution: men only read crime thrillers written by men. She publishes under the pseudonym of brilliantly successful Alexander Green, her true identity known only to those closest to her. This creates an isolating double life, but the right time to open up always seems just out of reach and the price of the truth always too high....

If misfortune hadn’t gotten in the way, Sandra Sanborn would be where she belongs - among the rich and privileged instead of standing outside a Hollywood studio wearing a sandwich board in the hope of someone discovering her. It’s tough breaking into the movies during the Great Depression, but Sandra knows that she’s destined for greatness. After all, her grandmother Vira crossed the country during the Gold Rush and established the Sanborns as one of San Francisco’s most prominent families, and her mother Mabel grew up in a lavish mansion.

Linda Leigh Sinclair is born in the aftermath of WWII. Raised near Ivy Manor, enveloped in the love of her family, Leigh has everything she could possibly need, but not everything she wants. Her overwhelming need for freedom for herself and others leads her into the modern civil-rights movement.

It’s the late 1800s, and John Ogilvie Stevenson, pastor of the Congregational Church in Waterloo, Iowa, believes women are equal to men intellectually, and superior to men morally and spiritually. During a sermon on temperance, wherein he advocates laws to shut down the saloons, he is struck by the irony that his audiences are composed mostly of women - that segment of the citizenry who cannot vote. Thus begins his campaign for women’s suffrage.

When violin virtuoso Laura Hartley's priceless instrument is stolen, more than just her celebrated European career disintegrates - her rare gift of seeing music in colour fades to grey, silencing the voice she's always expressed through her performances. Without music to define her, Laura finds herself adrift in a world suddenly stripped of meaning, no longer certain who she is or where she belongs.