Chance (1914) was the first of Conrad's novels to bring him popular success and it holds a unique place among his works. It tells the story of Flora de Barral, a vulnerable and abandoned young girl who is "like a beggar, without a right to anything but compassion." After her bankrupt father is imprisoned, she learns the harsh fact that a woman in her position "has no resources but in herself." Her only means of action is to be what she is. Flora's...

"You're a small thing," Grandma writes, "and you must learn to fight." Swiv's Grandma, Elvira, has been fighting all her life. From her upbringing in a strict religious community, she has fought those who wanted to take away her joy, her independence, and her spirit. She has fought to make peace with her loved ones when they have chosen to leave her. And now, even as her health fails, Grandma is fighting for her family: for her daughter, partnerless...

Virginia Woolf's first novel, a young woman's story of self-discovery aboard her father's ship in South America.

"A brilliantly plotted time warp love story that explores female agency through the ages. Perfect for readers of Kate Atkinson's Life after Life Eleanor loves Robin. Again and again and again. Yet they never quite get to be together. From early Roman Britain to contemporary Toronto, Eleanor and Robin's love story leaps through time as society and circumstances conspire to thwart them. Whether it's family planning to marry Eleanor against her will...

"Constance Haverhill is without prospects. Her mother has just passed away, her brother is newly married, and now that the Great War is over, she has been asked to give up managing the estate she helped to run when the men all joined the army. It is suggested to her that she become a governess. But first, she will act as caretaker to Mrs. Fog, an old family friend who is convalescing at a seaside resort. Constance is soon swept up in the social whirl...

Master storyteller Henry James transports readers to New England in the 1870s for his satire of the American women's rights movement. Charismatic speaker Verena Tarrant is at the center of an acrimonious struggle between two distant cousins. Olive Chancellor sees Verena as a potential leader of the suffragettes and jealously attempts to isolate her protegee from the society of men. The man Olive particularly abhors is cynical Southern lawyer Basil...

"As First Daughter of the Garden Society, Lucinda has devoted her life to bringing natural birth back to a world where it has been outlawed. But when her best friend dies giving birth illegally and Lucinda is forced to cover up the cause of death, the stakes of this lifelong secret become all too real. Emeka is a decorated detective known for his objectivity and level head. But his latest case leads him too close to home, and he must shift his perspective--or...

"The tragic fall of Lily Bart, a beautiful socialite who loses her footing in the savage social-climbing world of New York high society in the nineteenth century. Lily Bart has no fortune, but she possesses everything else she needs to make an excellent marriage: beauty, intelligence, a love of luxury and an elegant skill in negotiating the hidden traps and false friends of New York's high society. But time and again Lily cannot bring herself to make...

"From the international bestselling author of The Gilded Hour comes Sara Donati's enthralling epic about two trailblazing female doctors in nineteenth-century New York; Dr. Sophie Savard, daughter of free people of color returns home to the achingly familiar rhythms of Manhattan in the early spring of 1884 to rebuild her life after the death of her husband. With the help of Dr. Anna Savard, her dearest friend, cousin, and fellow physician she plans...