Alexis Carew (author J. A. Sutherland, four books so far), which seems to be “Horatio Hornblower” in space.
I’ve read all of these relatively recently and enjoyed them. I have specifically looked for books with female main characters and/or written by women to try and expand the perspectives in the fiction I’m reading.
Breq in the Ancillary series by Anne Leckie is basically genderless but probably biologically female. This whole series specifically focuses on a culture that cares little about gender. I thought it was a great trilogy though the middle book was a little slow.
Although Justin Cronin’s vampire trilogy has a lot of characters, male and female, the premise is based on his daughter asking him to write a book about a girl who saves the world. Although I’m not sure she gets the most pages, I would argue the girl is the main character.
N.K. Jemisin’s Inheritance trilogy has a female main character in the first two books.
Neil Gaiman’s Coraline.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith.
Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward, about a pregnant 14-year-old in the lead-up to Hurricane Katrina.
Uprooted by Naomi Novik, about a girl given as payment to the local wizard so she can become his witch apprentice.
plans to read many of these
Orson Scott Card’s Women of Genesis series. Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel and Leah.
When I was young My Sweet Audrina and the Flowers in the Attic trilogy.
That’s right, YT. It’s been a few years (decades) since I read it, but I don’t recall YT having nearly as much POV or driving as much action as Hiro; I do recall thinking that she was so interesting that Stephenson should write a sequel with YT as the main character. If we’re going have to argue about this, I hope you’ll be willing to listen to R.E.A.S.O.N.
Another Stephenson novel SevenEves is broken into two timelines, both of which have a female main character; seems appropriate for the title.
Of the ones that have so far only been mentioned once above I’ll add a second recommendation to Octavia Butler’s The Parable of the Sower, Wild Seed and P.C. Hodgell’s Godstalk.
But my highest recommendation and a kick to myself for not mentioning earlier:
If you like military Science Fiction, you should check out In Fury Born, by David Weber.
Set in the future, Drop Commando Alecia Devries is mortally wounded while killing the planet pirates who killed her family. As she lay dying, in the cold, she cries out…“ANYTHING. Anything for a chance at those responsible for this”, for she had merely killed those whose hands had done the deed.
Someone heard that cry. Tisophone, the last of the Furies, has slept for millennia in the void; awaiting the call to action. Her sisters have passed away while she slept, and she is diminished in her power. She answers that cry…“Anything, little one?”
Tisophone may not be what she once was, but she is more than Alecia can imagine. She takes her to a place where time has no meaning. Naturally, when help finally arrives, they cannot explain how she survived, wounded and dying, in the bitter cold for an entire week. And they want answers
Also, naturally, she cannot tell them. Eventually, they escape custody, steal a cutting edge AI cruiser and set out to get justice for her murdered family. The Furies reborn. And all Hell is about to be unleashed.
Hey, I downloaded one of her novels and never got around to reading it. Something about Jane Eyre? (do you have to know Jane Eyre to understand the novel?)
Do romance plots bother you, particularly?
Also, isn’t it sad that marriage and romance are often regarded as mutually exclusive concepts?
I try pretty hard to dissuade the third grade boys I teach from the idea that books starring girls are boring or inappropriate for them. My favorite read-aloud is **The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle
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, a crackerjack high seas adventure.
Other excellent children’s books with female protagonists that any boy should be ashamed to dislike:
-Coraline
-Matilda
-The Mighty Miss Malone
-The Girl Who Drank the Moon
-The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (and the others in the series)
-Rain Rein (not super my cuppa, but a lot of kids, boys and girls, loved it)
-Because of Winn Dixie
-Dicey’s Song
As an adult, I read a ton of books with female protagonists. Most of my reading is sf, so most of my recommendations have already ben mentioned.
A little older target audience, but the Hunger Games books were devoured equally by boys and girls in my kid’s class.
Well, sure. But some books are aimed at a female or male audience.
I second (3d? 4th?) Emma, Jane Eyre, Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and Mockingbird.
Never cared for Vanity Fair or Tess, tho there is a major female co-protagonist in another of my faves by Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd.
One I don’t believe has been mentioned yet is Dalva, by Jim Harrison (one of my fave authors - tho most of his protagonists are male.)
Agreed - Peter Jaxson has the main POV and is the most relatable character, but Amy is clearly the trilogy’s central character and raison d’etre.
In no particular order, many previously mentioned:
Bernhard Schlink “The Reader”
Amber Dermont, “The Starboard Sea”
Louise Erdrich, “The Plague of Doves”
Jean Hanff Korelitz “Admission”
Peter Hoeg “Smilla’s Sense of Snow”
Shirley hazzard “The Transit of Venus”
Zadie Smith. “On Beauty”
Arundhati Roy, “The God of Small Things”
Ann Patchett “Bel Canto”
Audrey Niffenegger “Time Traveler’s Wife”
Stieg Larsson “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” et seq
Rachel Kushner “The Flamethrowrs”
Elizabeth Gilbert, “The Signature of All Things”
Charles Portis “True Grit”
Jodi Picoult “My Sister’s Keeper”
Anne Tyler , “Ladder of Years”
Sarah Waters " Fingersmith"
Michele Young-Stone. “The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors”
Connie Willis’s Doomsday Book and Passage
The Diamond Age
And as a youngster, I enjoyed the Hardy Boys, but preferred Nancy Drew.
Moll Flanders, by Daniel Defoe. It’s a novel about a poor, powerless woman, born in the 17th century, who decides not to take any more crap—and doesn’t. She uses every skill and trick she has to level the playing field with men, and succeeds (with some ups and downs along the way).
Things like Connie Willis books and The Diamond Age technically don’t meet the OPs criteria because they have multiple alternating POV characters, some of which are male. (Some of Connie Willis’s work has a single POV character that is female–you could go with the hilarious novella All Seated On the Ground.) (The OPs criteria–if taken seriously–rules out many good books with good female characters who are the POV character for some chapters but not all of them.)
Susan Coopers Greenwich, but the others are centered more around Will Stanton.
That sounds interesting.
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