Which Historical Fiction Books For Book Club Feature Strong Female Leads?

Scarlett Hayes thought marrying James Whitmore would finally make her family see her as more than a burden. Instead, it destroyed her life. Framed for crimes she didn’t commit, betrayed by the people she trusted most, and sentenced to prison while pregnant, Scarlett lost everything in a single night. Then came the cruelest blow of all. After giving birth in chains, she was told her baby had died. The people responsible believed she would spend the rest of her life rotting behind bars. They were wrong. Five years later, Scarlett returns. No longer the discarded daughter of the Hayes family. No longer the broken woman they left behind. Now she is Commander Scarlett Hayes—a decorated war hero, the unseen force behind a global intelligence empire, and a woman powerful enough to make governments tremble. She comes back for one reason only: revenge. Her ex-husband, the stepsister who stole her life, and the family who buried her alive are about to learn exactly what happens when a woman with nothing left to lose takes back everything they stole. But as Scarlett tears through the secrets of her past, one truth threatens to change everything— the child she mourned for years may not be dead. And the mysterious man connected to the night that changed her life has been watching from the shadows all along.

I died with blood pooling and betrayal. My fiancé never loved me—he only wanted. My stepsister never saw me as family. And when I discovered I was carrying his child and tried to expose their affair, they shoved me into a shattered glass table and left me to bleed out alone. But I woke up a year earlier, with my voice miraculously returned and a second chance burning in my chest. This time, I refuse to be the silent, obedient sacrifice they used and discarded. This time, I'll make them pay. And when a ruthless billionaire offers me an impossible deal—a fake marriage to save his crumbling empire, I accept without hesitation. They still see me as that broken, voiceless girl who couldn't fight back. They have no idea I've already won.

Kate Taylor spent seven years being the perfect wife. She gave up her dreams of becoming a celebrated chef, abandoned her culinary career, and molded herself into exactly what her husband David wanted—quiet, obedient, and invisible. When she finally decided to get her life together, he refused. She got tired of the humiliation after he refused her from taking an offer as a chef. Kate files for divorce and returns to the only thing that ever made her feel alive—cooking. She takes the job at Morrison's, the most prestigious restaurant in New York, under Chef Henri Laurent and his son Alex. Her talent explodes back to life. Critics rave about her dishes and her name starts trending. She's finally remembering who she was before David made her forget. But David won't let her go without a fight. He weaponizes their children against her, turns their son Theo against her, threatens her career, and parades Sarah around like she's already his wife. He wants to destroy everything Kate is building. Then she finds out a secret David had been hiding for six years, Sarah was more than his secretary. As custody battles turn vicious, family secrets surface, and old enemies join forces, Kate must decide: will she let the past control her future, or will she finally claim the empire she deserves? Some women fall apart after betrayal but Kate Taylor will build an empire.

They tried to erase her. She survived. Raised in a place designed to break children, she grows up learning one rule above all else: endure quietly. Hunger is discipline. Pain is routine. Obedience is survival. She doesn’t know her real name, her family, or why certain men with clean shoes and cold eyes always seem to be watching. Until the night she runs. Bleeding, hunted, and half-dead, she escapes an institution that was never meant to let her live past usefulness. What she doesn’t know is that the symbol burned into her skin isn’t a punishment it’s a claim. A mark left by a powerful underground network that doesn’t lose what it owns. Her collapse brings her into the path of three brothers who rule the city’s shadows men whose wealth buys silence, whose violence is surgical, and whose loyalty to blood is absolute. At first, she’s just another wounded stranger pulled from the streets. Then one brother recognizes the mark. And everything changes. Because years ago, the brothers tried to dismantle a trafficking empire known only as The Circle. They thought it was gone. They were wrong. The girl they saved isn’t a random survivor she’s a missing investment. A living mistake The Circle intends to reclaim. As fragments of her past surface, a terrifying truth emerges: she wasn’t abandoned as a child. She was stolen. Trained. Conditioned. And when she escaped, she didn’t just save herself she reignited a war. Hunted by a network that erases people without a trace, and protected by men who don’t lose once they claim something as theirs, she must decide whether she’ll keep running… or turn and burn everything that tried to own her.

At least as far back as she can remember, she has always known she was different. Raised in a small town by loving grandparents and surrounded by generations of whispered traditions, she grew up learning that some things are simply known, not explained. Dreams carry warnings, family recipes heal more than the body, and the women in her family possess a gift they call "the Knowing." As she comes of age, she finds herself caught between the world she was born into and the life she hopes to build. Guided by a strong moral code, fierce loyalty, and gifts she doesn't fully understand, she must learn that family isn't always defined by blood. Set against the backdrop of Appalachian folk magic, old secrets, and deep-rooted traditions, The Knowing in Her Blood is a story of love, sacrifice, and discovering that true power lies not in where you come from, but in the family you choose and the life you are willing to fight for.

Ava Lancaster gave up her identity as a billionaire heiress to marry for love, choosing anonymity over inheritance and devotion over power. But her husband, Liam Hayes, repays her sacrifice with betrayal—repeated affairs, emotional neglect, and the quiet erosion of her worth. When Ava finally walks away, she does so with nothing but her name, refusing alimony and erasing herself from the life she helped build. What Liam never knows is that Ava secretly returns to the empire she once abandoned, reclaiming her family legacy and rising as the unseen CEO of a global conglomerate. Years later, when Liam’s failing company seeks a partnership to survive, fate brings them face-to-face again—this time with Ava holding all the power and Liam unaware that the woman he discarded now controls his future. As business turns into a battlefield, Ava orchestrates her revenge not with cruelty, but with dominance, strategy, and restraint. Torn between the ghosts of her past and the possibility of new love with a steadfast rival CEO, Ava must confront the cost of power, the weight of forgiveness, and the question of whether love can exist without surrender. Empire of Her Own is a long-burn, emotionally rich modern romance about betrayal, reinvention, and a woman choosing herself—fully, unapologetically, and on her own terms.