- by Kathleen Grissom
Like Kidd’s novel, this story follows women whose lives are shaped by slavery and unequal power on a Southern plantation.
- by Tara Conklin
Its interwoven stories connect an enslaved woman’s experience with a modern lawyer’s search for justice and historical truth.
- by Natasha Boyd
This novel portrays a young woman asserting authority in colonial South Carolina, with slavery and plantation life central to its setting.
- by Andrea Wulf
This biography of Alexander von Humboldt offers a fresh bridge through its vivid historical portrait and attention to the natural world.
- by Tracy Chevalier
A Quaker immigrant becomes involved in the Underground Railroad, linking women’s independence with the antislavery struggle.
- by Lawrence Hill
A woman’s first-person account traces enslavement, escape, and survival across the Atlantic world.
- by Toni Morrison
Morrison’s spare, layered novel examines the bonds and vulnerabilities of women in an early American world shaped by slavery.
- The signature of all things by Elizabeth Gilbert
A scientifically curious woman pursues knowledge and independence across a sweeping historical landscape.
- Beloved by Toni Morrison
This landmark novel gives powerful, intimate form to the lasting trauma of slavery and a mother’s fierce struggle for her family.
- by Colson Whitehead
Through a young enslaved woman’s flight, Whitehead combines historical brutality with an imaginative reworking of the Underground Railroad.
- by Ta-Nehisi Coates
This lyrical story blends the realities of enslavement and escape with speculative elements and the work of abolitionists.
- The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
Its two sisters face sharply different choices under occupation, making female agency and family bonds the bridge to Kidd’s novel.
- by James McBride
A young person caught up in John Brown’s abolitionist campaign offers a lively, unconventional view of the struggle against slavery.
- by Alice Walker
Like Kidd’s novel, Walker’s story centers women’s relationships, self-determination, and the endurance of oppression in the American South.
- The Known World by Edward P. Jones
This intricate novel examines the moral and social reach of slavery through a Virginia community and its many intertwined lives.
- by Jessie Burton
A young woman enters a tightly controlled household and begins to uncover the power structures governing its inhabitants.
- by E. L. Doctorow
Doctorow’s Civil War novel follows an ensemble of characters, including women and formerly enslaved people, through a society in upheaval.
- by Robert Hicks
A grieving Southern woman’s changing convictions bring questions of loyalty, war, and human dignity into focus.
- by Kathryn Stockett
Set in 1960s Mississippi, it shares Kidd’s interest in women’s voices and the cost of challenging entrenched racial injustice.
- by Sarah Perry
Its independent-minded heroine pursues scientific ideas and personal freedom amid Victorian social expectations.
- by Ayana Mathis
This family-centered novel explores the legacies of hardship and the bonds among women across generations.
- by Laura Moriarty
A journey with a young dancer prompts a married woman to reconsider the limits placed on her own life.
- by Jojo Moyes
Women form an unconventional library service in Depression-era Kentucky, finding purpose and solidarity against social constraints.
- by Brit Bennett
A pair of sisters’ diverging lives connect through questions of identity, kinship, and the long effects of racial injustice.