If you love a good sea story, you might have noticed that it's a fairly male-heavy genre. I love a good Patrick O'Brien novel as much as the next gal, but based on the fictional landscape, you'd think women never took to the sea.
While it's true there were more men out there, there are also tons of great stories of real-life women who did amazing things at sea.
So to even things out the fictional landscape a bit, here are some of my favorite seafaring novels featuring strong women.
Fair winds,
Cheyenne
P.S. Check out Joan Druett's books if you want a great non-fiction perspective on the true badass female seafarers of history.
P.P.S. I'm always looking to expand my TBR, so feel free to add your own favorites in the comments. :)
My Favorite Historical Seafaring Novels Featuring Strong Women
A True Account by Katherine Howe
Katherine Howe is not only an amazing writer and historian (with her PhD!), she's also a sailor. All to say, every detail of this incredible novel rings especially true. If you want to go on a rollicking pirate sea adventure with a badass female narrator, this is your next read.
Here's a touch of her enchanting style:
"I had not yet broken free from the idea that I might have a home to go to. I still believed that I was on a journey, away from one home, en route to another. The ocean might decide to push us apart no matter what we might will or choose."
“Here is your home now.' He tapped me gently in the very center of my forehead. 'You carry it with you wherever you go. You can visit any time you close your eyes. There's no roof. It is open to the stars. Inside, you're completely free. It is yours and yours alone, until God calls you to go and be with Him."
The Flower Boat Girl by Larry Feign
Thanks to some especially popular books and movies, we tend to think of pirates being centered in the Caribbean. But the truth is they roamed worldwide (some still do). Historically, Ireland had its pirates. So did England, Spain, and Morocco. And the most successful pirate of all time per the BBC—one who ruled an entire empire of bandits—operated out of China.
She was also a woman.
Larry Feign tells her story brilliantly in his novel The Flower Boat Girl. Not only a fabulous writer, he spent 32 years living on a small island in the South China sea, and boy does that experience come out in the details. Here are a just a couple of my favorites:
“Day and night, men coaxed the sails like delicate butterfly wings, trimming each batten by a hair’s widths to eke power from the least whisper of air.”
“By daylight, the inner harbor revealed its true face: mud-colored water choked with rubbish and worse. Floating vendors and ferries cut in and out, narrowly avoiding a collision, trading harsh words. The waterfront presented a colorless palette of gray bricks and sun-bleached timber.”
Helen Hollick is admittedly not a sailor, but the woman has done her research big time. She even includes a full glossary of terms in the back of the book. If you're looking for a page turner with a badass female character, a touch of romance, and a hint of the supernatural, this historical sea adventure story is for you. Extending from Cape Town to the Colonies, if you like this novel, you'll be thrilled to know there's a full series behind it.
Here are a couple of my favorite details:
"She shifted position, her great amorphous, invisible mass disturbing the sand, stirring the bones of the dead, her collected trophies, and flushing the fishes into swarms of iridescent panic."
"Watching for the telltale shudder on the fore topsail that would tell him he had pushed the spars to the limit of endurance, Jesamiah brought his ship closer and closer into the wind."
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