The term “chick lit” is often used deri­sive­ly to refer to a genre of lit­er­a­ture thought to appeal to young women; indeed, the Oxford dic­tio­nary goes so far as to clas­si­fy it as a deroga­to­ry turn of phrase. Typ­i­cal­ly, the chick lit genre revolves around roman­tic rela­tion­ships, such that I like to think of it as the lit­er­ary equiv­a­lent of the roman­tic com­e­dy. Now, all kinds of peo­ple have all kinds of opin­ions con­cern­ing the idea of chick lit, whether… Con­tin­ue Reading

No author rais­es my hack­les quite like Philip­pa Gre­go­ry does. Put as suc­cinct­ly as pos­si­ble, Gre­go­ry — who mar­kets her­self as a his­tor­i­cal fic­tion writer spe­cial­iz­ing in the Tudor-era — takes pride in cre­at­ing sup­pos­ed­ly rich­er, more nuanced por­traits of the char­ac­ters she por­trays, most of whom are his­tor­i­cal women of rel­a­tive fac­tu­al obscu­ri­ty. Indeed, Gre­go­ry has reg­u­lar­ly sug­gest­ed that she gives voice and depth to his­tor­i­cal women whose lives “have been ignored by his­to­ri­ans, and…viewed [only] as pawns in… Con­tin­ue Reading