Strong Female Leads, Curated Recommendations + Book News!
Limited spoilers, none of which make watching or reading beside the point
Television:
I’m not yet sure what to make of this season of strong female leads, but one thing is certain, the material is superb. From Anatomy of a Fall to Palm Royale, there are a lot of women taking up space.
Palm Royale will probably get its own post, but in the meantime, here are three things I’d love to hear your take on. Starting with HBO’s The Regime, not yet complete but so stunning I want to talk about it now.
Chancellor Elena Vernham, as Kate Winslet has created her, is like no one we’ve seen before. At the helm of a restless empire, Elena is an evil dictator in feminine form, openly asking her followers for “love” and urging a “graceful mind.” Her obliviousness to her shortcomings is made delightfully clear when she opens with a horrific rendition of “If You Leave Me Now.” Then in flashes she’s stunningly brilliant, like when she negotiates with Martha Plimpton’s American Senator Judith Holt.
Campy, but not? Scenes from last nights episode when marauders ransacked the palace were, well, I’ll say hauntingly familiar.
I began to fear the undercurrents when the old chancellor was introduced in the form of Hugh Grant in the basement alongside the story of Elena’s hot flashes. Will she be tossed aside as an old lady, replaced by a man who would — of course — commit the very same crimes? Yawn.
Suffice it to say, that was not the direction they headed. In fact, her sexuality awakens. Better still, I can’t guess where this train is going. They aren’t absolving her crimes, she may get away with it yet—a time-honored formula for male villains, still one that I’m enjoying seeing bestowed on a female character in a compelling way. Will she be redeemed?
Are you watching? What do you think?
READING:
This is a “new to me” addition to this list. The book came out in 2013, and apparently the BBC included this character in a long-running show called The Last Kingdom. But I only heard about it recently when the book was recommended by a friend. (Thanks, Kari!) She gave me no idea what to expect, so I’ll limit what I tell you.
Hild was the second daughter of a homeless widow who would have had very few material resources. But she learned to read in an illiterate culture, and went on to advise kings and bishops. Yes, it’s an imagined word because we have no records of the time. But oh, what a world. And what a story.
Have you read it? Tell me below what you think!
ONSCREEN:
(This one has the most in the way of spoilers.)
I hope you can still catch this in a theater, it’s a visual delight. Much as I adored how books played a role in changing hearts and minds in this film, I offer the recommendation with a caveat — the ending was, for this viewer, a huge disappointment.
Unlike Chancellor Vernham, Stone’s Bella Baxter is an enormously sympathetic character. We can see she’s imprisoned and re-learning how to be human, delighting in her discoveries as an adult women with the lack of shame of a baby. Good good good.
After many wonderful capers, she returns home to be by the side of her dying “father,” where her former husband finds her and ferries her away. He turns out to be evil, so she escapes and takes him captive. In the final moments she’s studying for school, but we see she’s surgically manipulated her spouse to think he’s a pig. That killed my feeling of being on her side, because then she was worse than her captors. Could she not have surgically altered him into being an ardent feminist?
What did you think?
The Queenpin Chronicles: book news
The launch party for Florida Girls is set for June 6. D-Day, a significant day in World War II as well as in this book’s pre-history. In the first narrative version, begun back in 2018, the story was more from the men’s point of view and began much earlier in the war. But after D-Day, the beginning of the end of Hitler’s tyrannical reign, the energy began to shift. As the country grew anxious for the war to be over, a new, more interesting story emerged. If you’d like to get these deleted chapters and more, be sure you’re signed up for Florida Girls emails here:
If you’re in St. Petersburg, join me in conversation at Tombolo Books on June 6 with the best-selling author of Florida Hustle, Paul Wilborn.
More to come on this and other planned talks at historical societies, libraries and other booksellers!
New for your reading pleasure, FREE
Peruse and find something to read from these other authors:
Memoir, lit fic, historical fiction, sci fi!
If none of these recos speak to you, tell me—
What are you reading?
What are you watching?
What mischief are you getting up to?
Where have you seen books play a major role in a plot lately?
Until next time!
Multimedia Storyteller, Story Coach
I just started Babel, a novel by R. F. Kuang last night and so far, it's fabulous! I'm also reading The Woman They Could Not Silence (non-fiction) by Kate Moore. It's a re-read for me. Such a great book about an appalling topic: Mrs. Elizabeth Packard is committed to an insane asylum in 1860 by her husband. He didn't like her thinking for herself and disagreeing with his religious views. She was getting annoyed with his attempts to shut her up. So he packed her off to an insane asylum where the doctor (male, of course) agreed that her dislike of her husband and her 'over-active' mind were indeed signs of insanity 🙄
I also feel compelled to add, Emma Stone's Oscar acceptance was one of the best ever!