Today’s guest is fantasy author Jenna Glass! She writes young adult speculative fiction (Nightstruck, Replica, Faeriewalker), urban fantasy (The Gifted, Nikki Glass, Morgan Kingsley), and paranormal romance (Guardians of the Night) as Jenna Black. Her newly released first epic fantasy novel, The Women’s War, is described as being set in a world in which “a revolutionary spell gives women the ability to control their own fertility—with consequences that rock their patriarchal society to its core.”

During Women’s History Month, I wrote this list of some of my favorite books with especially wonderful heroines. Each one is strong in her own way, even if she’s not the type to beat up the bad guys.

I love both the Mercy Thompson and the Alpha and Omega series by Patricia Briggs. There are a lot of strong female protagonists in urban fantasy, but what I love best about Mercy and Anna is that they manage to be heroic despite being physically outgunned practically all the time. They triumph through wit and strategy and courage rather than through brute force.

Archangel by Sharon Shinn. This is one of my all-time favorite books. I love that the heroine, Rachel, is a deeply flawed and damaged human being. It’s a difficult proposition in our culture to create a truly likeable, angry heroine, but Shinn manages to do that with Rachel. So many romantic stories feature tortured and angry heroes, but this one successfully flips that trope on its ear.

The Cruel Prince and The Wicked King by Holly Black. This is another series that does a great job of creating a flawed heroine and making it easy to root for her anyway. Jude is ambitious, which is a trait that is often made to seem unattractive in girls and women. There are times her ambition—and sense of self-preservation—cause her to make questionable decisions, but I love her anyway and can’t wait to see what happens next.

The Host by Stephenie Meyer. In this one, you get two epic fantasy heroines in one body! Both Melanie (the human) and Wanda (the alien who inhabits her body) are epic in their own, beautifully contrasting ways. Melanie is bold and brave and physically heroic, while Wanda is submissive and compassionate and self-sacrificing. Together, they make a great (if uncomfortable) team.

The Shadowed Sun by N. K. Jemisin. I love all of Jemisin’s books, but Hanani is probably my favorite heroine. I love watching her journey from timid and uncertain apprentice to strong, self-assured woman. I also love how she continually defies the roles society attempts to impose on her.

Jenna Glass wrote her first book—an “autobiography”—when she was in the fifth grade. She began writing in earnest while in college and proceeded to collect a dizzying array of rejections for her first seventeen novels. Nevertheless, she persisted, and her eighteenth novel became her first commercial sale. Within a few years, Glass became a full-time writer, and she has never looked back. She has published more than twenty novels under various names. The Women’s War marks her first foray into epic fantasy.