women with swords

Hoohoo, guys!

How are you all? I hope you’re all healthy and feeling fine ♥ I’ve been getting a lot of reading done even though uni started again through online courses which eats quite a bit of time. I’ve also been drawing a lot and staring at photos of swords. Because you know, swords are beautiful and amazing and aesthetically pleasing. I seriously cannot get enough of swords, wether on photos or drawn or laying on my bookshelf. But you know what’s the coolest thing about swords? When they’re carried around and used by women. Women who know how to sword fight? ARGH YES! And because I like both swords and women I thought why not make a list of some great books with sword wielding women? And hence, here we are. Of course there are more, especially in the fantasy genre, but I picked out some of my favourites.

---

*click on the covers to get to the goodreads page*

CONTEMPORARY

The Life and (Medieval) Times of Kit Sweetly by Jamie Pacton

Page Street | 5th May 2020 | 384 pages |

it’s only show swords but who cares, there’s also pool noodle fighting and jousting

Working as a wench―i.e. waitress―at a cheesy medieval-themed restaurant in the Chicago suburbs, Kit Sweetly dreams of being a knight like her brother. She has the moves, is capable on a horse, and desperately needs the raise that comes with knighthood, so she can help her mom pay the mortgage and hold a spot at her dream college.
Company policy allows only guys to be knights. So when Kit takes her brother’s place and reveals her identity at the end of the show, she rockets into internet fame and a whole lot of trouble with the management. But the Girl Knight won’t go down without a fight. As other wenches join her quest, a protest forms. In a joust before Castle executives, they’ll prove that gender restrictions should stay medieval―if they don’t get fired first.
>find my review here

---

Foul is Fair by Hannah Capin

Penguin | 16th January | 336 pages |

it’s fencing but it counts and in a fantasy setting Jade would be the best sword fighter and master them all

Jade Khanjara and her three best friends rule their glittering LA circle. They decide how the party ends – every night but one. The night four boys spike Jade’s drink, lock her in a room and brutally attack her. The night they try to ruin her.
But they chose the wrong girl. Certain that the boys will face no consequences, Jade and her friends take vengeance into their own hands. There’s no mercy left: and now Jade won’t rest until she gets bloody satisfaction . . .
>find my review here

---

FANTASY

Woven in Moonlight by Isabel Ibañez

Page Street | 7th January 2020 | 384 pages

impulsive warrior with moon magic? hells yes

Ximena is the decoy Condesa, a stand-in for the last remaining Illustrian royal. Her people lost everything when the usurper, Atoc, used an ancient relic to summon ghosts and drive the Illustrians from La Ciudad. Now Ximena’s motivated by her insatiable thirst for revenge, and her rare ability to spin thread from moonlight.
When Atoc demands the real Condesa’s hand in marriage, it’s Ximena’s duty to go in her stead. She relishes the chance, as Illustrian spies have reported that Atoc’s no longer carrying his deadly relic. If Ximena can find it, she can return the true aristócrata to their rightful place.
She hunts for the relic, using her weaving ability to hide messages in tapestries for the resistance. But when a masked vigilante, a warm-hearted princess, and a thoughtful healer challenge Ximena, her mission becomes more complicated. There could be a way to overthrow the usurper without starting another war, but only if Ximena turns her back on revenge—and her Condesa.
>find my review here

---

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

Bloomsbury | 27th February 2019 | 896 pages |

who would I be if I didn’t feature this book where kind of everyone has a sword and knows how to use it

The House of Berethnet has ruled Inys for a thousand years. Still unwed, Queen Sabran the Ninth must conceive a daughter to protect her realm from destruction—but assassins are getting closer to her door.
Ead Duryan is an outsider at court. Though she has risen to the position of lady-in-waiting, she is loyal to a hidden society of mages. Ead keeps a watchful eye on Sabran, secretly protecting her with forbidden magic.
Across the dark sea, Tané has trained all her life to be a dragonrider, but is forced to make a choice that could see her life unravel.
Meanwhile, the divided East and West refuse to parley, and forces of chaos are rising from their sleep.
>find my review here

---

Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson

Margaret K. McElderry | 4th June 2019 | 453 pages |

ah, sword swinging librarian, bi sorcerer & a demon? love it, give me all the fights

All sorcerers are evil. Elisabeth has known that as long as she has known anything. Raised as a foundling in one of Austermeer’s Great Libraries, Elisabeth has grown up among the tools of sorcery—magical grimoires that whisper on shelves and rattle beneath iron chains. If provoked, they transform into grotesque monsters of ink and leather. She hopes to become a warden, charged with protecting the kingdom from their power.
Then an act of sabotage releases the library’s most dangerous grimoire. Elisabeth’s desperate intervention implicates her in the crime, and she is torn from her home to face justice in the capital. With no one to turn to but her sworn enemy, the sorcerer Nathaniel Thorn, and his mysterious demonic servant, she finds herself entangled in a centuries-old conspiracy. Not only could the Great Libraries go up in flames, but the world along with them.
As her alliance with Nathaniel grows stronger, Elisabeth starts to question everything she’s been taught—about sorcerers, about the libraries she loves, even about herself. For Elisabeth has a power she has never guessed, and a future she could never have imagined.
>find my review here

---

The Cruel Prince by Holly Black

Hot Key Books | 2nd January 2018 | 370 pages |

oh Jude, you could stab me with that sword of yours and I’d thank you

Jude was seven years old when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants nothing more than to belong there, despite her mortality. But many of the fey despise humans. Especially Prince Cardan, the youngest and wickedest son of the High King.
To win a place at the Court, she must defy him–and face the consequences.
In doing so, she becomes embroiled in palace intrigues and deceptions, discovering her own capacity for bloodshed. But as civil war threatens to drown the Courts of Faerie in violence, Jude will need to risk her life in a dangerous alliance to save her sisters, and Faerie itself.

---

The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black

Little, Brown Books | 13th January 2015 | 336 pages |

another book by Holly Black? why yes, there’s the coolest knight in town and her name is Hazel

Children can have a cruel, absolute sense of justice. Children can kill a monster and feel quite proud of themselves. A girl can look at her brother and believe they’re destined to be a knight and a bard who battle evil. She can believe she’s found the thing she’s been made for.
Hazel lives with her brother, Ben, in the strange town of Fairfold where humans and fae exist side by side. The faeries’ seemingly harmless magic attracts tourists, but Hazel knows how dangerous they can be, and she knows how to stop them. Or she did, once.
At the center of it all, there is a glass coffin in the woods. It rests right on the ground and in it sleeps a boy with horns on his head and ears as pointed as knives. Hazel and Ben were both in love with him as children. The boy has slept there for generations, never waking.
Until one day, he does…
As the world turns upside down, Hazel tries to remember her years pretending to be a knight. But swept up in new love, shifting loyalties, and the fresh sting of betrayal, will it be enough?
>find me (German) review here

Nevernight by Jay Kristoff

HarperVoyager | 25th July 2016 | 448 pages

Mia, my Mia, you shall not miss on this list

Destined to destroy empires, Mia Covere is only ten years old when she is given her first lesson in death.
Six years later, the child raised in shadows takes her first steps towards keeping the promise she made on the day that she lost everything.
But the chance to strike against such powerful enemies will be fleeting, so if she is to have her revenge, Mia must become a weapon without equal. She must prove herself against the deadliest of friends and enemies, and survive the tutelage of murderers, liars and demons at the heart of a murder cult.
The Red Church is no Hogwarts, but Mia is no ordinary student.
The shadows love her. And they drink her fear.

---

And these are some of my favourites.
What about you? Who are your favourite characters with swords? Which books should I not miss?

---

Until next time,