Psychology says that women are mentally more strong than men. Women can handle tough situations and make decisions better than men. So when you see any weakness of them, it is fear or love. But you should not count this as a weakness because of their softness.
When a girl comes back with her strong leadership, anything will happen because it is the toughest scenario in humankind. Do you remember Wonder Woman and Birds of Prey movie? Gal Gadot and Harley Quinn showed their superpower and their mental strength.
10 Romance Books With Strong Female Leads
In the romance genre, possessive alpha male and strong female characters stay on the top list. We readers like to see a strong lead character who protects their partner in any bad situation and shows love. So, I will review 10 romance books with strong female leads for you. Let’s go!
1. Ella Enchanted (Trophy Newbery)
Ella Enchanted came out in 1997. Also, it is a middle-grade Cinderella retelling where A fairy curses Ella. Ella is strong-willed, despite the obedience curse, which is a point in her favor. She does spend much of the book in subservient roles, but that has more to do with it being a plot device than a character trait. So we’ll allow it.
She is allowed to be feminine insofar as middle grades lean into the idea of womanhood. It talks about her growth from childhood into young adulthood and finally wearing some of her mother’s gowns.
The prince (who she’s fallen in love with) has asked her to marry him. Knowing her curse and knowing she could be ordered at any time to murder him gives Ella the internal strength to refuse. She refuses the proposal, which was phrased as a command (Marry me, Ella.), breaking the curse. In the end, it was a self-sacrificial love for a guy that set her free.
Author: Gail Carson Levine
Average Customer Review: (4.7 out of 5, on Amazon)
Category: Paranormal, Occult & Supernatural
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Hardcover | Kindle | Audio CD
2. Fire (Graceling Realm)
Fire is considered a monster because of her ability to invade and influence the minds of humans. Also, she can do this with her thoughts and her beauty. So here, we do have depictions of femininity, at least in terms of feminine beauty. But it’s weaponized against other humans.
This book also mentions her periods because her blood draws attention from other monsters. So not only is her physical feminine beauty a weapon, but her periods are also a weakness.
Author: Kristin Cashore
Average Customer Review: (4.5 out of 5, on Amazon)
Category: Paranormal, Occult & Supernatural
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Library Binding | Kindle | Audio CD
3. Daughter of the Pirate King
When writing (and reading) female main characters, there are some things to consider: Do they drive their own story? Are they allowed to express themselves sexually? Do they have female friendships based on trust? This book has all the right answers to these questions in Alosa from Daughter of the Pirate King, written in 2017. It is about Alosa, a pirate captain who infiltrates an enemy ship to uncover hidden plans and maps from a deceased pirate lord.
Alosa is the captain of her ship, and she has an entirely female crew. She’s been trained by the most notorious and ruthless pirate there is, so she is the best bar none when it comes to sword-fighting. When it comes to femininity, she is like a bomb. She wears both dresses and breeches throughout the book, mostly dresses and fights in them. There is a love interest, but that doesn’t become the sole focus of the plot, nor does her interest in the guy become the catalyst for the climax.
Author: Tricia Levenseller
Average Customer Review: (4.6 out of 5, on Amazon)
Category: Historical Romance
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Hardcover | Kindle
4. Stalking Jack the Ripper
Another popular female protagonist is Audrey from the Stalking Jack the Ripper series by Kerri Maniscalco. The first book in this series came out in 2016, a year before Daughter of the Pirate King. These three books are detective crime novels that follow Audrey, a forensic criminologist, to solve high-profile murders and mysteries.
Audrey is super feminine and loves wearing dresses (the fabric, colors, hemline). But she also likes forensics and criminology. Other girls want to finish school and find a husband, but Audrey wants to go to the Academy of Forensic Medicine and Science.
She lets her father dictate where she goes, what she does, who she sees, what she wears. She allows herself to be escorted with her love interest on almost all occasions as is proper for the reputation of her decency. At the book’s climax, she is rewarded with an education from her father, who has spent the entire book trying to get her into a more appropriate occupation of her time.
Author: Kerri Maniscalco
Average Customer Review: (4.6 out of 5, on Amazon)
Category: European Historical Fiction
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Hardcover | Kindle | Mass Market Paperback
5. These Violent Delights
This is Romeo and Juliet’s retelling set in 1920s Shanghai. The main strong female protagonist is Juliette. She is a great strong female protagonist. She’s unabashedly feminine and sexually expressive, which she is. She is brave and wouldn’t even consider any self-sacrificial move or action. Her entire character acknowledges the difficulty in choosing how to present, knowing that she is more powerful when presented as more westernized.
When Juliette presents as more traditional in her family’s traditional Asian garb, she is ignored and mistreated at best. She acknowledges the difficulty with being sexualized when she isn’t being sexual. Moreover, she carries all of this around with the weight of her decisions strategy and is generally ruthless. There are multiple female relationships in this book, all complex. Juliette must walk to maintain a hold on her family’s respect.
Author: Chloe Gong
Average Customer Review: (4.4 out of 5, on Amazon)
Category: Historical Romance
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Hardcover | Kindle | Audio CD
6. Welcome to the Dark Side (The Fallen Men)
This is the second book in the series. It is a dark motorcycle age gap romance full of amazing tropes. Lou is the main character. She was in the gang IMSI shootout when she’s seven years old. She ends up getting shot, and the guy who saved her life is the new president of the AMC. In addition, he is not a good guy. But Lou sees him as her guardian monster.
Zeus is 19 years older than her. So when she gets shot, they find out that she has cancer. She’s a seven-year-old little girl, and her parents are in the spotlight. Her father is running for mayor, and he does not want to put in the time their family doesn’t want to talk about her illness. They push her aside, and she doesn’t have any friends. So she ends up writing to Zeus, the AMC president, the guy who saves her life.
So their relationship begins off very platonically, and you see him guiding her and raising her through these letters until she starts getting ideas, and he shuts that down real quick. So by the time she’s 17 years old, she is ready to shed her good-girl image, and she is ready to walk on the dark side. Lou is one of the strongest characters fighting cancer and being a strong survivor.
Author: Giana Darling
Average Customer Review: (4.6 out of 5, on Amazon)
Category: Contemporary Romance
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Kindle
7. Kill Switch (Devil’s Night)
Kill Switch is the third book in The Devil’s Night series. Many things happen in these first two books that explain a lot about what’s going on. Damon is the main bad guy in the first two books. He is one that you hate a lot. But Winter is the main girl character, and she is fabulous.
So when she was a little girl, an accident happened where she ended up falling, losing her eyesight. Because of this, she has to grow and become this strong person, and she does not let anything get her down. Winter would not take any crap from Damon. She was the most kickass character of this whole series. It is a great dark romance series.
Author: Penelope Douglas
Average Customer Review: (4.7 out of 5, on Amazon)
Category: Romantic Suspense
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Kindle | Audio CD
8. Warbreaker
It is a standalone fantasy that deals with politics and romance. The story is about two sisters, Siri and Vivenna, who are trained to be the wife of the God-King. The other is the fourth born child. She’s left her own devices not needed. Vivenna is the one who’s trained to become the wife. Something happens. Their father doesn’t want to send her anymore. So Siri now has to go and take her place.
Vivenna feels lost, she doesn’t know her purpose anymore since she was trained to be this wife, and now she isn’t. So she takes it upon herself to save Siri. Both of these women in this book change so much over time. They are so strong for very different reasons. You see them grow in completely different ways and how they start at one point and become something different and even greater versions of themselves.
Author: Brandon Sanderson
Average Customer Review: (4.7 out of 5, on Amazon)
Category: Sword & Sorcery Fantasy
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Hardcover | Kindle | Mass Market Paperback
9. Warrior of the Wild
This is a standalone Viking-inspired tale. The main character, Rasmira, is trained her entire life to become a warrior. She is the daughter of the leader. In the village, to become a warrior, you have to take this test to prove that you are the strongest. You can protect the people.
Something happens, and she gets kicked out of her village and is given a test to complete. This task is to kill a God, so she has to go into the woods where nobody ever goes in and survives. Moreover, she has to find a way to kill this God to return to her people.
This is a fantastic story about friendship, about testing limits and figuring out who you are without the pressures of everybody else around you. Rasmira was such a smart, capable character and was very proud at the same time.
Author: Tricia Levenseller
Average Customer Review: (4.5 out of 5, on Amazon)
Category: Historical Romance
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Hardcover | Kindle | Audio CD
10. A Curse So Dark and Lonely (Cursebreakers)
This is a beautiful retelling. It is the beginning of a series, and this one is a dual perspective story between Harper and Rhen. It comes from our world. Harper has cerebral palsy, which you would think would hinder her story and make things more difficult. But she is a powerful, capable character that doesn’t let those things define her, and she pushes through all of those things and is trying to fight her way back and go back to her family.
Was Harper going to go back to her family? Was she even going to be able to make it? It has such a wonderful romance. She didn’t let her illness define her, and she took life into her own hands. So, it was so fabulous to read about.
Author: Brigid Kemmerer
Average Customer Review: (4.5 out of 5, on Amazon)
Category: Contemporary Fantasy
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Hardcover | Kindle
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