From Mary Anning to Lise Meitner, from Caroline Herschel to Katherine Johnson, history is full of brilliant women in STEM. Historical romances should be, too! If you’re seeking geologists, biologists, mathematicians, botanists, and more, AAR Loves these great romance reads.
Earth Bound by Emma Barry and Genevieve Turner (computer scientist): Dr. Charlie Eason is working with the US space program in the 1960’s with the goal of getting an American into orbit before the Soviets. She’s got beauty and brains, and her co-worker, engineer Eugene Parsons, is attracted to both. They engage in a secret affair amidst the life and death drama of their mission. It’s an exciting look at the race for space and a great acknowledgement of the part women have played in scientific success.
Buy it at: Amazon/Apple Books/Barnes & Noble/Kobo
Evernight by Kristen Callihan (inventor): AAR’s review likened Holly Evernight to the Q character from the Bond franchise – an apt descriptor. Brilliantly inventive, shy and a bit socially awkward (due to her agoraphoria), she meets her match in Will Thornton. He draws out her slightly naughty, feisty and playful side and it’s a treat to witness.
Buy it at: Amazon/Apple Books/Barnes & Noble/Kobo
A Week to be Wicked by Tessa Dare (geologist): Bookish Minerva Highwood is more interested in rocks than in men, but her determination to save her lovely sister from the clutches of a seasoned rake drives her to do something rather foolish and ask said rake to run off with HER instead. This is one of the best road-trip romances and the author has yet to top it. Colin is one of Tessa Dare’s finest creations, hiding a vulnerability behind the good-looks and charm that is sometimes heartbreaking.
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A Gentleman Undone by Cecilia Grant (mathematician): Genius Lydia Slaughter has endured a difficult life and is trying to gain her independence by using her math talents to gamble. She wins money from a hero who needs it as much as she does. They realize that they can win more effectively as a team – and that the gaming floor may not be the only place where they match up perfectly.
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The Widow and the Sheikh by Marguerite Kaye (botanist): Julia Trevelyan is the widow of an eminent botanist whose promise to complete his final work – a study of lands her in trouble when her desert camp is attacked and all her books and samples are stolen. Help comes in the form of the handsome Azhar, ruler of the kingdom of Al Qaryma – who is returning there for the first time in ten years. Attraction burns bright and Julia blossoms in the presence of a man who treats her as a person and values her opinions. But for two people from such different worlds, an HEA must be impossible. Mustn’t it?
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Midsummer Moon by Laura Kinsale (inventor): Merlin Lambourne is a scientist/inventor who, many years before the historical invention of the telegraph, is believed to be on the verge of inventing something akin to it. The British government is keen to get its hands on this technology, seeing multiple uses for it at a time of war. Lord Ransom Falconer is sent to bring her and her invention to London, but when an… experiment with the table salt has unintended consequences, he finds his world turned upside-down in more ways than one!
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50 Ways to Ruin a Rake by Jade Lee (chemist): Mellie Smithson’s chemical research has helped make her into a textile heiress, but her father and uncle want her to marry her cousin. Trevor Anaedsley, ducal heir and hobbyist scientist, offers her a fake engagement so she can come to London with him and meet other eligible men, then break their relationship off. Both will realize, however, that they only want each other. The finale sequence, involving a four-way duel and a turkey, is laugh-out-loud funny.
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The Countess Conspiracy by Courtney Milan (biologist working with plants): Years ago, researcher and Countess Violet Waterford enlisted Sebastian Malheur to pretend to have developed her theories, since as a woman, she could not get published or taken seriously on matters involving reproduction. When he tells her he’s done, will she stop her work – or stand up for it?
Buy it at: Amazon/Apple Books/Barnes & Noble/Kobo
Talk Sweetly to Me by Courtney Milan (mathematician): Brilliant and shy, Rose Sweetly is a mathematician who is also black. Although Rose is aware of the prejudices against her (this is Victorian London), she quietly perseveres despite the obstacles in her path. She’s sweet and lovely and sharp and bright and a favorite Milan heroine.
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The Duke I Tempted by Scarlett Peckham (botanist): Poplar – Poppy – Cavendish is an ambitious, self-taught botanist, determined to prove herself as a businesswoman. But she longs to be loved too. Despite the marriage convenience plot that finds her allied with an aloof and secretive husband, she thrives once he helps her establish her business. Bright, devoted and resourceful, this one isn’t a quitter.
Buy it at: Amazon/Apple Books/Barnes & Noble/Kobo
The Veronica Speedwell Mysteries by Deanna Raybourn (lepidopterist): Smart, resourceful and independent, Veronica lives life on her own terms. She’s a feminist ahead of her time, and her prickly relationship with Stoker is delicious. Through three books we’ve watched them solve intricate mysteries and strike sparks off each other as they’ve built a relationship built on equality and trust. They’re made for each other – readers are just waiting for them to admit it out loud!
Sweet Enemy by Heather Snow (chemist): Liliana Claremont is particularly interested in the science of chemistry and how it can be applied to healing. When her home is ransacked, and she discovers a previously unknown hidden compartment in her late father’s study, she finds evidence that his death may not have been an accident and plunges headlong into the search for the killer. Our DIK review calls it a is a sensual romantic suspense with characters that have brains and passion, and are not afraid to put both to good use. Sweet Madness, book three in the Veiled Seduction series, was also awarded DIK status; its heroine, Penelope, is a kind of proto-psychotherapist.
Buy it at: Amazon/Apple Books/Barnes & Noble/Kobo
A Stranger’s Kiss by Shelly Thacker (chemist): Marie Nicole LeBon is a chemist working on a fertilizer that may either revolutionize French agriculture or become a powerful explosive weapon in France’s arsenal. After a laboratory accident, Marie awakes in an asylum with no memory and a handsome British spy posing as her husband beside her hoping to discover the scientific secrets in Marie’s mind. Marie is strong and clever, and the story glows with adventure, romance, and science.
(Note: this title is currently available only as as used paperback, although we believe it will be reissued digitally later this year).
Buy it at: Amazon
Readers – what can you add to our list? Can you think of settings (the Renaissance?), fields of study (engineering?), or places (the US?) to fill out our list? We deliberately kept doctors and healers off this list because there are so many of them in Romancelandia. Would you like to see a list featuring them? What other AAR Loves lists would you like to see in the future?
List of Links for AAR Loves
Interested in finding more books AAR Loves..?
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Romancing it Royally – Some of our favourite royal romances
AAR Loves… Historical Romances featuring scientist heroines
AAR Loves… Romances featuring music and musicians
AAR Loves… Romances featuring realistic parent/child relationships
AAR Loves… Partners to Lovers romances – Part One (Military, law enforcement etc.)
I'm a history geek and educator, and I've lived in five different countries in North America, Asia, and Europe. In addition to the usual subgenres, I'm partial to YA, Sci-fi/Fantasy, and graphic novels. I love to cook.
I just finished A Scandal To Remember by Elizabeth Essex. The heroine Jane is a conchologist (scholar of shell creatures) and travels on the hero’s Royal Navy ship on a scientific expedition. It’s a definite DIK.
Ann Chadwick, in Carla Neggers “The Knotted Skein,” is a physicist. Science isn’t the focus of the book, although Ann’s struggle to be a scientist in the shadow of her father and brothers is a major plot point. The book is romantic suspense from the Velvet Glove series by Avon and is out in ebook. Ann helps solve a murder, survives her oldest brother’s interference, her nephew’s confusion, and ends up with the hero and the respect of big brother. I wish Neggers had written more about the Chadwicks, because I found them interesting and fun.
Kiss of Steel by Bec McMaster has the heroine Honoria following in the steps of her scientist father to provide a cure for “the craving virus”.
Though not working scientists, two of Sherry Thomas’s heroines have a strong interest in scientific fields: Venetia from Beguiling the Beauty in paleontology and Louisa from The Luckiest Lady in London in astronomy. Bryony in Not Quite a Husband is a medical doctor – perhaps technically not STEM, but unusual enough in a historical (so is India Selwyn Jones in The Winter Rose, by Jennifer Donnelly).
I haven’t read Lady Elizabeth’s Comet, but I believe that the heroine is an astronomer.
One more if a fantasy setting works for you: Marie Brennan’s A Natural History of Dragons: A Memoir by Lady Trent. Isabella Trent tells the story of her early work as dragon naturalist . . .
I love the Lady Trent stories. Lady Trent’s narrative voice is brilliant.
Daphne Pembroke, Egyptian scholar (working under a man’s name) in Loretta Chase’s Mr. Impossible.
Sorry – does code-breaking Egyptian hierglyphics count as STEM? Does it count if character is hiding identity?
I thought she was more linguistics but if it feels right, the more the merrier.
Daphne absolutely should count! The kind of work she’s doing is definitely linguistic — but linguistics doesn’t fit well into any of the received academic categories because exactly what different linguists do varies a great deal, so the discipline as a whole rests uneasily on a border between social science and STEM. Math majors and computer science majors who take undergrad linguistics courses almost always do very well; English majors very often don’t.
Some sub-disciplines (e.g. sociolinguistics or anthropological linguistics) tend more towards social science while others tend towards STEM — but even a lot of sociolinguists arguably do borderline STEM because they spend a lot of time working on acoustics and measuring vowel formants. Despite what people tend to assume, decipherment and traditional historical linguistics (along with say formal semantics and syntax) are actually very heavily mathematical. So Daphne must also be naturally good at math, and her work should really be considered a very weird form of applied mathematics, which means she counts as STEM.
(Source: I’m an AI research scientist with a PhD in linguistics who did a lot of traditional philology at one point and believe me, it’s all Weird Math.)
Ravished by Amanda Quick has a fossil-hunting heroine (before the field of paleontology was defined). I believe I read somewhere that she was modeled on a historical female fossil-hunter.
Not in romance, there are several female inventors in steampunk, including in the Parasol Protectorate series by Carriger.
That’s probably Mary Anning that she’s based on!
A Study in Seduction by Nina Rowan has a mathematician heroine. Also, while not explicitly stated, I think Sherry Thomas’ Lady Sherlock series has a heroine who excels in the STEM field. In the second book, A Conspiracy in Belgravia, Charlotte Holmes has to solve complex ciphers, such as the Vigenère cipher and throughout the series, she is an expert on chemical analysis.
Yes!! Great example!
I love Adele Ashworth’s My Darling Caroline–the heroine is a botanist.