Fierce #girlsquads supporting heroines in happily ever after

THE CHICKS’ long-awaited arrived this winter as the feminist battle cry we all desperately needed.

The album, which documents the end of lead singer Natalie Maines’s marriage, tells a compelling story about betrayal, survival and the power of female friendships.

Through the songs, we collectively bear witness to the heartaches of adult relationships, and the many cages women find themselves in – even as they strive to forge their own path.

And for those who can’t get enough of there is another place where you can find stories of people looking for love and intimacy, who defiantly maintain hope after surviving heartbreak and pain.

That place is a romance novel. If the Chicks have left you in the mood for patriarchy smashing and unapologetically feminist stories, I have some romance books for you.

Whether it’s the friends you made after realising you’d all been catfished by the same no-good scrub, or the cousins who always have your back – the best female friendships in fiction (and life) are the ones forged in fire.

And in a romance, there is nothing better than a fierce #girlsquad to support a heroine in her quest for her happily ever after. Farrah Rochon’s and Alexis Daria’s thoughtfully explore finding love in the aftermath of humiliating public break-ups and show that even if the road to self-discovery has its share of bumps, the journey is better with friends.

These stories don’t just offer swoony and sexy romance, but also affirm the healing power of women supporting women.

I was smitten with Daria’s

who helped the heroine, Jasmine Lin Rodriguez, an up-and-coming soap opera star, figure out her feelings for her co-star Ashton Suarez.

And Rochon’s

crew live up to its name. The hilarious trio comes through for our heroine, app developer Samiah Brooks, as she navigates finding true love and pursuing her professional dreams. and

reject the idea that women can exist only as one another’s competition, and propose on the contrary, a happy ending is sweeter if you have your friends to celebrate with; that’s the kind of feminism I want in all my romance.

Mia Sosa’s hilarious and heartwarming begins with a worst nightmare: being jilted at the altar. On her wedding day, the unflappable Carolina

Santos is dumped by a fiancé who claims to have seen the light after a conversation with his brother on the eve of their wedding.

Lina, an Afro-Brazilian woman, who knows too well that displays of emotion can be a liability, takes the news like she’s learnt to take everything, stoically. But when four years later Lina finds herself teamed up with Maxwell Hartley, the wedding-wrecking brother of her ex-fiancé, for a shot at her dream job, she’s forced to do what she vowed to never do again – let her guard down.

Lina’s passionate nature has brought on too much heartbreak for her to trust her feelings, and the infuriatingly sexy and charming

Max brings out too many in her.

But as Lina works with Max, his desire to give her a space to be herself makes her feel safe to come into her own. As the attraction deepens, Lina falls hard for the way Max revels in all that she is, especially the messy parts. Lina’s Brazilian family holds her up as she reaches for her dreams, and Max gives her the one thing she never thought she’d have: the ability to be her entire self and be loved, not in spite, but because of it.

There are times you have to burn it all to the ground and start again. In Sarah MacLean’s final instalment of the Bareknuckle Bastards we get to see Grace Condry get the epic grovel she deserves. This romance is stridently feminist from the first page.

After a devastating betrayal,

Grace has remade herself and built a business centred on fulfilling female desires. Her former flame, the Duke of Warwick, knows the girl he loved is no longer, and in her place there is a woman he has to remake himself to deserve.

Atoning for his past sins is not enough to have a place at Grace’s side; Ewan must break the chains tying him to the world that almost destroyed them both. Their future is the world Grace built, and she won’t welcome Ewan into it unless he’s proved he understands her worth.

That sounds like a happily-everafter the Chicks would write a song about. |