Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Heroines Who Rock

 

Top Ten Tuesday is an original bookish meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Each week a new top ten topic is posted for followers to write about. This week we are asked to list our ten favorite strong female characters.

1. Nancy Drew: the "girl detective" who has led me on to every mystery story I've ever read. Nancy was the MacGyver of her times. She was always able to find a way out of every scrape she got into. Whether it was using her tap-dancing lessons to tap out morse code to send messages or her handy flying skills, she always had what was needed right at hand. The first really strong female character I ever encountered in books.

2. Phryne Fisher: the grown-up Nancy Drew in Kerry Greenwood's mystery series.  She flies planes, drives a marvelous car, and takes down the bad guys with style and class. She is smart, independent, fights for the underdog, and is everything a strong character should be.

3. India Black: The Madame of Espionage by Carol K. Carr. Sassy and brave and keeping up with a secret agent.  What more could you want.

4. Mary Russell (of the Laurie R. King Holmes books fame): Anyone who can keep up with Holmes rocks by my standards.

5. Marion Halcombe in The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins.  She makes the book.  Stongest character in it and way more of her would have made me like the book a whole lot better.

6. Kate Fansler (Amanda Cross mystery series): witty, smart, loyal academic. She has a lot of qualities that I aspire to.

7. Baroness "Jack" Troutbeck (from a series by Ruth Dudley Edwards): "Jack" is the no-nonsense, irrepressible and irreverant sleuthing partner to civil servant, Robert Amiss. Between the two of them, they manage to skewer all sorts of establishment positions from the ivory towers of education to the House of Lords.

8.  Meg Murry (A Wrinkle in Time, etc.): a brave girl who travels through time to save her dad.

Didn't quite make it to Ten....and didn't want to steal from others whose lists I've already peeked at.  But I did steal Falaise's title over at 2606 Books and counting...thanks, Falaise!