How familiar are you with the suffragist movement in Great Britain? If you are at all familiar, you would know how Emmeline Pankurst was, and the fights for women’s voting rights that often got violent.

I had studied this movement, in this time period, for a historical novel I wanted to write, but I never knew, or read about what this graphic novel talks about, how women learned Jujitsu to defend themselves when they were not out into the world to protest. This allowed them to get away from the police, as well as to defend themselves when they were beaten or attacked for protesting.

Women were allowed to learn Jujitsu, not because people thought it was ok for women to learn to defend themselves, but because it came for Asia, and thus was inferior, and not a threat to the average British man.

Edith Garrud was the woman who trained them, a very small five foot woman, but knowing jujitsu allowed her to topple police that were far larger then her.

As with any historical novel, I love how this teaches me about a time, though fictionalized, to things that I never knew happened.

Also like how photos from local papers from the time made it into the book to show how the papers view these women.

Thanks to Netgalleky for making this book available for an honest review. The book is being published August 1st from Graphic Universe.