I was very up and down on this book, which could have been so much more interesting - maybe the structure was the problem, as it was based not always chronologically but on arbitrary categories these various women had been slotted into.  That lack of context, along with the many very similar names, made for confusing reading at times. 

This wasn't helped either by the issues with the primary material and a lot of sentences with words like 'it seemed...' or 'X was probably...', so that there didn't seem to be a great deal of substance to some of the claims being made. Of course, the women of this time can't all be Æthelflæd and have a lot of verifiable detail about them but even she didn't particularly get a good deal out of this book.

I am so very sorry I did not get this book read in time. Is there a way to submit a review after it has been archived?

For me, this was a very interesting reading.
History, in general, is a subject I love to read about and I love finding fiction that portraits female leaders because, through history, the names of the courageous women have been forgotten, easily destructed people being forgetful while writing them down.
This book is a secret page in the book of history. It shows that women are not so easily forgotten, that even though they didn't make our history textbooks it doesn't mean they weren't there. 
This book is a piece of actual truth..

I was looking forward to this one but it was a disaster!

The narration jumps all over the place and resembles a dry textbook with clear traces of a self-righteous, pseudo-historian ego. Sub-chapters were definitely needed in each Part. It was rather difficult to follow the events as names, dates and incidents were generously thrown here and there without the slightest hint of coherence.

The writer’s dismissive attitude towards the Church and Christianity in general was highly disrespectful and unacceptable. If you don’t want a specific audience for your...book, make sure to mention it somewhere for all potential readers who want an objective view of the era. This read like a badly-written, pseudo-feminist libel towards everyone and everything.

Well, this potential reader is out and my advice to the writer is ‘’stick to your romance novels.’’

Many thanks to Pen & Sword History and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.