Fun, engaging, read. Owen does an excellent job of entertaining and informing in this awesome book about lawbreaking ladies.

In LAWBREAKING LADIES, Erika Owen looks at women throughout history who were notorious for breaking the law. These disreputable women are broken down into categories depending on their crimes: including pirates, charlatans, gamblers, bootleggers, serial killers, madams/prostitutes, and outlaws. Some of these women are well known—such as Bonnie Parker and Anne Bonney. Others I had never heard of before, but I’m thrilled to have learned about them. History books frequently skip over the contributions of women—especially is the contributions came on the wrong side of the law. Owen provides a short but entertaining summary of each woman’s life and crimes. None of the accounts are overly in depth—mainly because few facts were recorded about some of these women—and it left me wanting to know more about each of these women.

Overall, LAWBREAKING LADIES is an enjoyable read. I recommend it to anyone interested in learning more about women’s history.

I love this educational book!   It's so informative and fun.    I enjoy the feminist POV in the book especially.    It's nice that women (even the law-breaking ones) get a mention finally in books.    I plan to let my daughters read it too.

Such a fun and feminist non-fiction book! I am all for books looking at specific "types" of people over time and Owen does not disappoint. Organized into specific categories with occasional illustrations, Lawbreaking Ladies gives respect and background to women across the world over time, paying close attention to historical and societal context that lend a better understanding of how and why life led these women to their ultimate actions. Can't wait to get my hands on a physical copy!

Lawbreaking Ladies is a fun and easy read about 50 women criminals you might not have heard about, and considering my love for True Crime I honestly only knew about a handful of women in this book. It is a well-researched book that leaves you wanting more, and one I thoroughly enjoyed reading.

My favorite thing about Lawbreaking Ladies is how Erika Owen tells each story. It isn't stodgy or dry, instead, you can feel how excited Owen was to write about each woman. Own's throws in a bit of humor, some tongue-in-cheek comments, that keep the writing from getting either boring or dry. I also really liked that Owen didn't try to justify what these ladies did to earn them such an infamous past. They simply presented the facts as they were and left us to decided how to feel about it.

I also really liked that each chapter on each woman was not only kept short, but each woman was divided into sections by what kind of criminal each woman was. This made it easier to keep track of who was who, and I wasn't at a loss when the subject matter changed. I also really liked that each chapter had its own little glossary of words that were important to know with each new section. I don't mind Googling things as I read, but it was a nice bit of information to have at my fingertips going into each section.

Despite each chapter being so small I never felt that any of the mini-biographies were rushed. It's easy to tell that Owen did a ton of research on each of these women, and did her best to piece together their lives as best she could. It was also nice that she didn't shy away from the legends surrounding these women, but was quick to let us know there was no proof of certain things happening.

The artwork for this book was also a nice addition, especially the portraits. Those were a nice break from reading as well as an excellent visual of some of the women in each chapter.

I really only had a couple of issues with this book, and both might be fixed by the time this book comes out next year. The first was Deadwood is mentioned several times before the reader is given a brief history of the town. Not a big deal for me personally since I know where and what that town was, but if the description is going to be there I felt it should have been done the first time the town was mention. The second was there was a couple of small date typos that jumped a couple of characters a hundred years into the future. I'm sure this will be fixed by the time Lawbreaking Ladies hits selves this coming February.

This is a book that I will want a physical copy of once it's released to not only see the final product but because it's definitely one I'd read again.

Lawbreaking Ladies is made up of fifty short biographies of female criminals. While they got their spot in this book by breaking laws, a lot of them also broke the gender barriers of their time. Because of this, some of the women featured are actually pretty admirable today. One thing I really loved about this title is that Owen, the author, organized the biographies by similar offenses. For example, there the first section of the book highlights female pirates and the crimes they committed. Despite how much I enjoyed this one, I only gave it three out of five stars. This is because I wish the biographies had been longer! I would have loved to learn more about each one of the criminals highlighted and just felt that this book was too short!

***Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. The expected publication date is February 23, 2021.***

2.5 - 3 stars

I was really hoping to enjoy this book more.  I'm all about reading more about the "fairer sex" and learning that they were much more than the window dressing we were supposed to be.

History being what it is, there isn't always much information out there regarding these extraordinary women.  There were many interesting women that I'd like to read about.  The only downside for me was that some of the stories were a bit too short.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for this ARC. 
It immediately peaked my curiously; some of these ladies were parts of stories I had heard before; so I had a bit of knowledge regarding those. Others were completely new to me and while these ladies mostly wouldn’t be described in the best of light, a fascination peaked and I can’t wait to actually dig a little deeper on some of these law breaking ladies. Mostly we’ve been told stories about the “bad boys”, the ones involved in robbery, murder, bootlegging, prostitution; so hearing stories from a female perspective was interesting.

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC copy of this book. It was a great, quick read about a lot of interesting women throughout history. The sections were super short for each woman. I wish there was a little more detail and backstory for some.

I really enjoyed this collection. There were all different types. I personally enjoyed the lady pirate. I never really thought that there were female pirates. The author did a great job putting together a nice, entertaining book that I think any true crime fan will enjoy.

When I saw the title "Lawbreaking Ladies" I was immediately intrigued and knew I had to read it. It's not your typical true crime book. It's all about women but they aren't all serial killers. You learn about lady pirates, bootleggers, gamblers, and more. The author takes you back to the 1600's and brings you to the 90's in true stories of women you may have heard of but don't know all the facts, or women you're never heard of. I learnt about serial killers I've never heard of before and learned new things about Bonnie (yes from Boonie and Clyde). You also learn about ladies who challenged the stereotype roles. It's well written and fast passed. I couldn't put it down and ended up binge reading it in one day. I highly recommend this book! You won't be disappointed! 

**I received an ARC from the publisher on Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

"…. women can be just as intimidating, terrifying, and feared as men." 


What It's About: This is a collection of 50 stories about lawbreaking ladies from the 15th century to the mid-1900s, who chosen a different path in life, and went against the societal conventions imposed upon women at that time.  


My thoughts: This is a quick and light read. I have to honest that although it's a light read, but reading 50 mini biographies can be a lot. It is not a book to be read in one sitting but a book to be savored slowly. 

These stories are like quick facts/mini biographies and I liked how they are divided into seven parts -pirates,  gamblers, bootleggers, madams, serial killers, outlaws, and  fraudsters. There are some that I am familiar with and some are new to me.

Elizabeth Bathory or the Countess of Blood is definitely the more well known one. 

When buying cosmetics now, I will always think of Giulia Tofana, the cosmetics killer who laced her cosmetics with arsenic, lead and belladonna. Yikes! 

Ching-Shih the Pirate Princess and Sayidda al-Hurra the Muslim Pirate Queen were such tough ladies!

A bad parenting story of Kate "Ma" Barker, the mother who encouraged her four sons to commit crimes. Shocking! 

…. and many many more stories.

Overall, this is an entertaining read with interesting facts. The illustrations are pretty and if you're looking for a light true crime read, this may be the book for you! 

Pub. Date: Feb 23, 2021

***Thank you Simon and Schuster, Tiller Press, author Erika Owen and NetGalley for this gifted review copy in exchange for an honest review.***

Lots of brief biographies that cover a gamut of intriguing women. I admit that 50 seemed like a lot of them at once as I have to keep repeating the names of those who I’d like to remember most. That said, I don’t know whose story I would cut out. 

I liked that the book was separated into sections such as “pirates” and “bootleggers.” Overall, very enjoyable, and keep sharing the facts I learned with others.

Lawbreaking Ladies: 50 Tales of Daring, Defiant, and Dangerous Women from History
By, Erika Owen
Pub date: February 23, 2021
Genre: True crime, Biography

Thank you NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for the opportunity to read this e-ARC.

Owens shares with us her incredibly researched collection of fascinating biographies of dangerous, rebellious, and often criminal women who have solidified their places in history. 

Whether you've heard about them already or if their remarkable stories are new to you, here's a sneak peek of a few of the pirates, fraudsters, gamblers, bootleggers, serial killers, madams, and outlaws throughout the ages; 
*Elizabeth Bigley- The Fraud Who Never Learned Her Lesson
*Marie Baker- The Pretty Pants Bandit
*Lavinia Fisher- The Legendary Hotel Killer
*Willie Carter Sharpe- The Speedster With Diamonds in Her Teeth

By telling their stories in this beautifully illustrated collection, we learn about these lawbreaking and legendary women in such a unique way. I Love biography collections like this and found each and every one of these bold and not so nice women's stories incredibly interesting! A great gift for true crime, biography, and women of history fans.

I was excited to receive this book, and learn about woman who broke all the rules. However, I was a little disappointed when I started this book, I was expecting a more detailed life and history of each of the woman mentioned in this story, but several of the woman barely had any information on them and took up just a page. I found it a bit dull at times and repetitive mostly focusing on the mundane aspects of their lives. As the book progressed the stories did get more detailed about each woman’s life of crime. I did enjoy the stories about the woman that changed history for others. By being criminals, their stories effected woman later on and they did not accept the laws that say woman can not do something.  This book did included a number of great historical facts that were very interesting and at times a look at what those historical times were like for woman. This book does included robbery, prostitution, murder and kidnapping.  I received this ebook via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this.   The stories were great and I especially liked the pirates.  I recognized some of the names from the book, but I was amazed with all the unknown stories about lawbreaking women.  It was a very fun book that I would recommend.

This was a great read and I felt like I learned a lot. I hadn't heard of some of the ladies profiled, so I enjoyed reading their stories. I do wish that the profiles would've been longer, but I understand why they were shorter. All in all, this is a great read, especially if you're interested in the history of women and crime.

Love this fabulous book! If this isn't "girl-power" I'm not sure what else is.

This is a fantastic dive into some "Bad-girls" through history. Each is so uniquely bada** and comes from all across the globe. From pirates, gamblers, boot-leggers, serial killers, madams (my favorite), gunslingers, bandits, outlaws to fraudsters.

This is the bible of bad-girls and I loved learning about all of them. They're all so unique and crazy - LOVED IT. Very well researched and written.

Thought this was pretty enjoyable. I liked how the book was sectioned off. I definitely learned a lot while reading. My only complaint is that I wish individual stories were longer. I get that for some of the women there isn't a lot of information out there. This book felt like series of snacks instead of a meal. Both have their place. But I just wanted a little more.

I loved reading about the crime in this book . I had never heard some of these stories before and I read alot of true crime so I was delighted to find some new information.