Top 100 Women’s Fiction

Dear readers and those with a new empty Kindle,

The Heart Press team personally thanks each of you for taking time out of your busy holiday schedule to nominate and now take the poll, you’re the best. The gender question was an indulgence for our team:

• 86% – Female
• 11% – Male
• 03% – Didn’t Answer

As promised here’s how you ranked the Top 100:

Best in Women’s Fiction

1. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
2. Heart of the Matter by Emily Giffin
3. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
4. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
5. The Help by Kathryn Stockett
6. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
7. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
8. My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
9. Emma by Jane Austen
10. Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding
11. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
12. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
13. Persuasion by Jane Austen
14. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
15. The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger
16. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
17. In Her Shoes by Jennifer Weiner
18. The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough
19. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood **
20. 1106 Grand Boulevard by Betty Dravis
21. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
22. Good In Bed by Jennifer Weiner
23. The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller
24. Under The Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes
25. Nights in Rodanthe by Nicholas Sparks
26. The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
27. The Princess Bride by William Goldman
28. Remember Me? by Sophie Kinsella
29. Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence
30. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
31. Circle Of Friends by Maeve Binchy
32. Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
33. Beloved by Toni Morrisson
34. Stephanie Plum Series by Janet Evanovich
35. Forever Sunshine by Colette Scott
36. She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb
37. White Oleander by Janet Fitch
38. The Pilot’s Wife by Anita Shreve
39. The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
40. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
41. Love In The Time Of Cholera by José de la Concordia García Márquez
42. Silas Marner by George Eliot
43. The Game of Kings (The Lymond Chronicles) by Dorothy Dunnett
44. Sing You Home by Jodi Picoult
45. Where The Heart Is by Billie Letts
46. The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher
47. Summer Sisters by Judy Blume
48. The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society by Barrows / Shaffer
49. Middlemarch by George Eliot
50. Possession by AS Byatt
51. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
52. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
53. Bet Me by Jennifer Crusie
54. Suzanne’s Diary for Nicholas by James Patterson
55. The Boleyn Inheritance by Philippa Gregory
56. The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler
57. Getting Rid of Matthew by Jane Fallon
58. A Woman of Substance by Barbara Taylor Bradford
59. The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs
60. The Other Life by Ellen Meister
61. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
62. Mr. Maybe by Jane Green
63. The Reader by Bernhard Schlink
64. The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
65. How to Bake a Perfect Life by Barbara O’Neal
66. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
67. Nine Coaches Waiting by Mary Stewart
68. Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson
69. Evergreen by Belva Plain
70. No Place Like Home by Barbara Samuel
71. Summer Rental by Mary Kay Andrews
72. The Gap Year by Sarah Bird
73. Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
74. The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing
75. Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
76. Anywhere But Here by Mona Simpson
77. Morning Glory by LaVryle Spencer
78. These Old Shades by Georgette Heyer
79. Through A Glass Darkly by Karleen Koen
80. Talk Before Sleep by Elizabeth Berg
81. Good Grief by Lolly Winston
82. Little Children by Tom Perrotta
83. Sugar Daddy by Lisa Kleypas
84. The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen
85. Flowers From the Storm by Laura Kinsale
86. Stones From The Rivers by Ursula Hegi
87. Silver Girl by Elin Hilderbrand
88. We Need to Talk about Kevin by Lionel Shriver
89. Villette by Charlotte Bronte
90. The Postmistress by Sarah Blake
91. The Lover by Marguerite Duras
92. Tipping The Velvet by Sarah Waters
93. The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant
94. Love Walked In by Marisa de Los Santos
95. Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson
96. Ladies of the Club by Helen Hooven Santmyer
97. Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks
98. Cry No More by Linda Howard
99. Annie Freeman’s Fabulous Traveling Funeral by Kris Radish
100. The Darling Strumpet by Gillian Bagwell

** The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood is a dystopian novel and should not have been included in this poll. Our team regrets this error and would have you look into her other titles, “Cat’s Eye” or “Alias Grace”.

Here are the other 50 titles included in the poll, some of which are National Book Award winners:

• Pearl in the Sand by Tessa Afshar
• Ednor Scardens by Kathleen Barker
• A Dream Unfolding by Karen Baney
• Ship Fever: Stories by Andrea Barrett
• Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister by Aphra Behn
• The Opposite of Love by Julie Buxbaum
• Girls In White Dresses by Jennifer Close
• Jezebel’s Daughter by Wilkie Collins
• Best Staged Plans by Claire Cook
• The Saffron Kitchen by Yasmin Crowther
• A Dead Man’s Debt by Grace Elliot
• You Know When the Men Are Gone by Siobhan Fallon
• The Monk Downstairs by Tim Farrington
• My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin
• The Spare Room by Helen Garner
• Intentions of the Earl by Rose Gordon
• The Violets of March by Sarah Jio
• Home to Woefield by Susan Juby
• The Life Before Her Eyes by Laura Kasischke
• Dollars to Donuts by Kathleen Kole
• The Rhythm of Secrets by Patti Lacy
• Stone Angel by Margaret Lawrence
• The Windflower by Laura London (Tom and Sharon Curtis)
• In Leah’s Wake by Terri Long
• Fall On Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald
• Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake by Sarah MacLean
• Fortunes of War: The Balkan Trilogy by Olivia Manning
• A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel
• Rules of the Wild by Francesca Marciano
• Still Midnight by Denise Mina
• Ladies’ Auxiliary by Tova Mirvis
• While I’m Falling by Laura Moriarty
• Songs in Ordinary Times by Mary McGarry Morris
• Again by Diana Murdock
• The Reading Group by Elizabeth Noble
• The Fugitive’s Doctor by Deirdre-Elizabeth Parker
• The Dogs of Babel by Carolyn Parkhurst
• The Thomas Pitt series by Anne Perry
• Excuse Me, My Brains Have Stepped Out by Pandora Poikilos
• What the Heart Knows by Mara Purl
• The Year Of Fog by Michelle Richmond
• Caring for Eleanor by Sonia Rumzi
• The Manicurist by Phyllis Schieber
• Crossing To Safety by Wallace Stegner
• I Married You For Happiness by Lily Tuck
• The Space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar
• Love and Other Impossible Pursuits by Ayelet Waldman
• Ten Beach Road by Wendy Wax
• The Beach Trees by Karen White
• The Cahokian by Zoe Saadia

We want to wish the readers of Women’s Fiction, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy Hanukkah, Compliments of the Season, Season’s Greetings, Joyous Kwanzaa, Best Wishes of the Season and Thank You for understanding.

-Steve Clark
Publisher, Heart Press