Top Ten Tuesday!

Hello again my Tuesday pals!  It’s time again for my favorite weekly feature, Top Ten Tuesday!  Click on the picture above to be transported to the land of the Broke and the Bookish, sponsors of TTT.  This week’s topic is kick-ass heroines.  I love kick-ass heroines!  My mom was the kind of mom who used to bring home books for me all the time, and she always made sure I had plenty of those types of books around to read.

Top Ten Favorite Kick-Ass Heroines

1.  Katniss Everdeen from the Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins–okay, this one will probably make 90% of the lists..but she really does kick quite a bit of ass.  She can survive in a wilderness that is pitted against her with 25 other kids running around trying to kill her, TWICE, and then becomes the face of a revolution.

2.  Alexia Tarabotti from the Parasol Protectorate series by Gail Carriger–Alexia holds her own in a Victorian age London populated by werewolves and vampires.  She carries around a weighted parasol, eats like a normal human being, and her touch has the ability to turn the supernatural human while she maintains contact.
I just wish I liked Soulless better, but it’s writing style is similar to books that were written in that age…and I just can’t get into that.  But definitely a MUST READ for people who like that style, the paranormal, and steam punk.

3.  Dulcie O’Neil from To Kill a Warlock by H.P. Mallory–Dulcie is a fairy, but not your typical garden variety–she’s human sized and works to keep badies and nasties and creepies from the Netherworld from wreaking havoc in ours.  This was one of my Kindle freebies, but I’ll probably invest in more of the series, as this was a fun read.

4.  Arya from A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin–she’s little, and she’s a girl during medieval style times in a world where most girls are married off to men three times their age by the time they turn 15.  She names the sword her older half-brother gives her Needle, and  manages to stay alive even though she’s separated from all of her family by most of a continent and they have no idea where she is.  I see great things coming for little Arya Stark in the rest of the series!

5.  Fiona Glenanne from the Burn Notice novelization–it counts, I’ve read one!  The book itself was….really bad, but Fiona’s sooo kickass that she transcends the bad writing (the one I read was written by the creator’s best friend…yeah, it really is that bad).

6.  Claire Randall Frasier from Outlander by Diana Gabaldon–Claire falls through a stone circle into a time 200 years before hers and is forced to marry a stranger, is branded a witch multiple times (and almost hanged and burned for it) for her “modern” ways of treating the sick and injured, and tries to chance the course of history…and even though she manages to escape back to her own time…she goes BACK THROUGH the stones again.  That is just…so kick ass.

7.  Eve Dallas from the In Death series by J.D. Robb–Eve was abused by her father and beaten left for dead when she was 8.  She’s named for the city and the time of day when she was found, bleeding with a broken arm.  Now, she’s a high-powered New York City police detective married to the universe’s richest and most handsome man.  Eve stomps muggers and murderers all day and night long, and then somehow comes home and has time to be seduced by her husband.  Eve will work battered and bruised on 2 hours of sleep so the dead get their justice.

8.  Hester Prynne from The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne–Hester is quietly kick ass.  She manages to keep the secret of Pearl’s parentage despite threats and shunning and all the hell a Puritan community can rain down on someone who doesn’t fit neatly into their views.

9.  Nancy Drew, any incarnation by Caroline Keene–I read both the older books (the yellow hardbacks that libraries tend to have) and the “newer” Case Files.  Nancy Drew, with her titian hair (hee), solves crimes that not even the older male police detectives can’t.

10.  Polgara from the Belgariad and Mallorean series by David Eddings–daughter of the great Belgarath the Sorcerer, she might even surpass his power.  She raises and guides young Belgarion through his early years (as his Aunt Pol), and later on she helps to guide him through his quests to save the world.