Jul 6, 2023

Why we’re fascinated: Because she’s one of the leading progressive feminist voices writing historical romance today. MacLean is a New York Times bestselling author and Washington Post and Bustle contributor whose work takes on the topics of classism, sexism, racism, police corruption and the normalization of sexual desire. Her novels, the next of which is the third in the “Hell’s Belles” series and is due out in August, are set in the late Georgian and early Victorian eras and star badass females who strive toward equity — and have a talent for explosive sex and … actual explosives. MacLean also cohosts a top romance podcast, the whip-smart “Fated Mates,” which examines a once-non- serious-seeming literary genre through the eyes of a 21st-century feminist lens.

— Erin Felgar