Historical Fiction's Most Compelling Pregnant Protagonists 

Cornwall, 1935. Agnes arrives at Hedone House, the sanatorium run by her new husband, Dr Christian, ready to make it her new home. Hedone House is a luxurious and picturesque sanatorium that caters to the creative elite and specialises in a groundbreaking treatment for tuberculosis. Soon after arriving, Agnes learns she’s expecting and she’s excited. But it soon turns to trepidation as she begins to hear whispers about past patients and discovers that her husband’s methods are highly unusual and concerning. As she begins to uncover shocking secrets, Agnes realises she must try to get herself and her unborn child out of the house of fever before it’s too late. 

I’m sure you’ve all heard about this book and many of you will have watched the show.  Set in America during the 1950s and 60s, it tells the story of Elizabeth Zott, a quirky heroine with a passion for chemistry. She does everything against the grain: working in chemistry, living unmarried with her partner, becoming pregnant while unmarried, and being a single mother. Whilst Zott isn’t pregnant for much of this book, I had to include her in this list. Her unexpected pregnancy and journey as a single mother is a vital part of her character and the storyline and it is a book I think everyone should read.

Florida, 1970. Four teenage girls - Fern, Rose, Zinnia and Holly - have all been sent to a maternity home for those they call ‘wayward girls’. Being an unwed mother is shameful and they have been sent to live out their pregnancies in secret, surrender their babies for adoption, and then return home to forget it ever happened. The girls have no agency, every minute of their lives is strictly controlled and they are told what is best for them and their unborn babies. They are also kept uneducated and have no idea what is happening to their bodies in pregnancy and what birth actually entails, leading to some of the most distressing birth scenes I’ve ever read.

It is horrifying and cruel. So when the girls begin to claw back some agency through a strange book about witchcraft, I cheered. Finally, they have some power. But the girls will learn that it comes at a price far steeper than any of them ever imagined.

They say fact is stranger than fiction, and this story proves the old adage to be true. The Great Stalk Derby was a very real challenge set by eccentric millionaire Charles Vance Miller in his will in 1926, declaring that his vast fortune would go to the woman who had the most babies over the next ten years. Our pregnant protagonists are Lily and Mae - two women who take part in the derby. The story follows them through multiple pregnancies and all of their trials, tribulations and celebrations over the decade of the race. This is a harrowing and compelling story that serves as a reminder of how important women’s rights, bodily autonomy and access to contraception reproductive healthcare really is. 

Belinda Bainbridge moves to The Bridge, her husband’s ancestral home, after the death of her father-in-law. At the time, they have a five-year-old son, Freddy, and Belinda is pregnant with their second child. She’s dismayed to find that the once luxurious estate is now struggling financially, in a state of disrepair, the garden wild and there are whispers about the mysterious death of one of the servants years earlier. Then Freddy begins to fixate on the silent companions - strange wooden figures previously owned by their ancestors. He even tells Belinda that they talk to him. Is this just her child’s vivid imagination or is something sinister happening in her home? 

Set in 1965, this story follows a group of suburban housewives and a pregnant unwed teenager they welcome into their fold. The main focus is its two main characters: housewife Lily and Betsy, the teenager who has been sent to be her live-in babysitter from a home for unwed mothers. They are both pregnant but their experiences couldn’t be more different. Not only will Betsy be forced to give up her child, but she is completely naive about sex, pregnancy and childbirth. It is a stark reminder how important good sex education is. And as the story explores topics such as pregnancy, miscarriage, abortion, women’s rights and body autonomy, it reminds us how vital women’s rights and access to contraception and safe abortions are, and how dangerous life was for women without them.