This book is an important work; it collects all the known stories of female husbands, women who dressed to became a man and married as a man to another woman in the eyes of the public. No one was wiser until something happened, and the truth came out, and depending on the time and place, that would be death or acceptance.

I found the book a bit repetitive, especially after each example, as the author was trying to justify their existence and what could have been the actual story. Also, labeling them "they," which I understand because we don't know how they would have preferred to be called. Lastly, most of the info is secondary information, not much original works happening, so there is already a bias in the stories. They are an exciting and scandalous topic, so writers added salacious untrue details to their stories. Most of these stories were about women who wanted to live a life better than they had, or left that gendering themselves as a man was a better option during a time in history that being a man was everything. But I understand why, I thought, the author struggled, because we are so ingrained with gender norms and fluidity is hard to wrap around in the words we have. No matter who we try, it comes off clinical, impersonal, and hard.

I also an ARC, so perhaps all my issues were fixed during the final book. I received an ARC from Netgalley and Cambridge for an honest review.