Thank you to Netgalley for providing me an advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest review.

I still have not been able to get my filthy little fingers on a copy of A Tyranny of Petticoats, so I was a bit hesitant about this at first; what if I'd missed something vital? Bless my slowness, because The Radical Element is 12 entirely new stories about badass ladies doing badass things (written by badass ladies doing badass things, too!) and seem to have no connection to ATOP. In case anyone was wondering. Which they're probably not because everybody but me seem know what an anthology is. ANYWAY.

So, the thing, for me, about rating collections of short stories like this one is that you never know what you're gonna get. And if you're gonna like it. Or if you're gonna life half of them and abhor the rest. And I was worried about that until I'd read the first and moved on to the second, and then that worry was put to shame. And it continued to be put to shame throughout, because at no point did I read any of these little stories and think, "gosh, what was the purpose of this?". Nuh uh. More often than not I made it to the end and sat glaring at my screen screen because I was not ready to let go of these characters. Sure, there were some that I enjoyed more than others, but overall, this was just a fantastic read.

Also, it has to be mentioned, the little author's notes at the end of each story? Wonderful. The little insight they gave in the author's reasons for writing this particular character in this particular setting were invaluable in my later digestion of the stories, and led me on several research-adventures for things that I never realised I needed to know more about. So, dear authors, thank you all for that.