For fans of The Queen's Gambit, this is the real life story of a female chess champion travelling the world to compete in a male-dominated sport with the most famous players of all time.

Jennifer Shahade, a two-time US women's chess champion, spent her teens and twenties travelling the world playing chess. Tournaments have taken her from Istanbul to Moscow, and introduced her to players from Zambia to China. In this ultra male-dominated sport, Jennifer found shocking sexism, as well as an incredible history of the top female players that has often been ignored. But she also found friendships, feminism and hope.

Through her own story as well as in-depth profiles of pioneers of the game, Jennifer invites us into the extremely competitive world of chess. She shows us the rivalry and the camaraderie; the ecstatic highs and the excruciating losses; the glamour and the hard work. She describes the coach who told her that her period will affect her standard of play, and gives us thrilling blow-by-blow accounts of the matches that made history.

Intertwined with Jennifer's own story are those of the top female players from around the world. We meet the famous Polgar sisters, the three Hungarian girls who were all child prodigies; we meet the glamorous jet setters who travel the world partying, and the players who escaped war-torn countries to become champions against the odds.

Chess Queens is a fascinating journey into the exhilarating world of chess and an essential book for all the aspiring chess queens of today.

"Like The Queen's Gambit, this isn't really about chess, but power... [Shahade] wants to provoke discussion and show how chess is just a starting point for wider liberation." - The Sunday Times

"Revealing and absorbing" - Business Post

"In pacey and flowing prose, Shahade intertwines episodes and experiences from her own chess career with a chronological account of the greatest female chessplayers starting with Vera Menchik and Sonja Graf. In reading through Shahade's book, I felt something of the same pleasure of discovery as I'd had as a 9-year-old (reading about the great legends of the game). If a young female player gets the same sense of belonging to the chess world through reading this book... it will have made a world of difference." - New In Chess Magazine

"Highly engaging ... a tour de force on chess history and its socio-political context. Amid decades of nonsense written about women chess players, this is an authentic, balanced and extremely readable celebration of players who, over the last century or so, have confounded social expectations for their love of the 64 squares" - Chess Magazine

"There is little technical analysis or jargon. She writes for the general reader...in a droll and conversational style, with a sharp eye for character quirks" - The New Humanist