Fantasy books with female heroines? British fantasy books with female heroines?

[mothwing]

I have a question for my fellow Fantasy readers out there (I'm looking especially at you, fourthage ), do you happen to know any (recent) British (high/epic/heroic/parallel world) Fantasy books which have been fairly popular which have a female heroine?
Preferably written by a female writer?

Crocky asked me for suggestions, but all I could come up with were mumbled suggestions along the lines of Marion Zimmer Bradley and Tamora Pierce, neither of who are British, and Susan Cooper, whom I love to pieces, but whose Jane Drew does not make her a good example because the other characters are all male.

The only real example I could think of was Jill Murphy, whose books were fairly popular but whose target audience is a good deal younger than the ones Crocky'd need (the books she's going to examine are Harry Potter, His Dark Materials, The Bartimaeus Trilogy).

Some  help?

Comments

[krakelwok.livejournal.com]

Diana Wynn-Jones' Howl's Moving Castle, maybe?

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

Oh, I completely forgot about her. Good idea and definitely worth checking out, thanks. :)

[fourthage.livejournal.com]

Terry Pratchett's Tiffany Aching series. (Not a female author, but super popular). Garth Nix . . . shoot, is Australian. Never mind.

Jo Walton lives in Canada now, but she's Welsh by birth. Her alternate history trilogy was pretty well received, but I don't know if it quite meets the "fairly popular" point. The books in that are Farthing, Ha'Penny, and Half a Crown. She also had two earlier books that are most often described as Arthurian legend with a female Lancelot (The King's Peace and The King's Name).

Oooh, Wikipedia is a wonderful thing. The British Fantasy Writers category. Tanith Lee is a big name, but I never read her books to tell you if the main characters are female.

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Terry Pratchett and Garth Nix came to my mind, too, but they're not female. So far, she has female author/male hero, male author/male hero, male author/female hero, but no female author/female hero.

Jo Walton! I didn't know she was born in Wales. Tanith Lee is also a really good suggestion. It's been years since I read her books.

That list is great, we should have trusted Wiki to have something from the start.

Thanks!