[16] Michelene Wandor's review for The Times observed that the lack of records on women's history left gaps in the biographies covered, but called the book "clear and accessible".
[18] Wheelwright's chapter "Tars, Tarts, and Swashbucklers" in Bold in Her Breeches, edited by historian Jo Stanley (1996) was deemed by reviewer Joan Druett as "impressive" for the insight given into the motives and methods of women pirates, and why their stories have endured in popular culture.
Reviewed by critic Anthony Cronin, the book chronicled the life of Margaretha Geertruida MacLeod, who became famous as Mata Hari an exotic dancer and courtesan.
[20] Historian Tammy M. Proctor confirmed that Wheelwright had shown that the "spy-courtesan" label attached to Mata Hari was a myth, based in male fantasy and fear of betrayal, rather than reality.
[21] Anne McElvoy of The Times called the book a "fascinating and well-researched study" about a bored Dutch housewife, who became a dancer to escape her marriage and access luxuries, but who was convicted on evidence of spying that the French prosecutors admitted, was seriously inadequate.
The film told the story of Isabel Gunn, a Scottish woman who worked disguised as a man in the nineteenth century for the Hudson's Bay Company.
The film told the story of their ancestor, Esther Wheelwright, an Ursuline nun, who had been captured by Wabanaki warriors as a child and taken from her home in Maine to Canada.
[27] Historians Peter Seixas and Tom Morton, based Chapter 5 of their textbook, The Big Six Historical Thinking Concepts on an evaluation of Wheelwright's book on Esther.
[30] Seixas and Morton wrote that Wheelwright's "transparency about the challenges she faced" in writing the book, served as a model for other writers "to arrive at plausible, evidence-based claims".
[31] Wheelwright wrote an article on infanticide for The Guardian in 1995, after Caroline Beale was arrested at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City on her return trip from a vacation heading to England with her deceased infant.
[32] Over the next three years, Wheelwright began researching the topic for a BBC documentary and interviewed several mothers who had killed their children, publishing numerous articles on child murder.
[40] In her review of the book, Phyllis Reeve said that Wheelwright told the centuries-long history of women who fought using life narratives, which did not necessarily lend themselves to chronological organisation because of the complexity of their stories.
[40] Political scientist Kristen Williams stated in her review that the book explored how the idea of women warriors creates tensions as a result of traditional gender expectations of masculinity and femininity.
While saying that Sisters in Arms was highly reliant on historical texts and could have benefited from an interdisciplinary approach including scholarship from other fields, Williams concluded that it was an "informative resource and a pleasure to read".