Presents a reconstruction of the eighteenth-century empress's life that covers her efforts to engage Russia in the cultural life of Europe, her creation of the Hermitage, and her numerous scandal-free romantic affairs.

Catherine de Medici is one of the most maligned monarchs in history: blamed for the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre in which hundreds of innocents died. What motivated this Renaissance woman who was born of Florence's most powerful family, and one day came to rule France? In her latest historical fiction bestseller, Jeanne Kalogridis tells the story of Catherine, a tender young girl, destined to be a pawn in Machiavellian games. Left a fabulously rich...

On the eve of Victorian England, Charles Dickens and Kate Hogarth must solve the murder of a spinster wearing a wedding gown . . .

London, June 1835: In the interest of being a good neighbor, Charles checks in on Miss Haverstock, the elderly spinster who resides in the flat above his. But as the young journalist and his fiancée Kate ascend the stairs, they are assaulted by the unmistakable smell of death. Upon entering...

"Bestselling author and acclaimed historian Alison Weir takes on what no fiction writer has done before: creating a dramatic six-book series in which each novel covers one of King Henry VIII's wives. In this captivating opening volume, Weirbrings to life the tumultuous tale of Katherine of Aragon, Henry's first, devoted, and "true" queen. A princess of Spain, Catalina is only sixteen years old when she sets foot on the shores of England. The youngest...

"Makes Game of Thrones look like a nursery rhyme." —Daisy Goodwin, New York Times bestselling author of The Fortune Hunter
"[Alpsten] recounts this remarkable woman's colourful life and times." —Count Nikolai Tolstoy, historian and author

Before there was Catherine the Great, there was Catherine Alexeyevna: the first woman to rule Russia in her own right. Ellen Alpsten's

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"A leading Renaissance scholar shows in this revisionist history how four powerful women redefined the culture of European monarchy in the glorious sixteenth century. Library Journal "Books and Authors to Know: Titles to Watch 2021" Sixteenth-century Europe was a time of destabilization of age-old norms and the waging of religious wars-yet it also witnessed the remarkable flowering of a pacific culture cultivated by a cohort of extraordinary women...

Presents a novel that surrounds three women whose positions brought them wealth and notoriety in the court of King Henry VIII as well as deceit and betrayal.

"Orphaned from infancy, Catherine de' Medici endured a tumultuous childhood. Married to the French king, she was widowed by forty, only to become the power behind the French throne during a period of intense civil strife. In 1546, Catherine gave birth to a daughter, Elisabeth de Valois, who would become Queen of Spain. Two years later, Catherine welcomed to her nursery the beguiling young Mary Queen of Scots, who would later become her daughter-in-law....