True love never ran smoothly for the beautiful Sophia Dorothea, darling of Celle, who first lost her heart to Philip Königsmarck on her seventh birthday.At sixteen, a pawn in seventeenth-century German politics, she was forced into marriage with George Lewis, Crown Prince of Hanover and the future George I of England, who cared only for women and war.Clara von Platen, the uncrowned ruler of Hanover, jealous, ruthless and sexually insatiable, is spurned by Königsmarck when he re-appears in the life of Sophia Dorothea. In revenge, she plans his ruin – and that of the sad princess he so recklessly loves …

In the resplendence of William the Conqueror's London court, the lovely Saxon captive Nicholaa was forced to choose a husband from the assembled Norman nobles. She chose Royce, a baron warrior whose fierce demeanor could not conceal his chivalrous and tender heart- Resourceful, rebellious, and utterly naive, Nicholaa vowed to bend Royce to her will, despite the whirlwind of feelings he aroused in her. Ferocious in battle, seasoned in passion, Royce was surprised by the depth of his emotion whenever he caressed his charming bride.In a climate of utmost treachery, where Saxons still intrigued against their Norman invaders, Royce and Nicholaa reveled in their precious new love...a fervent bond soon to be disrupted by the call of blood, kin, and country!

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On the morning of 20th June 1837, an eighteen-year-old girl is called from her bed to be told that she is Queen of England. The Victorian age has begun.The young queen’s first few years are beset with court scandal and malicious gossip: there is the unsavoury Flora Hastings affair, a source of extreme embarrassment to the queen; the eternal conflict between Victoria and her mother, and the young queen’s hatred of Sir John Conroy, her mother’s close friend.Then there is the Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne – ‘Lord M’ – worldly cynic and constant companion to the queen, himself a veteran of many a latter-day scandal. He proves to be her guiding light – until the dashing Prince Albert appears and she falls hopelessly in love …

Marguerite, eldest daughter of the Count of Provence, had married a king of France – and now her sister Eleanor is determined to make just as grand a match.Good fortune and wily cunning bring her Henry of England. A good and generous husband but a weak king, he rules a nation that still remembers his cruel and foolish father, King John. As Henry showers gifts on his new bride his extravagance forces him to levy ever greater taxation on the land, and the spectre of revolt soon looms against him. For Simon de Montfort, the adventurer who will give England its first true parliament, the house of destiny is at hand.

Queen Mary II started her life in the court of her uncle, the Merry Monarch, King Charles II. Charles’s England was a Protestant country with a great disdain for Catholicism. The people remembered the great persecutions Queen Mary I had enacted during her reign and would always be reluctant to accept another Catholic on the throne. Charles knew that under their father’s care, Mary and her sister, Anne, would be raised Catholic, since James was a practicing Catholic. In the interest of keeping the royal line Protestant, King Charles looked after the girls and even arranged Mary’s marriage.When Mary was fifteen she was married to her first cousin William of Orange, a stern and cold man. Mary moved to Holland to be with her husband, leaving behind her sister and her father, with whom she was very close, despite their religious differences.Mary spent her life torn between her duty as a daughter and her loyalty as a wife. After the death of her uncle Charles, her father became King James II, which proved to be an ephemeral reign as his religion was unpopular, and William of Orange had his ambitious sights set on the crown. Mary supported her husband in his deposing of her father, and although she was reluctant, was crowned queen with William ruling as king.

From the time they were in their cradles, Victoria and Albert were destined for each other. However, the passive Albert is well aware that marriage to a quick-tempered, demonstrative young woman like Victoria could result in unnecessary scenes and stormy court feuds.And he is right. The young Queen, as well has having to endure her constant pregnancies, is in perpetual revolt against any encroachment on her position – and Albert is doing just that.Despite attempts on her life and crises like the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny, her family – Albert and their nine children – is her prime concern. The Victorian age is truly under way – but the real power behind the throne was the queen’s husband.

Katherine of Valois was born a princess, the daughter of King Charles VI of France, but her father was known to most of the nation as “Charles the Mad” by the time Katherine was old enough to know him. Given to unpredictable fits of insanity, the monarch was not a reliable parent. The young princess lived a secluded, unsteady life with her brothers and sisters, awaiting their father’s sane moments, suffering through his madness, watching their mother take up with their uncle, and wondering what the future would hold. Katherine’s fortunes appeared to be changing when she was married off at age nineteen to King Henry V of England. Within two years, she gave birth to an heir, but her happiness was fleeting—soon after the birth of her son, she lost her husband to an illness acquired in battle.Exiled from court, forbidden to return to France, and no longer allowed access to her child, Katherine’s every action was watched carefully; with Joan of Arc inciting the French to overthrow English rule, the Queen’s loyalty to England was a matter of intense suspicion. A relic of a former age, Katherine had brought her dowry and borne her heir, what use was she to England? The matter was quickly settled, she would live out her remaining years alone, far from the seat of power. But no one, even Katherine herself, could have anticipated that she would fall in love with and secretly marry one of her guardians, Owen Tudor—or that a generation later, their grandson would become the first king of the great Tudor dynasty.

The unforgettable story of Marie Antoinette, from her pampered childhood in imperial Vienna, to the luxury and splendor of her days as Queen of France, to her tragic end upon the scaffold in the bloodbath of the Revolution...

Gervase Frant, Lord St. Erth, heir to broad acres and an ancient and variegated pile known as Stanyon, returns from the Napoleonic Wars to find he is something less than welcome in the ancestral bosom. His widowed stepmother would greatly have preferred his glorious death in battle on the Continent. She has no desire to relinquish her position, and she has hoped that her own son Martin would inherit.The Earl, in his quiet way, quickly makes a conquest of two eligible young ladies on the scene, but it becomes almost immediately apparent that someone at Stanyon would prefer to have him die by a means more sudden than old age.Georgette Heyer's comical genius never fails to deliver delight.

When Henry VI becomes king, it is soon clear that he would be better suited to a quiet life than to ruling the country. Richard, Duke of York, is convinced that he would make a better king and has more right to the crown, and he will stop at nothing to claim it. But Margaret of Anjou, Henry's new French wife, is a formidable woman who is just as determined to keep Henry on the throne.Most powerful of all is the Earl of Warwick, the kingmaker, and with his support of Richard of York the War of the Roses begins. When Henry VI lapses into madness and eventually meets his mysterious end in the Wakefield Tower, Margaret directs all of her ambition towards her young son, Passionate and impulsive she begins scheming for him, and in doing so dashes headlong into disaster ...

The marriage of The Prince of Wales to Caroline of Brunswick was strewn with private skirmish and public scandal, yet it did bear a daughter – Princess Charlotte, heiress presumptive to the English throne. The Regent is still elegant, though moving swiftly into corpulent middle age as his wife Caroline remains determined to shock almost to the point of lunacy. Old George III rambles on into the mists of his madness and stern Queen Charlotte sits at the centre of her web of domestic spies.Beneath them all sparkles Charlotte, much loved by her mother but kept distant by her father and grandmother. Ever bewildered by her bizarre collection of royal relatives, Charlotte grows up to be honest, forthright and always certain of her destiny, though an unfortunate twist of fate means it is never to occur.

Anne Neville, daughter of the Earl of Warwick, first met and befriended Richard, Duke of Gloucester, at her father's castle, where he had been sent to learn the arts of chivalry and war. Anne's father, known as the Kingmaker, had set Richard's brother, Edward the Fourth, on the throne and was his strongest supporter until the king's marriage brought the rapacious Woodville family on to the scene. Disaster followed and the Earl of Warwick turned Kingmaker once again. But this time he was to use Anne as a bargaining counter in a treaty. She now faced a future which she dreaded with a man whom she already feared and by now she was in love with Richard...

Eleanor's adventure begins when she inadvertently mistakes the carriage waiting at the coach stop for one sent by her prospective employer, Mrs. Macclesfield. She finds herself carried to the estate of one Ned Carlyon, whom Eleanor mistakes for Mr. Macclesfield. Carlyon, meanwhile, believes Eleanor to be the young woman he hired to marry his dying cousin, Eustace Cheviot, in order to avoid inheriting Cheviot's estate himself. Somehow, Eleanor is talked into marrying Eustace on his deathbed and thus becomes a wealthy widow almost as soon as the ring is on her finger. What starts out as a simple business arrangement soon becomes much more complicated as housebreakers, uninvited guests, a shocking murder, missing government papers, and a dog named Bouncer all contribute to this lively, frequently hilarious tale of mistaken identities, foreign espionage, and unexpected love set during the Napoleonic Wars.

From the moment the handsome, raffish stranger with the gold earring throws her a kiss, Jessica Frenshaw is enchanted. Rumored to be a half-Spanish wanderer who can predict the future, Romany Jake is unjustly put on trial for murder. After the verdict banishes him from England, Jessica despairs of ever seeing him again. But one fateful day, Jake Cadorson returns to reclaim what he has lost—including the woman who saved him from the gallows. From the ballrooms and lavish estates of Regency England through the bitter bloodshed of the Napoleonic Wars, Return of the Gypsy weaves a spellbinding tale of blackmail, murder, and illicit passion as a woman risks everything for the man she loves—a man who isn’t what he seems.

News of Thomas à Becket’s martyrdom has spread throughout Christendom and the blame is laid at the feet of Henry Plantagenet, King of England. Two years later, with Becket canonised, Henry’s position is precarious: punished at the Pope’s insistence for his part in Becket’s death, he now also has an enemy in his Queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, after her discovery of his longstanding infidelity with Rosamund Clifford. Eleanor is determined to seek vengeance, so, with King Philip of France, she encourages her sons to conspire, both against their father and each other.Much embattled, the old eagle Henry struggles to fend off both rebellion and the plots of his aggressively circling offspring …

From the mega-bestselling author of White Oleander and Paint It Black, a sweeping historical saga of the Russian Revolution, as seen through the eyes of one young woman

One of Entertainment Weekly’s Most Buzzworthy Books of Fall 2017

St. Petersburg, New Year’s Eve, 1916. Marina Makarova is a young woman of privilege who aches to break free of the constraints of her genteel life, a life about to be violently upended by the vast forces of history. Swept up on these tides, Marina will join the marches for workers’ rights, fall in love with a radical young poet, and betray everything she holds dear, before being betrayed in turn.

As her country goes through almost unimaginable upheaval, Marina’s own coming-of-age unfolds, marked by deep passion and devastating loss, and the private heroism of an ordinary woman living through extraordinary times. This is the epic, mesmerizing story of one indomitable woman’s journey through some of the most dramatic events of the last century.

The first kiss occurred in a dimly lit hallway on the upper floor of Elwin Hastings's grand house. Louisa Bryce never saw it coming. Of course, handsome, wealthy Anthony Stalbridge couldn't possibly have had romantic intentions. The kiss was merely meant to distract the armed guard about to catch the two unlikely sleuths. After all, the only thing these two interlopers have in common is a passionate interest in uncovering the dastardly secrets of Mr. Hastings—a prominent member of Society whom they suspect of murder.Brought together by their desire for the truth, Anthony and Louisa finally discover the incriminating evidence they're looking for. But bringing Hastings to justice will be more perilous than they anticipate, especially since their thrilling attraction to danger—and, it turns out, to each other—might very well get in the way

No longer the well-beloved, Louis XV is becoming ever more unpopular – the huge expense of his court and decades of costly warfare having taken their toll. As the discontent grows, Louis seeks refuge in his extravagances and his mistress, the powerful Marquise de Pompadour. Suspicions, plots and rivalry are rife as Louis’s daughters and lovers jostle for his attention and their own standing at Court. Ignoring the unrest in Paris, Louis continues to indulge in frivolities. But how long will Paris stay silent when the death of the Marquise de Pompadour leads to yet another mistress influencing the King?