Historical Fiction French Women

1905, Paris. Au cœur d'un quartier populaire et ouvrier, Marguerite se démène entre tâches ménagères et travaux de couture au sein d'une famille où elle ne trouve pas sa place. Un jour, ses doigts de fée lui valent d'être embauchée par Madame Joséphine, propriétaire d'une luxueuse maison de modes. Une opportunité en or qui permet à la jeune fille de s'émanciper et de découvrir le quotidien des " petites mains " qui œuvrent dans l'ombre.

Before she was named Nana by the French couple who adopted her as a child, she was Esther Pak, a girl growing up in a Korean orphanage. And before she was Esther Pak, she was Munju, a small child abandoned on the railway tracks in Seoul. Nana has no memories of the first three or four years of...

Newly married to Niccolo, a wealthy envoy to the French emperor, skilled herbalist Livia Valenti feels lost and alone. Her husband is a distant stranger, and their echoing Paris mansion is too far from her fragrant garden in Italy. But then Niccolo fills the shelves with her favourite books and prepares an apothecary room full of rows of shining glass jars. And a beautiful romance begins to blossom. With masked balls, luxurious dinner parties and a new life growing inside her, Livia believes her dreams of love and happiness may finally come true.

"Naina Kumar is quickly becoming a favorite author of mine. Her books are brilliant, witty, sexy, and so damn good." —Hannah Bonam-Young, bestselling author of Out on a Limb Sparks fly on a road trip through the Scottish highlands in this delightful forced proximity romance from the...

In nineteenth-century France, a young woman with a magical sense of taste saves a duc from poison, and her new role as poison taster thrusts her into the world of the nobility, where secrets and danger lurk around every corner. Minha is born on the backstreets of late nineteenth-century London...

A party girl and a grumpy British CEO fake a dream European honeymoon for a reality TV show that could save their travel agency—and give them both a new lease on life (and love)—if only they’d take the chance. Rebecca “Bex” Daniels has just lost everything: her father, stepmother, and...

The daughter of an automotive magnate escapes to an artistic retreat that holds more secrets—and more intrigue—than she could have ever imagined, in this Prohibition-era novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Salt to the Sea. Detroit, 1927. A city of smoke and ambition, where...

After Bessie and Fletcher Elliott lose all their money when their bank fails at the beginning of the Great Depression, Fletch is forced to seek employment elsewhere in order to sustain their struggling farm on Stone Mountain, North Carolina. Fletch’s brothers, Jim and Tom, working in a coal mine in Beacham, West Virginia, convince Fletch that there is money to be made as a miner, so he and Bessie move to Beacham in hopes of a temporary measure that will enable them to keep their farm.

At her assisted living center in Wedding Tree, Louisiana, 93-year-old Amelie O'Connor is in the habit of leaving her door open for friends. One day she receives an unexpected visitor - Kat Thompson, the ex-fiancée of her late husband, Jack. Kat and Jack were high school sweethearts who planned to marry when Jack returned from France after World War II. But in a cruel twist of fate, their plans were irrevocably derailed when a desperate French girl overheard an American officer's confession in a Parisian church...

À travers le récit d'une femme atypique qui a su défendre son indépendance, Monia Mazigh nous fait voir avec beaucoup de réalisme le modèle patriarcal qui conditionnait la société tunisienne au siècle dernier.

When her favourite beech tree is felled in a storm, Ann feels as if someone has died. But when long-hidden seed packets are found inside the trunk, Ann realizes there are more memories than her own lurking within the ancient tree. A century earlier, head gardener William Hatherwick and Hester Mordaunt, mistress of Beechgrave, share a love for the mighty estate - and an undeclared love for each other. But when war breaks out, William is sent to the battlefields of France, and as the conflict rages on, Hester grieves beneath the tree.

Eve is a reluctant mother; Eve is a famous phenomenon; Eve is a quiet country teacher. Liam is a successful artist; Liam is a scheming husband; Liam is a gentle partner. Pari is a leading scientific researcher; Pari is a recognized model; Pari is a picture of declining mental states...

In this moving novel about the transformative power of storytelling, three women make life-changing decisions set in motion by the 1967 Summer of Love in San Francisco, shaping the legacy of their family’s Napa Valley winery forever, from the USA Today bestselling author of The Paris...

ONE OF NPR'S BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR A sweeping debut novel that explores the intimate struggle for independence and success of a young descendant of Indian indentured laborers in Mauritius, a small multiracial island in the Indian Ocean. "The beauty of Busjeet's splendid, often...

Set in a Paris darkened by World War II, Sara Houghteling’s sweeping and sensuous debut novel tells the story of a son’s quest to recover his family’s lost masterpieces, looted by the Nazis during the occupation. Born to an art dealer and his pianist wife, Max Berenzon is forbidden from...

From the best-selling author of Longbourn, a haunting new novel of spies and artists, passion and danger, hope in the face of despair Paris, 1939. The pavement rumbles with the footfall of Nazi soldiers marching along the Champs-Élysées. A young, unknown writer—Samuel Beckett—recently...

In Nazi-occupied Paris, a talented artisan must fight for her life by designing for her enemies. From New York Times bestselling author Juliet Blackwell comes an extraordinary story about holding on to hope when all seems lost. Capucine Benoit works alongside her father to produce fans of rare...

An extraordinary story of friendship and love across class lines, this rich, evocative novel traces the history of modern Italy, from 1975 to 2013, through the fate of one couple. Valerio and Olivia grow up together in the Morganti family’s opulent villa in Bologna, inseparable friends even...

Shopping meets suspense in this enticing new cocktail of sassy-smart sleuthing featuring a spunky decorator who can hunt down furniture—and murder. As a tireless mom of three, the doting spouse of a surgeon, and a talented interior designer to the stars, Lacy Fields can always find the perfect...

In this lush, lyrical, and marvelously evocative novel, Catherine Texier takes a mystery from her family’s past and draws from it a portrait of a remarkable woman—her great-grandmother Victorine. A young schoolteacher in a quiet province in France, Victorine had married and had two children...