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Recommendations based on Sacred Heartsby Sarah Dunant
* statistically, based on millions of data-points provided by fellow humans
In the Company of the Courtesan
by Sarah Dunant
A story of a courtesan's journey in Renaissance Italy, and the powerful men she encounters.
My lady, Fiammetta Bianchini, was plucking her eyebrows and biting color into her lips when the unthinkable happened and the Holy Roman Emperor's army blew a hole in the wall of God's eternal city, ... (Goodreads)
Blood & Beauty: The Borgias
by Sarah Dunant
A historical fiction novel about the infamous Borgia family, their rise to power, and their scandals and betrayals.
By the end of the fifteenth century, the beauty and creativity of Italy is matched by its brutality and corruption, nowhere more than in Rome and inside the Church. When Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia buys ... (Goodreads)
The Birth of Venus
by Sarah Dunant
A passionate story of love and art set in 15th century Florence.
Alessandra Cecchi is not quite fifteen when her father, a prosperous cloth merchant, brings a young painter back from northern Europe to decorate the chapel walls in the family’s Florentine palazzo. ... (Goodreads)
Burial Rites
by Hannah Kent
A woman awaits her execution in 19th-century Iceland, reliving her story of hardship, loss and faith.
Burial Rites tells the story of Agnes Magnúsdóttir, a servant in northern Iceland who was condemned to death after the murder of two men, one of whom was her employer, and became the last woman put ... (Wikipedia)
Falling Angels
by Tracy Chevalier
Family drama spanning three generations of two Victorian families in London.
In her New York Times bestselling follow-up, Tracy Chevalier once again paints a distant age with a rich and provocative palette of characters. Told through a variety of shifting perspectives- wives ... (Goodreads)
Wolf Hall
by Hilary Mantel
A historical fiction about the rise of Thomas Cromwell in the court of Henry VIII.
England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years and marry ... (Goodreads)
The Forgotten Garden
by Kate Morton
A woman's quest to uncover the secrets of her family's past, leading to a mysterious garden.
At Nell's joyous 21st birthday party her world falls apart when her father tells her she was adopted as a 4-year-old in 1913, seemingly abandoned on an Australian wharf and unable to remember her ... (Wikipedia)
The Slap
by Christos Tsiolkas
A family gathering gone wrong, revealing secrets and sparking intense emotions.
At a barbecue in suburban Melbourne , a man slaps a 3-year-old boy across the face. The child, Hugo, has been misbehaving without any intervention by his parents, "the steely-eyed Rosie and the ... (Wikipedia)
Three Junes
by Julia Glass
A story of interconnected lives, spanning three summers of joy, sadness and self-discovery.
A luminous first novel, set in Greece, Scotland, Greenwich Village, and Long Island, that traces the members of a Scottish family as they confront the joys and longings, fulfillments and betrayals of ... (Goodreads)
The Swan Thieves
by Elizabeth Kostova
A renowned psychiatrist unravels the mystery of a patient's obsession with painting swans.
Psychiatrist Andrew Marlowe, devoted to his profession and the painting hobby he loves, has a solitary but ordered life. When renowned painter Robert Oliver attacks a canvas in the National Gallery ... (Goodreads)
The Dovekeepers
by Alice Hoffman
Four women living in a fort in ancient Israel tell their stories of survival and faith.
According to the official trailer , Tagline: The trailer featured the tagline, "Their journey. Their passion. It all leads up to this. Take a stand." The adaptation garnered negative reviews: Keith ... (Wikipedia)
The Essex Serpent
by Sarah Perry
A woman's spiritual journey of faith and doubt, set against the backdrop of a mysterious sea-serpent.
After being widowed when her wealthy, abusive husband dies of throat cancer, Cora Seaborne decides to ignore the trappings of her London society life and take up amateur palaeontology. Vacationing in ... (Wikipedia)
Pompeii
by Robert Harris
A thrilling historical fiction novel set in Pompeii, leading up to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79.
Marcus Attilius Primus arrives in the Bay of Naples from Rome to take charge as aquarius ( hydraulic engineer ) of the Aqua Augusta , the aqueduct that supplies water to the towns in the region ... (Wikipedia)
Major Pettigrew's Last Stand
by Helen Simonson
A widower finds love and acceptance in an unlikely place, challenging social conventions.
You are about to travel to Edgecombe St. Mary, a small village in the English countryside filled with rolling hills, thatched cottages, and a cast of characters both hilariously original and as ... (Goodreads)
The Passion of Artemisia
by Susan Vreeland
Historical fiction about the life of Artemisia Gentileschi, a 17th-century Italian painter, and her struggles as a woman in a male-dominated field.
From extraordinary highs - patronage by the Medicis, friendship with Galileo and, most importantly of all, beautiful and outstandingly original paintings - to rape by her father's colleague, torture ... (Goodreads)
Sea Glass
by Anita Shreve
A group of people's lives intersect in a New Hampshire beach town during the Great Depression.
In the textile-manufacturing region of New Hampshire in 1929, newlyweds Honora and Sexton Beecher wrestle with all the wonders and challenges that young couples have always faced. They've just ... (Goodreads)
Purple Hibiscus
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
A young girl's struggle to find her place in a family and society torn apart by political turmoil.
A previously published edition of ISBN 9781616202415 can be found, here., Fifteen-year-old Kambili and her older brother Jaja lead a privileged life in Enugu, Nigeria. They live in a beautiful house, ... (Goodreads)
Northanger Abbey
by Jane Austen
A young woman's journey of self-discovery, navigating the complexities of high society.
Seventeen-year-old Catherine Morland is one of ten children of a country clergyman. Although a tomboy in her childhood, by the age of 17 she is "in training for a heroine" and is excessively fond of ... (Wikipedia)
Lavinia
by Ursula K. Le Guin
Lavinia, a minor character in Virgil's "Aeneid," tells her own story of love, war, and destiny in ancient Italy.
In a richly imagined, beautiful new novel, an acclaimed writer gives an epic heroine her voice.,The Aeneid, Virgil's hero fights to claim the king’s daughter, Lavinia, with whom he is destined to ... (Goodreads)
The Tea Rose
by Jennifer Donnelly
A young woman in Victorian London overcomes poverty and tragedy to build a successful tea business and find love.
East London, 1888 - a city apart. A place of shadow and light where thieves, whores, and dreamers mingle, where children play in the cobbled streets by day and a killer stalks at night, where bright ... (Goodreads)
Sing, Unburied, Sing
by Jesmyn Ward
A family's journey through the Mississippi Delta, confronting a traumatic past.
It is Jojo's thirteenth birthday. To step into his new role as a man, Jojo tries to bravely help his grandfather, Pop, kill a goat. Jojo ends up throwing up at the sight although Pop is sympathetic. ... (Wikipedia)
Innocent Traitor
by Alison Weir
A historical novel about Lady Jane Grey, her tumultuous reign as Queen of England, and her tragic fate.
The story starts with her birth in 1537. The daughter of Lady Frances Brandon and Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Suffolk , Jane is seen as a burden by her parents, both of whom resent her for being a girl ... (Wikipedia)
City of Thieves
by David Benioff
Two young men embark on a perilous mission in the besieged Leningrad of WWII.
The story is introduced as the recollections of the narrator's grandfather Lev Beniov, a contemporary Russian Jewish émigré. It is set in the first week of 1942, with the 17-years-old Lev trying to ... (Wikipedia)
The Glass Room
by Simon Mawer
A story of a family living through the turbulent years of early 20th century Europe.
High on a Czechoslovak hill, the Landauer House has been built for newlyweds Viktor and Liesel Landauer, a Jew married to a gentile. But, when the storm clouds of WW2 gather, the family must flee, ... (Goodreads)
Olive Kitteridge
by Elizabeth Strout
An exploration of the life of a small-town woman, revealing her struggles and emotional complexities.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Olive Kitteridge offers profound insights into the human condition – its conflicts, its tragedies and joys, and the endurance it requires. At times stern, at other times ... (Goodreads)
Conclave
by Robert Harris
Political thriller about the election of a new Pope amid a power struggle in the Vatican.
The Pope is dead. Behind the locked doors of the Sistine Chapel, one hundred and eighteen cardinals from all over the globe will cast their votes in the world’s most secretive election. They are holy ... (Goodreads)
Bridge of Sighs
by Richard Russo
A sweeping story of a small town and its inhabitants, facing the challenges of life and love.
Bridge of Sighs courses with small-town rhythms and the claims of family. Here is a town, as well as a world, defined by magnificent and nearly devastating contradictions. Louis Charles (“Lucy”) ... (Goodreads)
The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love
by Oscar Hijuelos
A story of two Cuban brothers and their pursuit of the American dream.
It's 1949. Two young Cuban musicians make their way up from Havana to the grand stage of New York. It is the era of the mambo, and Castillo brothers, workers by day, become by night stars of the ... (Goodreads)
Cutting for Stone
by Abraham Verghese
A sweeping journey of two twin brothers and their search for identity, belonging and family.
The story is told by the protagonist, Marion Stone. He and his conjoined twin Shiva are born at Mission Hospital (called "Missing" in accordance with the local pronunciation), Addis Ababa , in ... (Wikipedia)
The Last Runaway
by Tracy Chevalier
A young Quaker woman's struggle to find her place in a new country and a changing world.
New York Times, bestselling author of, Girl With a Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier makes her first fictional foray into the American past in, The Last Runaway, bringing to life the Underground ... (Goodreads)
