Best Historical Fiction

 Louis XV of France (1710-1774) is known as Louis the Beloved by the people, but historians generally give his reign low marks as wars drained the treasury and set the stage for government collapse and French Revolution. This book brings his love liaisons with Nesle sisters, followed by the famous Madame de Pompadour (Book II). It all began in 1729. Louise is the eldest sister. She marries her cousin Louis-Alexandre. While he fulfills his duties with his regiment, she moves to a house belonging to her husband in a village outside Paris. The old house is unwelcoming as people serving in it. Her mother passes suddenly. Her sorrow is also her fortune. The death of her mother means her position at Court is secured upon her. Two older sisters, Pauline and Diane enter a convent on the outskirts of Paris. And two youngest sisters, Hortense and Marie-Anne are sent to live with Tante Mazarian.  The life at Court is very insightful and colorful. Louise learns things about he...

 Giacomo Casanova (1725-1798) tried to be a preacher, musician, and writer, but what he left behind is the legacy of the greatest lover or rather conqueror of hearts. His biography written by him is regarded as one of the most authentic sources of the customs and norms of European social life during the 18th century. This story alternates between 1753, when Caterina Capreta is 14, and 1774, when she is a married woman. The year 1753, when she is in convent is based on true facts. In present time Venice 1774, Caterina is asked to help out a young girl who put herself in a situation Caterina was once in. As two women get acquainted, they reveal their first loves. Caterina Capreta, at the age of 14, meets Giacomo Casanova. Innocent Caterina, smitten by Casanova, starts receiving his love letters filled with poems; followed by trysts to theater, sweet talks and of course more.  While Casanova pours amorous feelings, a glimpse of his own story is revealed. At the age of 8...

 Emilie Floge (1874-1952) was an Austrian fashion designer, whose designs were ahead of her time. They were meant to be comfortable and they were seen as avant-garde. She was also associated with the painter Gustav Klimt as his life companion.  1886 Vienna, Emilie Floge is twelve years old, when she meets Gustav Klimt. She becomes fascinated with the world of artists and dreams of Klimt painting her. To her surprise her father requests Klimt to draw three sisters. After three drawings are done, Klimt stays for dinner. Emilie is so unhappy with a drawing of her. “I was the only one who looked like I could turn people to stone.” And the whole family seems to be agreeing that he captured her personality the best. She takes her revenge at dinner, when she notices his clumsiness with a knife and fork. “It was bad manners to draw attention to other people’s bad manners, but I made sure that he could tell what I thought from the way I was looking at him.”  Since one of...

 “Esther’s character is loosely inspired by Anna Maria Garthwaite, the foremost designer of Spitalfields silks during the mid-eighteenth century. She is credited with bringing the artistry of painting to the loom, although her success predated the industrial troubles of the Spitalfields silk industry by some years. Many of her patterns and silks have survived and can be seen in the Victoria and Albert Museum (London). The eighteenth century Spitalfields silk weavers were a militant bunch and formed our early trade unions, then called combinations. The industrial tensions between the journeyman weavers and the master weavers are accurate and culminated in sporadic riots, during which the ‘cutters’ would cut and destroy the master’s silk as punishment for not co-operating with the combinations.” The story is set in the second part of the 18th century in Spitalfields, London. Sara Kemp, as a young girl from the country, arrives in London with an image of “wide, clean streets l...

 Before she became Josephine Bonaparte, the first wife of Napoleon Bonaparte, she was a Creole girl named Rose Tascher. Rose Tascher (1763-1814) grows up on Martinique plantation. She cherishes her Creole heart, but she dreams of France, “of the adventure of Paris and the grand court life of Papa’s tales. The elegant gowns and intrigue, the handsome men. And love without bounds.” One night, her father informs her of “a marriage in a distant land.” She moves to France to marry Alexandre de Beauharnais, an aristocrat and soldier. But he disappears for days at a time, sometimes weeks. Very quickly she learns about his liaisons. A separation follows. Meanwhile, the drift between Royalists and Republicans grows deeper with each day. The raiding of chateaus in the country and towns explodes.  King Louis XVI is beheaded. The same fate follows his wife Marie Antoinette. One night at a party, she is introduced to a new general of the new Republic. This odd little man, lacking manners...