Angélique Latham has grown up at magnificent Belgrave Castle under the loving tutelage of her father, the Duke of Westerfield, after the death of her aristocratic French mother. But when he dies, her half-brothers brutally turn her out, denying her very existence. Angélique has a keen mind, remarkable beauty, and an envelope of money her father pressed upon her. To survive, she will need all her resources--and one bold stroke of fortune. Unable...

"The Savarays are at the center of bourgeois Parisian society, as supporters of the Impressionist movement, friends of Édouard Manet, and citizens relatively unaffected by the Franco-Prussian war raging beyond their estate - until their beloved adopted son Henri, a burgeoning artist, disappears early one morning and 18-year-old Aimee Savaray sets out to find him. But Henri doesn't want to be found, and only one member of the family knows why. As...

"Comtesse Valtesse de la Bigne was a celebrated nineteenth-century Parisian courtesan. She was painted by Manet and inspired Emile Zola, who immortalized her in his scandalous novel Nana. Her rumored affairs with Napoleon III and the future Edward VII kept gossip columns full. But her glamorous existence hid a dark secret: she was no Comtesse. She was born into abject poverty, raised on a squalid Paris backstreet; the lowest of the low. Yet she transformed...

In early 19th century France the paroled prisoner Jean Valjean seeks redemption, regains his social standing, and rises to the rank of mayor. He encounters a beautiful but desperately ill woman named Fantine and cares for her daughter, Cosette, after her death. All the while he is obsessively pursued by the policeman Javert, who vows to make him pay for the crimes of his past.

When a maid turns up drowned in the Seine, and a widow's corpse is found buried in an overgrown backyard, Victor Legris throws himself into his second investigation, aided by his trusty assistant Joseph and much to his lover Tasha's chagrin. Set in 1890's Paris, a smoky, sinister world full of predatory mediums and a ghoulish public.

"Summer, 1849. When Edgar Allan Poe travels to Paris to help his dear friend hunt down the elusive criminal who bought the Dupin family to ruin during the French Revolution, the sleuthing duo are engaged by the prefect of police to recover the stolen letter of an infamous Parisian salonniére. Is the thief one of the French literary greats who attend her salons, or might it be Dupin's own enemy who is scheming to become the Emperor of France? Poe...

"From her beginnings as the daughter of a courtesan to her extraordinary transformation into the most celebrated actress of her era, Sarah Bernhardt is brought to life by an internationally bestselling author praised for his historical novels featuring famous women. Told in her own voice, this is Sarah Bernhardt's incandescent story -- a fascinating, intimate account of a woman whose unrivaled talent and indomitable spirit has enshrined her in history...

Looks into the 1897 diary of Captain Simonini, an antisemitic Italian in Paris who forges documents for the highest bidder, providing conspiracies and scapegoats for factions all over Europe, and is behind the most notorious forgery of all.

"In 1853 the French emperor Louis Napoleon inaugurated a vast and ambitious program of public works, directed by Georges-Eugène Haussmann, the prefect of the Seine. Haussmann's renovation of Paris would transform the old medieval city of squalid slums and disease-ridden alleyways into a "City of Light" characterized by wide boulevards, apartment blocks, parks, squares and public monuments, new railway stations and department stores, and a new system...