Recommendations based on "Darkest Hour"

The life of the Egyptian queen who gained and maintained power over her kingdom through her alliance with Julius Caesar and later Marc Antony.

Barbara Erskine returns with this beautiful and haunting tale of dark forces and mystical powers. In present-day Cambridge, Abi, a recently ordained priest of the Church of England, is appointed to a notoriously difficult parish. The priest in charge is the charismatic but fundamentalist Kier. He objects to her mysticism, her practice of healing in particular. When she sees a vision of a congregation in an old church, Kier accuses her of witchcraft, but Abi soon sees more visions; an entire Roman family history, dark with betrayal and a promise of bloody revenge. With foreboding forces building up to violence, Abi must battle the approaching terror along with her own personal demons, drawing upon the expertise of Druidry and shamanism from a questionable source!

Raised like sisters, Mariamne and Salome are indulged with riches, position, and learning-a rare thing for females in Jerusalem. But Mariamne has a further gift: an illness has left her with visions; she has the power of prophecy. It is her prophesying that drives the two girls to flee to Egypt, where they study philosophy, mathematics, and astronomy in the Great Library of Alexandria.After seven years they return to a Judaea where many now believe John the Baptizer is the messiah. Salome too begins to believe, but Mariamne, now called Magdalene, is drawn to his cousin, Yeshu’a, a man touched by the divine in the same way she was during her days of illness. Together they speak of sharing their direct experience of God; but Yeshu’a unexpectedly gains a reputation as a healer, and as the ill and the troubled flock to him, he and Magdalene are forced to make a terrible decision.This radical retelling of the greatest story ever told brings Mary Magdalene to life-not as a prostitute or demon-possessed-but as an educated woman who was truly the “apostle to the apostles.”

ANNE LISTER IS THE INSPIRATION FOR GENTLEMAN JACK, THE ACCLAIMED BBC/HBO SERIES BY SALLY WAINWRIGHT, STARRING SURANNE JONES.'The Lister diaries are the Dead Sea Scrolls of lesbian history; they changed everything. By resurrecting them and editing them with such loving attention and intelligence, Helena Whitbread has earned the gratitude of a whole generation' EMMA DONOGHUE'Engaging, revealing, at times simply astonishing: Anne Lister's diaries are an indispensable read' SARAH WATERSWhen Helena Whitbread first published excerpts from Anne Lister's diary, which was written in a complicated, esoteric code, it was hailed as a lost piece of lesbian history. Whitbread has devoted years to researching and transcribing Lister's extensive journals; the 'crypthand' had allowed Lister to record her life in intimate, and at times, explicit, detail. It was the first time her story had been told.This second volume continues the story of one of the most remarkable women of her time: landowner, industrialist, traveller and lesbian. Anne Lister arrives in post-revolutionary Paris in 1824, attempting to recover from a doomed love affair with a married woman. There she becomes emotionally entangled with a young widow. Anne's efforts, firstly to extricate herself from this new 'scrape' and then to make a choice between the two women in her life, provides an absorbing sexual and social drama.We follow Anne Lister to Buxton, Derbyshire, where a husband appears in hot pursuit of his straying wife who has, in turn, followed Anne there; in Halifax, the Yorkshire town of Anne's birth; to London; and to post-revolutionary Paris, a city alive with political intrigue. Anne's descriptive powers bring each scene vividly to life, providing a brilliant, kaleidoscopic background to her story.

___________________________________ 'Scintillating, provocative... An elegant synthesis of royal biography and political thriller.' Daily Telegraph A Times History Book of the Year- a story which inspired the Hollywood film MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS. Mary, Queen of Scots & Elizabeth I of England. Two powerful monarchs on a single island. Threatened by voices who believed no woman could govern. Surrounded by sycophants, spies and detractors. Accosted for their dominion, their favour and their bodies. Besieged by secret plots, devastating betrayals and a terrible final act. Only one queen could survive to rule all. ___________________________________ 'Brings us a fresh Mary, set in a gloriously rich context, a tragic heroine - irresistibly real and relevant... There isn't a line wasted in this taut, dramatic and utterly beguiling biography.' Charles Spencer author of Killers of the King- The Men Who Dared to Execute Charles I 'The perfect combination of scholarship and storytelling, meticulous research and emotional insight, Kate Williams brings Mary vividly to life in all her complexities and contradictions.' Kate Mosse, author of The Burning Chambers 'It takes a special kind of historian to turn an old story on its head. Eye-opening, provocative, this is the great rivalry re-imagined for the #MeToo generation.' Lucy Worsley

In this follow up to CALL THE MIDWIFE, Jennifer Worth, a midwife working in the docklands area of East London in the 1950s tells more stories about the people she encountered.There's Jane, who cleaned and generally helped out at Nonnatus House - she was taken to the workhouse as a baby and was allegedly the illegitimate daughter of an aristocrat. Peggy and Frank's parents both died within 6 months of each other and the children were left destitute. At the time, there was no other option for them but the workhouse. The Reverend Thornton-Appleby-Thorton, a missionary in Africa, visits the Nonnatus nuns and Sister Julienne acts as matchmaker. And Sister Monica Joan, the eccentric ninety-year-old nun, is accused of shoplifting some small items from the local market. She is let off with a warning, but then Jennifer finds stolen jewels from Hatton Garden in the nun's room.These stories give a fascinating insight into the resilience and spirit that enabled ordinary people to overcome their difficulties.

From the internationally bestselling author of The Porcelain Moon comes a haunting Gothic novel set in 1911 China. Two young women living in a crumbling, once-grand Shanghai mansion face danger as secrets of their pasts come to light, even as the mansion’s own secret threatens the present. Shanghai, 1911. Lisan Liu is elated when she is hired as secretary to wealthy American Caroline Stanton, the new mistress of Lennox Manor on the outskirts of Shanghai’s International Settlement. However, the Manor has a dark past due to a previous owner’s suicide, and soon Lisan’s childhood nightmares resurface with more intensity and meld with haunted visions of a woman in red. Adding to her unease is the young gardener, Yao, who both entices and disturbs her. Newly married Caroline looks forward to life in China with her husband, Thomas, away from the shadows of another earlier tragedy. But an unwelcome guest, Andrew Grey, attends her party and claims to know secrets she can’t afford to have exposed. At the same party, the notorious princess Masako Kyo approaches Lisan with questions about the young woman’s family that the orphaned Lisan can’t answer. As Caroline struggles with Grey’s extortion and Thomas’s mysterious illness, Lisan’s future is upended when she learns the truth about her past, and why her identity has been hidden all these years. All the while, strange incidents accelerate, driving Lisan to doubt her sanity as Lennox Manor seems unwilling to release her until she fulfills demands from beyond the grave. 

After scaring off the first governess, Miss Norrie, Martha is faced with Miss Crow. It takes some unusual expeditions for the spirited Scottish girl to realize that there "are" things you can learn from governesses besides sewing and manners.

Gin Kelly, the wicked redhead, is back! Readers will delight in next installment of the Wicked City series by New York Times bestselling author Beatriz Williams. June 1925. Audacious Appalachian flapper Geneva "Gin" Kelly prepares to trade her high-flying ways for respectable marriage to Oliver Anson Marshall, a steadfast Prohibition agent who happens to hail from one of New York's most distinguished families. But just as wedding bells chime, the head of the notorious East Coast rum-running racket--and Anson's mortal enemy--turns up murdered at a society funeral, and their short-lived honeymoon bliss goes up in a spectacular blaze that sends Anson back undercover...and into the jaws of a trap from which not even Gin can rescue him. As violence explodes around her, Gin must summon all her considerable moxie to trace the tentacles of this sinister organization back to their shocking source, and face down a legendary American family at a rigged game it has no intention of losing. June 1998. When Ella Dommerich's ninetysomething society queen aunt Julie ropes her into digging up dirt on Senator (and Presidential candidate) Franklin Hardcastle in order to settle old family scores, she couldn't be less enthusiastic. Pregnant Ella's recently ditched her unfaithful husband and settled into cozy--if complicated--domesticity with her almost-too-good-to-be-true musician boyfriend, Hector. But then the Hardcastle secrets lead to a web of shady dealings Ella's uncovered in her job as a financial analyst, and the bodies start to tumble out of the venerable woodwork. With the help of her ex-husband and her mysterious connection to a certain redheaded flapper, Ella digs up more than mere dirt...only to discover herself standing alone between a legendarily ruthless family and the prize it's sought for generations. What ugly secrets lurk in the opulent enclaves--and bank accounts--of America's richest families? And can two determined women from two different generations thwart the murderous legacy of the demon liquor?

Finally meeting the wealthy family she'd never known should have given Corrie Grant the information about her father she'd craved all her life. But the Mannings of Savannah were a secretive and hostile bunch. All except Lucas Santee, her grandfather's sophisticated right-hand man, who stood between Corrie and her relatives' unrelenting barbs and slights. The family's suspicion of her seemed frivolous at first, but when a mysterious series of accidents occurred, Corrie was forced to take it seriously. How far would the Mannings go to keep their secrets buried forever?