Book cover of The Lonely Empress: Elizabeth of Austria

Book description

Princess Elizabeth of Bavaria was only 16 when her cousin Francis Joseph came to visit her eldest sister with a view to arranging a marriage. The 23 year old Austrian Emperor fell in love with the fine featured, long limbed, dark haired beauty Elizabeth instead, married her and loved her…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Lonely Empress as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Royal history centres around marriages, but one thing that rarely happened in the 19th century was intermarriage between Protestant and Catholic houses. 

In an effort to find out about the families that  Victoria’s descendants didn’t marry into, I read this book and came across the Habsburg dynasty and a European icon - Empress Elizabeth. Known as Sisi, Elizabeth was a stunning beauty who captivated the Emperor of Austria. He was supposed to be marrying her sister. The poor sister was dropped, Sisi and the Emperor married and lived not very happily ever after. She hated being an Empress and became…

From Sue's list on 19th/20th century royal history.

If you love The Lonely Empress...

Book cover of The Rosewood Penny

The Rosewood Penny by J.S. Fields,

2023 Queer Indie Award Nominee!

The dragons of Yuro have been hunted to extinction.

On a small, isolated island, in a reclusive forest, lives bandit leader Marani and her brother Jacks. With their outlaw band they rob from the rich to feed themselves, raiding carriages and dodging the occasional vindictive…

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