Here are 100 books that Before Versailles fans have personally recommended if you like
Before Versailles.
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My fascination with pre-revolutionary France began when my love of genealogy and my family research took me to the France of my ancestors. Most of my French ancestors migrated to Canada in the 1600s and 1700s. Twenty of my 7th and 8th-great-grandmothers were recruited to emigrate as part of the Filles du Roi (Daughters of the King) program, and I have often wondered what life was like for them before they left France and what it was like for their ancestors. I have discovered that I am descended from several of the earlier kings of France and England, and that feeds into my passion for reading about the French.
This book transported me to a different France in a different time—the world of Duchess Anne of Britanny who became Queen of France when she married Charles VIII. This story takes place three hundred years before the French Revolution, immersing us in a century (late 15th) that has a romanticism all its own.
While it is the second book in the Chronicles of the House of Valois three-book series, I chose it because it focuses on Anne becoming Queen not once but twice within a single decade, the second time to King Louis XII—which just blows my mind.
An irresistible 16th century tale of intrigue, rivalry and friendship filled with fascinating characters and a compelling plot. —Roberta Rich, Internationally bestselling author of The Midwife of Venice Trilogy
Whose Son will be King?
In 1491, France conquers Brittany. As part of the peace treaty, fifteen-year-old Duchess Anne must marry the young French king. She arrives in France, defeated, homesick and surrounded by enemies. Once the ruler of her duchy, her only value and duty as queen is to provide an heir. With only her pride to sustain her, can Anne make a place for herself in her enemy’s court?
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
My fascination with pre-revolutionary France began when my love of genealogy and my family research took me to the France of my ancestors. Most of my French ancestors migrated to Canada in the 1600s and 1700s. Twenty of my 7th and 8th-great-grandmothers were recruited to emigrate as part of the Filles du Roi (Daughters of the King) program, and I have often wondered what life was like for them before they left France and what it was like for their ancestors. I have discovered that I am descended from several of the earlier kings of France and England, and that feeds into my passion for reading about the French.
This book took me to France of the 16th century (1560s) with all its romance, political intrigue, and heartbreak. Marguerite de Valois (Princess Margot), daughter of Catherine de Medici and King Henri II of France, is in love with the charismatic Duc de Guise. But the daughter of royalty is always a political pawn. And sure enough, she is offered in marriage to Henri of Navarre, a Huguenot leader, who becomes King of Navarre and later King of France as Henri IV.
I was horrified when religious tension between the Catholics and the Huguenots erupted into the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre just days after their wedding, but still, I was unable to put this book down.
Winter, 1564. Beautiful young Princess Margot is summoned to the court of France, where nothing is what it seems and a wrong word can lead to ruin. Known across Europe as Madame la Serpente, Margot's intimidating mother, Queen Catherine de Médicis, is a powerful force in a country devastated by religious war. Among the crafty nobility of the royal court, Margot learns the intriguing and unspoken rules she must live by to please her poisonous family.
Eager to be an obedient daughter, Margot accepts her role as a marriage pawn, even as she is charmed by the powerful, charismatic Duc…
My fascination with pre-revolutionary France began when my love of genealogy and my family research took me to the France of my ancestors. Most of my French ancestors migrated to Canada in the 1600s and 1700s. Twenty of my 7th and 8th-great-grandmothers were recruited to emigrate as part of the Filles du Roi (Daughters of the King) program, and I have often wondered what life was like for them before they left France and what it was like for their ancestors. I have discovered that I am descended from several of the earlier kings of France and England, and that feeds into my passion for reading about the French.
I was intrigued by how quickly this one pulled me into the dynamics of this family of five sisters, each of whom conspired to become Louis XV’s mistress in the early 18th century. This book is the first in a trilogy called The Mistresses of Versailles.
Told from multiple points of view, the sisters’ relationships and their romantic intrigues were brought to life for me both through their narrations and through letters back and forth among them.
Court intriguers are beginning to sense that young King Louis XV, after seven years of marriage, is tiring of his Polish wife. The race is on to find a mistress for the royal bed as various factions put their best feet, and women, forward. The King's scheming ministers push sweet, naive Louise, the eldest of the aristocratic Nesle sisters, into the arms of the King. Over the following decade, she and three of her younger sisters, ambitious Pauline; complacent Diane, and cunning Marie Anne, will conspire, betray, suffer, and triumph in a…
Crossing is a vividly human re-imagining of the love, sacrifices, and accomplishments that two Chinese brothers - American Immigrants - experience as they travel to California to build the Transcontinental Railroad.
My fascination with pre-revolutionary France began when my love of genealogy and my family research took me to the France of my ancestors. Most of my French ancestors migrated to Canada in the 1600s and 1700s. Twenty of my 7th and 8th-great-grandmothers were recruited to emigrate as part of the Filles du Roi (Daughters of the King) program, and I have often wondered what life was like for them before they left France and what it was like for their ancestors. I have discovered that I am descended from several of the earlier kings of France and England, and that feeds into my passion for reading about the French.
This book, set in the court of King Louis XVI (late 18th century), immersed me in the days leading up to the French Revolution and the storming of the Bastille. I especially appreciated that the story was told from the points of view of two young people: Joliette, who serves as Maid of Honor to Queen Marie Antoinette while at the same time striving to preserve her own family’s legacy, a French winery (I do love wine!); and Henri, an orphan raised by a washerwoman.
This is the first in the three-book Château de Verzat series. I really enjoyed the dual perspectives of the plucky noblewoman and the determined commoner as they experienced the beginnings of the French Revolution.
"...multifaceted...sustained intrigue...effervescent... A compelling wine tale... "— Kirkus Reviews
A Woman Fights for Her Legacy as the French Revolution Erupts
Headstrong Countess Joliette de Verzat prefers secretly managing her family’s Loire Valley château and vineyards to the cut-throat politics of Versailles. For nearly three centuries, generations of families have toiled to produce Château de Verzat wines, and their homes and livelihoods depend upon Joliette. But ancient laws block her from inheriting property—unless she is widowed.
Revolution erupts. Thousands of women march on Versailles. Caught in the battle, Joliette risks her own life to save her lover’s. She flees to Paris,…
Although the books on my list all delve into the history of Queen Marie
Antoinette and her family, they also provide an understanding of the
chaotic period leading up to the French Revolution. I’ve always been
fascinated by the historical drama, controversy, and tragedy of her
personal life, but the readings on my list also explore the social
changes in manners, clothing styles, and class distinctions that
accompanied the political unrest.
Susan Nagel charted Marie-Thérèse's life during the turmoil of the French Revolution. The only survivor of the royal family locked in Temple Prison, despite the harrowing experience of her family’s demise and the French Revolution, Marie Antoinette’s daughter emerged as a remarkably strong figure in French history.
Marie-Thérèse journeyed from the horrors of the Temple prison and her family’s death to a dignified role at court when she married her cousin and the monarchy returned after the Revolution and Napoleon’s empire. I was amazed at how little I knew about Marie-Thérèse—she was even queen for 20 minutes when her husband reigned and abdicated!
In December 1795, seventeen-year-old Marie-Therese, the only surviving child of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI, fled Paris's notorious Temple Prison. Kept in solitary confinement after her parents' brutal execution during the Terror, she had been unaware of the fate of her family, save the cries she heard of her young brother being tortured in an adjacent cell. She emerged to an uncertain future: an orphan, exile and focus of political plots and marriage schemes of the crowned heads of Europe. Susan Nagel tells a remarkable story of an astonishing woman whose life was shrouded in mystery, from her birth in…
The French court has fascinated me since boyhood visits to Blois and Versailles. The appeal of its unusually dramatic history is heightened by the prominence of women, by the number and brilliance of courtiers’ letters and memoirs, and by its stupendous cultural patronage: Even after writing seven books on the French court, from Louis XIV to Louis XVIII, I remain enthralled by Versailles, Fontainebleau, and Paris where, as the new science of court studies expands, there is always more to see and learn. The power and popularity of the French presidency today confirm the importance of the French monarchy, to which it owes so much, including its physical setting, the Elysée Palace.
Saint-Simon was another passionate outsider. He compensated for his lack of position and favour under Louis XIV by putting his fantasies of omniscience and his psychological perception into his memoirs. One of the great stylists of the French language, he leads readers into a universe where class, personality, and ambition are more important than public issues. He blamed French defeats on Louis XIV’s pride and ignorance. He called Versailles ’the saddest and most unrewarding place in the world’ and the King’s Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, heightening persecution of Protestants, ‘a general abomination born of flattery and cruelty’. At the same time, he praised the King’s ‘incomparable grace and majesty’. ‘Never was a man so naturally polite.’
This is the third volume in Lucy Norton's three-volume abridgement and translation of the the memoirs of the Duc de Saint-Simon, first published in the 1960s. The court of Louis XIV, the Sun King, at Versailles was unequalled for splendour in Europe's history, a hotbed of intrigues and jealousy, passion both political and personal, as well as artistic and literary excellence - this is its memorial. This, like the previous volumes, is peppered throughout with character sketches which bring the period to life. The third volume starts with the funeral of Louis XIV, the ensuing violent quarrels of the Duc…
Almost Home is a fictional retelling of the last great tragedy of the Civil War.
In late April 1865, almost 2,000 newly freed Union prisoners of war are packed onto the steamer Sultana, in poor repair and with a listed capacity of 376 passengers. Among them are four Indiana soldiers…
The French court has fascinated me since boyhood visits to Blois and Versailles. The appeal of its unusually dramatic history is heightened by the prominence of women, by the number and brilliance of courtiers’ letters and memoirs, and by its stupendous cultural patronage: Even after writing seven books on the French court, from Louis XIV to Louis XVIII, I remain enthralled by Versailles, Fontainebleau, and Paris where, as the new science of court studies expands, there is always more to see and learn. The power and popularity of the French presidency today confirm the importance of the French monarchy, to which it owes so much, including its physical setting, the Elysée Palace.
Born a German princess, married to Louis XIV’s gay younger brother, ‘Liselotte’, as the Duchesse d’Orleans was often known, was an outsider who also, by her rank, was an insider. She put her venom and her frustrations into her letter-writing, denouncing the French court’s morals, policies, and personnel to her German relations. Versailles made her prefer dogs to people: she called Madame de Maintenon, the king’s second wife, ‘the old whore’. Her letters make us feel we are living at Versailles, when it was at the heart of European politics and culture.
Married in 1672, at 19, to Louis XIV's bisexual brother, the Duke of Orleans, Liselotte began her voluminous and fascinating correspondence from the Court of Versailles which she continued until her death 50 years later, making her the greatest chronicler of her day. Feared for her sharp tongue and her bluntness, Liselotte refused to be drawn into the viscious life at the Sun King's Court, of which she was outspokenly critical and her letters, collected here in this volume, describe the bawdy, spontaneous and idiosyncratic personages and life of Louis XIV's corrupt court.
I love stories where characters become more than what was expected of them, and where I can feel the human emotions they endure in their rise or fall. I write stories for the fearful, the voiceless, the broken, and the brave—reminders that pain can shape purpose, that hope can rise from heartbreak, and that no one endures alone. Ancient queens typically embody those truths. Dismissed as pawns, they carried dynasties on their shoulders, often at great personal cost. Their humanity—their love, fear, sacrifice, and imperfections—reminds me that beneath the crowns, we all bleed, we all long, and we all need each other to survive.
What I loved most about this book was how it told the rise of Nefertiti through the eyes of her quieter sister, Mutnodjmet. That perspective stayed with me.
It showed power and ambition not only from the throne, but from the shadow it cast on those forced to serve it. It reminded me that the greatest power struggles are never won without sacrifice, especially from those who never asked to play the game.
When the Crown Prince of Egypt needs a wife, the beautiful, charismatic, ambitious and connected Nefertiti is his mother's first choice. She quickly becomes accustomed to the opulence of her new life. As Queen of the world's first great empire at the height of its power, all her dreams are realised. Beguiling and wilful, Nefertiti is soon as powerful as the Pharaoh himself. But when her husband breaks with a thousand years of tradition, defying the priests and the military, it will take all Nefertiti's wiles to keep the nation from being torn apart. Watching from the shadows, her sister,…
I grew up in the era of sweeping historical epics, traveling with the turn of a page from Gaius Marius’s Rome to Victoria’s England and everything in between. I’ve always loved books that immerse you in places and time periods you know nothing about—and when I couldn’t find enough of them, I started writing my own. While my long-ago history PhD work is in Tudor-Stuart England (my specialty was the English Civil War), what I love most is being a historical dilettante and getting to hop around the historical record—which may be why my books can take you anywhere from Napoleon’s court to 1920s Kenya to Cuba with Teddy Roosevelt!
Fun fact: in college, my specialty was 16th-century Scotland, which meant I spent several months living in Edinburgh doing research for my senior thesis. In this book, Susanna Kearsley brings to life a Scotland we seldom see in novels but which brings back the Edinburgh I lived in and studied more vividly than anything else I’ve encountered.
There are so many books about the Jacobite rebellion of 1745, but this book tackles the precursor to all that, the tangled politics of the late 17th and early 18th centuries, from the fall-out of the Glorious Revolution and the exile of James II to the ferment around the 1707 Act of Union in all its glorious complexity, through the life of one woman who finds herself—as one does—a normal person buffeted by larger events. Every time I open this book, I feel like I’m back in Edinburgh again.
'Fascinating and immersive... I love a novel that deals with the many ways in which people keep their secrets' DIANA GABALDON A sweeping love story set against the Jacobite revolution from much-loved, million copy bestselling author Susanna Kearsley
Autumn, 1707. Old enemies from the Highlands to the Borders are protesting the new Union with England. As the French prepare an invasion to bring the exiled Jacobite king back to Scotland to reclaim his throne, the streets of Edinburgh are filled with discontent. To calm the situation, Queen Anne's commissioners are settling the losses and wages owed to those Scots involved…
Creativity, Teaching, and Natural Inspiration
by
Mark Doherty,
I have woven numerous delightful and descriptive true life stories, many from my adventures as an outdoorsman and singer songwriter, into my life as a high school English teacher. I think you'll find this work both entertaining as well as informative, and I hope you enjoy the often lighthearted repartee…
I started a serious study of world history in the early 2000s when the United States-led wave of globalization reshaped the world order. The topic of Russia in world history became especially important under the Vladimir Putin Presidency. Since the 2010s, Russia has made a concerted attempt to revitalize Soviet-era links with countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, many of which are former colonies of Europe. Putin's administration is promoting the geopolitics of a "New World Order," a paradigm they believe will challenge global Western dominance. If we are to craft a coherent Western response and a strong foreign policy, we must understand Russian outreach and relationships in the world.
I love this book because John Darwin takes the history of empires very seriously.
He argues that the present world is the legacy of the great empires that came into existence after the fall of Tamerlane in 1405. He was the last powerful Eurasian ruler who followed in the footsteps of Genghis Khan and Attila the Hun. This allowed Asian and European empires such as the Romanovs, Ottomans, the Mughals, the Manchus, the British, the French, the Nazis, and the Soviets to build their empires in space that yoked together Asia and Europe in shared imperial ambitions.
This is an accessible and beautifully written introduction to world history that is well worth your time and effort. It is a great book for a serious book club.
Tamerlane, the Ottomans, the Mughals, the Manchus, the British, the Soviets, the Japanese and the Nazis.
All built empires they hoped would last forever: all were destined to fail. But, as John Darwin shows in his magnificent book, their empire building created the world we know today.
From the death of Tamerlane in 1405, last of the 'world conquerors', to the rise and fall of European empires, and from America's growing colonial presence to the resurgence of India and China as global economic powers, After Tamerlane provides a wonderfully intriguing perspective on the past, present and future of empires.
