The Red Widow

By Sarah Horowitz,

Book cover of The Red Widow: The Scandal that Shook Paris and the Woman Behind it All

Book description

Sex, corruption, and power: the rise and fall of the Red Widow of Paris

Paris, 1889:Margeurite Steinheil is a woman with ambition. But having been born into a middle-class family and trapped in a marriage to a failed artist twenty years her senior, she knows her options are limited.

Determined…

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

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

Once I settled in to read the life story of the scandalous 19th-century French femme fatale Marguerite (Meg) Steinheil, I didn’t get back up until I finished. What a ride! Then, I immediately went back to the beginning and read it again.

Meg became notorious in 1899 for literally being in the bed (and the clutches) of the French president when he suddenly died. But wait, there’s more! That’s not even the most incredible moment in her life story. At one point, I started yelling at the book: "Meg, what, no!"

This book has everything you want in a story:…

If you love The Red Widow...

Ad

Book cover of Tap Dancing on Everest: A Young Doctor's Unlikely Adventure

Tap Dancing on Everest by Mimi Zieman,

Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.

The team attempts a new route up…

Want books like The Red Widow?

Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 100 books like The Red Widow.

Browse books like The Red Widow

Book cover of City of Dreadful Delight: Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late-Victorian London
Book cover of Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology
Book cover of Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence, and the Archive

Share your top 3 reads of 2024!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,889

readers submitted
so far, will you?

Ad

📚 If you like The Red Widow, you might also like...

Book cover of Norvel: An American Hero

Norvel by Kenneth F. Conklin,

NORVEL: An American Hero chronicles the remarkable life of Norvel Lee, a civil rights pioneer and Olympic athlete who challenged segregation in 1948 Virginia. Born in the Blue Ridge Mountains to working-class parents who valued education, Lee overcame Jim Crow laws and a speech impediment to achieve extraordinary success.

He…

Book cover of American Flygirl

American Flygirl by Susan Tate Ankeny,

The first and only full-length biography of Hazel Ying Lee, an unrecognized pioneer and unsung World War II hero who fought for a country that actively discriminated against her gender, race, and ambition.

This unique hidden figure defied countless stereotypes to become the first Asian American woman in United States…

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in murder, murder mystery, and France?

Murder 1,082 books
Murder Mystery 569 books
France 957 books