Fans pick 76 books like The Baron's Wife

Ms. Patzer’s writing is lilting and emotional in its building of character and setting in old Italy. You’ll feel you are right there as a young woman struggles with her mysterious past, a forbidden love, and the cruel superstitions that stand in her way. I rooted for Olivia, who has no idea what danger her very birth has caused.

I fell in love with the atmosphere and plot. Also, the different setting not normally seen in most historicals: 13th century Tuscany. I could taste the food, smell the aromas, and see the sweeping countryside. The life in a convent felt authentic, and the drama, the heroine’s determination to discover her past, kept me reading.

Set in thirteenth-century England. Ms. Morris weaves a tale of turbulence, greed, murder, and much more. I loved her historical details in an era that must be difficult to research. Yvonne is a heroine you will instantly care about as her life is upended in so many ways. The fast pace had me riveted to the story. Ms. Morris has you walking the dank halls of a castle, breathing in the smoky fires, and brooding for Yvonne as she faces the demands and restrictions on medieval women who had little control over their lives. The political maneuverings around her are also well-researched. Each character stands out. A tour de force.

This western showcases three strong and determined women of completely different backgrounds. I found something to appreciate about each one. Clara is under suspicion for poisoning her husband and flees west to start a new life. Selfish Mary Rose joins her, to put her past with husbands to rest. Emma finds them on the trail, falls in, but hides a terrible secret. Ms. Howard’s writing is clean and straightforward and always kept me engaged. How can they pool their resources and reach their goals? I liked how they came to trust and protect, no matter their flaws. Ms. Howard is excellent at characterization and this story taught me about female empowerment in difficult times. They thrive without help from men. As a horse lover, I enjoyed Emma’s horse training skills. 

Ms. Swift’s lyrical writing immediately enthralled me in this unusual story. Alice, stuck in an arranged marriage in 1660 England, uses her skills to protect an orchid called the Lady’s Slipper. But her nemesis, Richard, also her landlord, wants it for other reasons. Their animosity changes to attraction, and I loved the emotions between them. Ms. Swift writes with skill about the Quakers, the era, and a forbidden love. She easily weaves history with heartbreak, and I devoured this story, never wanting it to end. The drama never drags, and I could not put it down. Later, I met Ms. Swift at a writers’ conference, and she’s a sweet, humble woman. One of my all-time favorite novels.

The concept of this book is simple but extremely effective in shedding light on the superstitions the Cornish country folk still held in the 19th and 20th centuries.

The author has collected old newspaper clippings, which reveal a fascinating variety of reports on how people tried to protect their belongings, dwellings, and themselves from illnesses and misfortunes caused by spells or “ill-wishes”. The reports talk of ‘witch bottles’ and pierced animal hearts being used to counter-act spells, and how the practitioners of magic, the cunning folk, were frequently taken to court when the purchased cures did not work.

The reports also shed light on the undoubtedly hard lives of those who were believed to be witches. There are several reports of “witch scratchings” ending up in courts when the supposed witches claimed compensation for the injuries caused by villagers trying to draw their blood to counteract spells.

A great book,… show more.

It seems that there is no detail of life in the late 1700s and early 1800s that Winston Graham doesn’t know. From aspects of history, geography, social class culture, medicine, ship-building, mining… Graham is ‘The Man’. But he is also a composite storyteller, weaving a compelling, generations-spanning narrative that charts the turmoils and triumphs of Ross Poldark and his family. One detail that I love is the representation of genuine female experience in a mode that is not about feminist agendas; Graham writes his women with compassion and complexity, making them far more than the housewives and bodice-rippers characteristic of some historical fiction. Quintessentially English, but never rose-tinted, these novels are a treasure that deserve greater acknowledgment.

Zennor is a tiny village perched on the cliffs of Cornwall’s rugged north shore and battered by Atlantic storms. I’ve often visited it, have run my hand over the legendary mermaid chair in its little church and walked the cliff path, which Virginia Woolf reported doing once at night, a dangerous event that inspired Dunmore’s novel. 

Zennor in Darkness is based on a true story. D.H. Lawrence and his wife Frieda settled in a remote cottage on the cliffs during the First World War. They were regarded with suspicion because Frieda was German and the couple kept an irregular lifestyle – were they in fact enemy spies?  Their story is tenderly told through the eyes of a young local artist, Clare Coyne.

Dunmore writes beautifully, with lucidity and a suspenseful air.

There are so many likable characters in this story, which is set in Cornwall around a family hotel, but surfer Riley Bryant was the most lovable character for me.

A bit of a charmer, but secretly in love with Tula, he won me over from the first time I met him, despite his rather feckless attitude at times!

This novel has everything in it that I love about Cornwall – the life and work of its artists, an incredible sense of the scenery and atmosphere, and the limpid light cast over its beauty. 

It’s also an absorbing story about the price that may have to be paid for following your star. Successful artist Rachel Kelly values creativity and self-expression, but all too often she places these above the happiness of her partner and children. Is she right or is she wrong? 

This book is a masterwork of psychological suspense that I love for its unreliable narration, emotional intensity, vivid rendering of character and place, and ingenious plot twists. Just as compelling and atmospheric as du Maurier’s earlier Rebecca, this novel similarly features a central enigma in the form of a shape-shifting woman. Still, its narrator and protagonist is a young man.

Philip Ashley, heir to a Cornish estate, is reckoning with the sudden overseas death of his beloved cousin and guardian, Ambrose, under mysterious circumstances. As he increasingly questions the role Ambrose’s new wife—a mysterious widow named Rachel—might have played in the months leading to his death, the grief-stricken Philip is drawn into a drama of conspiracy, romance, and obsession that will test the limits of his sanity.