100 books like The Gilded Wolves

By Roshani Chokshi,

Here are 100 books that The Gilded Wolves fans have personally recommended if you like The Gilded Wolves. Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Enchantée

Ryan Graudin Author Of The Enchanted Lies of Celeste Artois

From my list on set in a magical version of Paris.

Why am I passionate about this?

I love Paris. It is one of my favorite cities on Earth. One of the reasons I adore it so much is because it has such a palpable sense of enchantment. There is magic in its cathedrals and catacombs, its pâtisseries and feal markets, its rich tradition of art and joie de vivre. You can feel it in your soul as you walk through the city, under the gazes of its gargoyles and the charm of its cafes. Thus, I’ve always been drawn to stories that take this one step further—exploring a Paris that harbors actual magic.

Ryan's book list on set in a magical version of Paris

Ryan Graudin Why did Ryan love this book?

This story is set in one of the most intriguing periods of Parisian history, starting at the cusp of the French Revolution. I loved how Gita Trelease introduced magic into the court of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.

Every detail, from the dresses to the pastries, is imbued with enchantments, while the darkness of the impending revolution serves as a taut backdrop.

By Gita Trelease,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Enchantée as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 12, 13, 14, and 15.

What is this book about?

A compellingly beautiful tale of magic, intrigue and deception, set against the backdrop of eighteenth-century Paris on the cusp of revolution.

Paris in 1789 is a labyrinth of twisted streets, filled with beggars, thieves, revolutionaries - and magicians . . .
When seventeen-year-old Camille is left orphaned, she has to provide for her frail sister and her volatile brother. In desperation, she survives by using the petty magic she learnt from her mother. But when her brother disappears Camille decides to pursue a richer, more dangerous mark: the glittering court of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.

Using dark magic Camille…


Book cover of Strange Beasts

Ryan Graudin Author Of The Enchanted Lies of Celeste Artois

From my list on set in a magical version of Paris.

Why am I passionate about this?

I love Paris. It is one of my favorite cities on Earth. One of the reasons I adore it so much is because it has such a palpable sense of enchantment. There is magic in its cathedrals and catacombs, its pâtisseries and feal markets, its rich tradition of art and joie de vivre. You can feel it in your soul as you walk through the city, under the gazes of its gargoyles and the charm of its cafes. Thus, I’ve always been drawn to stories that take this one step further—exploring a Paris that harbors actual magic.

Ryan's book list on set in a magical version of Paris

Ryan Graudin Why did Ryan love this book?

If you’re searching for a book that serves up monstrous werewolves in Paris’s catacombs and opera houses, then I highly recommend picking up this book.

I loved how Susan J. Morris used references to Sherlock Holmes and Dracula in her characters, who are racing to find a man-eating beast in 1900s Paris. This was a taut, twisty-turny read!

By Susan J. Morris,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Strange Beasts as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'A whip-smart, lusciously atmospheric adventure' Frances White

'Fantastic and fresh' Wesley Chu

'Inventive, engaging, and terrific fun' H.G. Parry

In Belle Epoque Paris, a monster is murdering powerful men. Stopping it may be a woman's job.

When the Gendarmes ask the Royal Society for the Study of Abnormal Phenomena for help, they don't expect them to send Samantha Harker.

She's a researcher, more used to papercuts than knife fights. Sam is also the daughter of Dracula's killer and can see into the minds of monsters. It's a perilous power, one that could help her crack this case or have her…


Book cover of The Ladies of the Secret Circus

Ryan Graudin Author Of The Enchanted Lies of Celeste Artois

From my list on set in a magical version of Paris.

Why am I passionate about this?

I love Paris. It is one of my favorite cities on Earth. One of the reasons I adore it so much is because it has such a palpable sense of enchantment. There is magic in its cathedrals and catacombs, its pâtisseries and feal markets, its rich tradition of art and joie de vivre. You can feel it in your soul as you walk through the city, under the gazes of its gargoyles and the charm of its cafes. Thus, I’ve always been drawn to stories that take this one step further—exploring a Paris that harbors actual magic.

Ryan's book list on set in a magical version of Paris

Ryan Graudin Why did Ryan love this book?

I’m a big sucker for magical circuses, so when I found out this book featured a magical circus set in Paris in 1925, I was doubly invested.

I loved the carousels that took you back in time, the floating trapeze artists, and the dark allure lurking under the carnival’s performances. This story switches back and forth between two timelines, drawing readers into an unfolding mystery about the circus’s fate.

I was captivated right until the story’s shocking end.

By Constance Sayers,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Ladies of the Secret Circus as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From the author of A Witch in Time comes a magical story spanning from Jazz Age Paris to modern-day America of family secrets, sacrifice, and lost love set against the backdrop of a mysterious circus.

Paris, 1925: To enter the Secret Circus is to enter a world of wonder—a world where women weave illusions of magnificent beasts, carousels take you back in time, and trapeze artists float across the sky. Bound to her family's circus, it's the only world Cecile Cabot knows until she meets a charismatic young painter and embarks on a passionate affair that could cost her everything.…


Book cover of Grim Lovelies

Ryan Graudin Author Of The Enchanted Lies of Celeste Artois

From my list on set in a magical version of Paris.

Why am I passionate about this?

I love Paris. It is one of my favorite cities on Earth. One of the reasons I adore it so much is because it has such a palpable sense of enchantment. There is magic in its cathedrals and catacombs, its pâtisseries and feal markets, its rich tradition of art and joie de vivre. You can feel it in your soul as you walk through the city, under the gazes of its gargoyles and the charm of its cafes. Thus, I’ve always been drawn to stories that take this one step further—exploring a Paris that harbors actual magic.

Ryan's book list on set in a magical version of Paris

Ryan Graudin Why did Ryan love this book?

Megan Shepherd has long been a favorite author of mine, and her Grim Lovelies series is the perfect mix of magic and Paris.

When Anouk, a witch’s enchanted familiar, is suddenly accused of her mistress’s murder, she must flee through the city to discover who actually committed the crime before time runs out and she turns back into an animal.

I loved the magical wishing fountains, the glitzy shopping sprees in Galeries Lafayette, and the tense race to keep the main character’s humanity.

By Megan Shepherd,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Grim Lovelies as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 14, 15, 16, and 17.

What is this book about?

"A magical dash through the streets of Paris. Part caper, part fairy tale, part opulent witch society, you'll be swept away by all of it. GRIM LOVELIES absolutely dazzles." -Kendare Blake, #1 NYT bestselling author of the Three Dark Crowns series

"A darkly enchanting saga...bound to attract fans of Leigh Bardugo, Holly Black, and more." -Entertainment Weekly

"I lost myself in this magical book." -Stephanie Garber, New York Times bestselling author of Caraval and Legendary


Seventeen-year-old Anouk envies the human world, where people known as Pretties lavish themselves in fast cars, high fashion, and have the freedom to fall in…


Book cover of After the Romanovs: Russian Exiles in Paris from the Belle Époque Through Revolution and War

Mary Ryan Author Of Under the Wild Sky: A Saga of Love and War in Revolutionary Ireland

From my list on unusual history that fascinated me.

Why am I passionate about this?

I live in Dublin, Ireland and am the author of eleven novels, many of them Irish bestsellers, all of them translated into foreign languages, most of them also published in the US by St Martin’s Press. A lawyer by profession, I gave up my law practice to concentrate on writing fiction, beginning with an historical novel Whispers in the Wind which was a No. 1 Irish bestseller. History is my passion.

Mary's book list on unusual history that fascinated me

Mary Ryan Why did Mary love this book?

The fascination of this book is its portrayal of the human cost involved in the fall of a civilisation. After the Bolshevik Revolution the cream of Russian society, including most of the aristocrats, the professional classes, the officer class, the middle class, fled Russia with little but the clothes on their backs. Being Francophone, most of them sought refuge in Paris only to find there destitution. Grand Dukes who formerly had palaces, country estates and scores of servants, now drove taxis, waited at table, washed dishes; Grand Duchesses embroidered for fashion houses (the lucky ones), all yearning for their homeland and being, as time passed, regarded with less and less tolerance by the French.  

The book is a reminder that catastrophe waits only for opportunity.

By Helen Rappaport,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked After the Romanovs as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From Helen Rappaport, the New York Times bestselling author of The Romanov Sisters comes After the Romanovs, the story of the Russian aristocrats, artists, and intellectuals who sought freedom and refuge in the City of Light.

Paris has always been a city of cultural excellence, fine wine and food, and the latest fashions. But it has also been a place of refuge for those fleeing persecution, never more so than before and after the Russian Revolution and the fall of the Romanov dynasty. For years, Russian aristocrats had enjoyed all that Belle Époque Paris had to offer, spending lavishly when…


Book cover of The Paris Winter

Lise McClendon Author Of Blackbird Fly

From my list on transporting you to France.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m American but I’ve been a Francophile for ages. I didn’t get a chance to visit France until well into adulthood. So much history lives in France and it’s been my joy to illuminate it for readers who tell me they feel transported. There is no higher compliment, in my mind. I’ve been writing novels for thirty years, set in the Rocky Mountains, America’s heartland, and the scenic villages of France. The Bennett Sisters Mysteries are now up 18 books in the series, featuring settings from Paris to Champagne to the Dordogne, with more in the works. I must go back to France to research, oui

Lise's book list on transporting you to France

Lise McClendon Why did Lise love this book?

I love weaving history into my mysteries so I was drawn to this dark tale of Paris in the Belle Époque. An English girl goes to Paris to study art but, desperately poor, throws her fate into the hands of some shady characters. The atmosphere and scene-setting of Paris during a terrible rainy winter are unforgettable. 

By Imogen Robertson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Paris Winter as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Extra material includes a deleted scene and a Q&A with Imogen Robertson

Maud Heighton came to Lafond's famous Academy to paint, and to flee the constraints of her small English town. It took all her courage to escape, but Paris eats money. While her fellow students enjoy the dazzling joys of the Belle Epoque, Maud slips into poverty. Quietly starving, and dreading another cold Paris winter, Maud takes a job as companion to young, beautiful Sylvie Morel. But Sylvie has a secret: an addiction to opium. As Maud is drawn into the Morels' world of elegant luxury, their secrets become…


Book cover of Dawn of the Belle Epoque

Katrina Lawrence Author Of Paris Dreaming: What the City of Light Taught Me About Life, Love & Lipstick

From my list on the history of Paris (and Parisians).

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been obsessed with Paris since the age of five. For most of my life I’ve travelled there regularly and read every book on the subject I could find. After working as a beauty editor, I decided to try to make my passion my day job. That inspired me to write Paris Dreaming: What the City of Light Taught Me About Life, Love & Lipstick, and launch a travel consultancy business, Paris for Dreamers. I work with like-minded lovers of Paris, who constantly yearn for the city’s beguiling beauty and fascinating history, and who are always planning their next trip—or visiting Paris virtually, through the pages of a book!

Katrina's book list on the history of Paris (and Parisians)

Katrina Lawrence Why did Katrina love this book?

Think of this as the literary equivalent of a Gobelins tapestry, its various threads expertly woven together to tell a grand and colourful story. McAuliffe has expertly intertwined the narratives and anecdotes of some of the most fascinating of Parisians to create a wonderfully engaging overview of the Belle Époque, that fabled and hedonistic between-wars Parisian era. By telling the history of these times through the eyes of the key players who lived—and shaped—these times, McAuliffe has produced a book that almost reads like a novel. It’s a fabulous treatment she also employed for her subsequent books that explored later periods of Paris history: Twilight of the Belle Epoque, When Paris Sizzled, and Paris on the Brink.

By Mary McAuliffe,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Dawn of the Belle Epoque as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A humiliating military defeat by Bismarck's Germany, a brutal siege, and a bloody uprising-Paris in 1871 was a shambles, and the question loomed, "Could this extraordinary city even survive?" Mary McAuliffe takes the reader back to these perilous years following the abrupt collapse of the Second Empire and France's uncertain venture into the Third Republic. By 1900, Paris had recovered and the Belle Epoque was in full flower, but the decades between were difficult, marked by struggles between republicans and monarchists, the Republic and the Church, and an ongoing economic malaise, darkened by a rising tide of virulent anti-Semitism. Yet…


Book cover of The Journal of Hélène Berr

Ruth Druart Author Of While Paris Slept

From my list on living with the enemy.

Why am I passionate about this?

I became intrigued by the German occupation of Paris when I moved here in 1993. I began to imagine how the French citizens would have lived alongside the enemy; housing them, serving them, working for them, feeding them, and even entertaining them, while hiding what was really in their hearts. This duplicity fascinated me, and I read all the books I could on the subject. Living in Paris, I also had the opportunity to talk to French people who had lived through the occupation. Putting all the pieces together, I did my best to recreate the atmosphere in my two novels.

Ruth's book list on living with the enemy

Ruth Druart Why did Ruth love this book?

This is the diary of a 21-year-old Jewish woman living in Paris during the German Occupation. A student at the Sorbonne, we follow her as she writes a first-hand account of the ever-increasing hardships and terrors her and her family face. She writes candidly about her experiences, her thoughts and beliefs as she and her family go about their daily routines, while living in constant fear of being arrested. It is a touching, personal testimony about Paris during World War II. She was arrested on the one night her family decided to sleep in their own home. Tragically, she died only days before her camp was liberated by the British. Some poignant details in her diary stayed with me long after I finished reading, and I used some of them in my novel.

By Helene Berr, David Bellos (translator),

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Journal of Hélène Berr as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Not since The Diary of Anne Frank has there been such a book as this: The joyful but ultimately heartbreaking journal of a young Jewish woman in occupied Paris, now being published for the first time, 63 years after her death in a Nazi concentration camp.

On April 7, 1942, Hélène Berr, a 21-year-old Jewish student of English literature at the Sorbonne, took up her pen and started to keep a journal, writing with verve and style about her everyday life in Paris — about her studies, her friends, her growing affection for the “boy with the grey eyes,” about…


Book cover of Things We Do in the Dark

Mallika Narayanan Author Of In the Dark I See You

From my list on Suspense/thriller books with great plot twists.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a writer of suspense/thrillers and psychological thrillers, I’ve always loved thrillers and suspense books where I can’t guess the ending. And this list of books is additionally close to my heart because of the way they made me feel when I read them: breathless; restless to know how they were going to end; and most of all, they made me think about and question the psychology of the characters. I hope you will like them as much as I did!

Mallika's book list on Suspense/thriller books with great plot twists

Mallika Narayanan Why did Mallika love this book?

I inhaled this gripping thriller in one sitting! It really made me go, wait, what? The author did a phenomenal job keeping me focused on certain details, while twirling other important details in the background. So when it all pieced together, I was truly in awe.

The twists in the book kept me hooked all through. Just when I thought, ah, I think I know where this is going, the very next chapter would make me change my mind. The pacing of this book added to the thrills.

I loved the writing and the characterization. This book, to me, is a great example of combining a most-loved genre while representing important voices and exploring and debunking assumptions. The main character is Filipino-American and I loved reading about the experience through the character’s eyes and told over many years so there’s a clear arc of the changes that time has brought…

By Jennifer Hillier,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Things We Do in the Dark as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

When Paris Peralta is arrested in her own bathroom-covered in blood, holding a straight razor, her celebrity husband dead in the bathtub behind her-she knows she'll be charged with murder. But as bad as this looks, it's not what worries her the most. With the unwanted media attention now surrounding her, it's only a matter of time before someone from her long hidden past recognizes her and destroys the new life she's worked so hard to build, along with any chance of a future.

Twenty-five years earlier, Ruby Reyes, known as the Ice Queen, was convicted of a similar murder…


Book cover of Lost Property

Sally Jenkins Author Of Little Museum of Hope

From my list on life-affirming.

Why am I passionate about this?

I like books driven by characters who ride the same emotional rollercoaster as we all do in real life. Characters who love the wrong people or who lose the people they were right to love or who fail to match the norms expected by society. Characters I can empathise with, root for, and learn from. A fairytale happy ending is not necessary and can detract from the magic of a book. But I do like to be left with a feeling of hope. If a fictional character can learn to approach life more positively, then maybe I can too! This is what I try to achieve in my own books.

Sally's book list on life-affirming

Sally Jenkins Why did Sally love this book?

I have a very large ‘To Be Read’ pile and occasionally I discover a book has stagnated there for far longer than it deserves. Lost Property is one of those – I wish I’d read it and discovered the language of Helen Paris much sooner.

It’s the story of Dot Watson whose life veered off course when she lost her father and, instead of an exciting career, she makes do with working in the London Transport Lost Property Office. When a lost purse turns up, she finds her purpose and sets off on a mission.

Dot, like most of us, just needs a little help finding out who she really is.

By Helen Paris,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Lost Property as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'An enthralling read, full of rich descriptions and characters you can't help but love.' Hazel Prior

'A wonderfully rich, funny and brimming with heart book.' Beth Morrey
_________________________

Dot Watson has lost her way.

Twelve years ago her life veered off course, and the guilt over what happened still haunts her. Before then she was living in Paris, forging an exciting career; now her time is spent visiting her mother's care home, fielding interfering calls from her sister and working at the London Transport Lost Property office, diligently cataloguing items as misplaced as herself.

But when elderly Mr Appleby arrives…


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