by Melanie Benjamin

Nothing bad can happen at the Ritz; inside its gilded walls every woman looks beautiful, every man appears witty. Favored guests ... walk through its famous doors to be welcomed and pampered by Blanche Auzello and her husband, Claude, the mistress and master of the Ritz.  The Auzellos have secrets that they keep from their guests -- and each other.

by Jerome Charyn
 

What if the old maid of Amherst wasn't an old maid at all? The poet dons a hundred veils, alternately playing wounded lover, penitent, and female devil in this extraordinary adventure that will disturb and delight.

by Jill Dawson

 

A fictionalized account of Highsmith's 1964 sojourn in Sussex, where she is thrust into a typical Highsmith plot. There is a nosy neighbor; a stalker who may or may not have followed her to rural England; a journalist who insists on popping up in all the most unlikely places; and, finally, the author's lover Sam, whose clammy husband is problematic.

 

by Hazel Gaynor

In 1917, while the world was in the midst of a war, cousins Frances Griffiths and Elsie Wright staged photographs to make it appear that Frances was surrounded by fairies. Although they never intended for the faked photographs to be seen by anyone outside their family, the photos became famous enough that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle publicly claimed they were real.

by Ariel Lawhon

Not long after the execution of the Romanov family, rumors fly that the youngest daughter, Anastasia, has escaped the carnage and is alive and well.  Anna Anderson, a young woman rescued from a canal in Germany, bears an uncanny resemblance to the young tsarina, and her supporters are sure that she is, in fact, Anastasia.

by Greer Macallister

When Charlotte Smith's wealthy parents commit her beloved sister Phoebe to the infamous Goldengrove Asylum, Charlotte knows there's more to the story than madness. She risks everything and follows her sister inside, surrendering her real identity as a privileged young lady of San Francisco society to become a nameless inmate, Woman 99.

by Benjamin Markovits

Once married and on honeymoon, Annabella finds herself more dependent on and less loved by her husband than she had expected, as well as shocked by his unhappiness, cruelty, debts and drinking. A psychological tale based on a love triangle between Lord Byron, his half-sister, and his wife.

In the Victorian era, a fasting girl was, essentially, a young woman suffering from what we now call anorexia. This novel is based on the true story of 12-year-old Sarah Jacob, reportedly the most famous of the Victorian fasting girls, who were said to be able to survive without eating. 

by Dexter Clarence Palmer
 

by Sarah Schmidt

A fictional reimagining of real-life murders so infamous they earned its alleged perpetrator her own playground rhyme and ax-wielders everywhere a catchy chopping song, even if the killer's guilt was never firmly established.

by Leïla Slimani

When Parisian housewife Myriam accepts a job as a lawyer, she and her husband hire Louise, an unassuming, doll-like woman in her 40s, to watch their two children. Initially enamored of Louise's quiet competence, delicious cooking, and constant availability, the couple eventually find her dominating their lives in unwelcome ways.

by Rupert Thomson

In the years preceding World War I, two young women meet and embark on a clandestine love affair, terrified they will be discovered.  In an astonishing twist of fate, the mother of one marries the father of the other. As "sisters" they are finally free of suspicion ...

by Norah Vincent

The spectral presence of Adeline, Virginia Woolf's childlike alter ego, who bears the name Virginia was given at birth, engages Woolf throughout the novel and accompanies her at moments marked by great insight and great pain. 

 
Two centuries ago, courageous radical Shelley ponders the implications of the unnerving story that has taken hold of her. In the present, a transgender doctor, Ry Shelley, gets caught up in hubristic schemes concocted by his celebrity professor lover, Victor Stein, who is secretly at work on a macabre union of body parts and AI, and a curiously innocent purveyor of ego-boosting sexbots.