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Recommendations based on The Swan Thievesby Elizabeth Kostova
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The Historian
by Elizabeth Kostova
An adventurous search for the truth behind Dracula's legend, spanning centuries.
The Historian interweaves the history and folklore of Vlad Țepeș , a 15th-century prince of Wallachia known as "Vlad the Impaler", and his fictional equivalent Count Dracula together with the story ... (Wikipedia)
The Shadow Land
by Elizabeth Kostova
A young American woman searches for a family lost in Bulgaria, uncovering secrets and confronting the country's dark past.
From the #1 bestselling author of The Historian comes an engrossing novel that spans the past and the present and unearths the dark secrets of Bulgaria, a beautiful and haunted country. A young ... (Goodreads)
The History of Love
by Nicole Krauss
A journey through a web of intertwining stories, searching for the meaning of love.
Approximately 70 years before the present, the 10-year-old Polish-Jewish Leopold (Leo) Gursky falls in love with his neighbor Alma Mereminski. The two begin a relationship that develops over the ... (Wikipedia)
The Lady and the Unicorn
by Tracy Chevalier
A tapestry weaves the story of a noblewoman, her maid, and the mysterious unicorn. A tale of love, desire, and art in medieval France.
A tour de force of history and imagination, The Lady and the Unicorn is Tracy Chevalier’s answer to the mystery behind one of the art world’s great masterpieces—a set of bewitching medieval ... (Goodreads)
Her Fearful Symmetry
by Audrey Niffenegger
Two sisters explore a haunted London estate, uncovering secrets of a mysterious past.
Elspeth dies of leukemia. Her apartment, located beside Highgate cemetery in London, is left for the daughters of Edwina, her estranged twin sister. Elspeth's nieces, identical twins Julia and ... (Wikipedia)
City of Thieves
by David Benioff
Two young men embark on a perilous mission in the besieged Leningrad of WWII.
The story is introduced as the recollections of the narrator's grandfather Lev Beniov, a contemporary Russian Jewish émigré. It is set in the first week of 1942, with the 17-years-old Lev trying to ... (Wikipedia)
Little Bee
by Chris Cleave
A Nigerian refugee's quest for survival and a British woman's search for redemption.
Using alternating first-person perspectives , the novel tells the stories of Little Bee, a Nigerian refugee, and Sarah O'Rourke (née Summers), a magazine editor from Surrey . After spending two years ... (Wikipedia)
Sacred Hearts
by Sarah Dunant
In 16th century Italy, a young noblewoman is forced into a convent against her will and must navigate the complex politics and relationships within its walls.
The year is 1570, and in the convent of Santa Caterina, in the Italian city of Ferrara, noblewomen find space to pursue their lives under God's protection. But any community, however smoothly run, ... (Goodreads)
The God of the Hive
by Laurie R. King
A suspenseful mystery about a young woman's search for truth and justice.
Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes are each on the trail, seeking to expose a ruthless villain and ensure the safety of Holmes' artist son, Damian Adler, and Adler's half-Chinese daughter, ... (Wikipedia)
Voyager
by Diana Gabaldon
A grand adventure across time and space, filled with romance, danger and mystery.
Voyager opens on the battlefield at Culloden , where Jamie Fraser finds himself gravely wounded and his rival Jack Randall dead. Jamie is carried to a nearby farmhouse where 18 Highland soldiers have ... (Wikipedia)
People of the Book
by Geraldine Brooks
A journey through time as an ancient book is discovered and its secrets revealed.
The "complex and moving" ( The New Yorker ) novel by Pulitzer Prize winner Geraldine Brooks follows a rare manuscript through centuries of exile and war. Inspired by a true story, "People of the ... (Goodreads)
A Discovery of Witches
by Deborah Harkness
An enchanted journey of forbidden love, as a witch and a vampire search for an ancient magical book.
Book one of the, New York Times,-bestselling All Souls trilogy—"a wonderfully imaginative grown-up fantasy with all the magic of, Harry Potter, and, Twilight,” (,People,). Look for the hit TV series ... (Barnes & Noble)
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie
by Alan Bradley
A young girl's detective journey to solve a murder mystery in a picturesque English village.
As the novel opens, Flavia Sabina de Luce schemes revenge against her two older sisters, Ophelia (17) and Daphne (13), who have locked her inside a closet in Buckshaw, the family's country manor home ... (Wikipedia)
Fingersmith
by Sarah Waters
A thrilling tale of two women who conspire to swindle a wealthy gentleman.
Sue Trinder, an orphan raised in "a Fagin -like den of thieves" by her adoptive mother, Mrs Sucksby, is sent to help Richard "Gentleman" Rivers seduce a wealthy heiress. Posing as a maid, Sue is to ... (Wikipedia)
The Weight of Water
by Anita Shreve
A woman's journey of self-discovery and introspection, inspired by a mysterious journey to a remote island.
In March 1873, two Norwegian-born women who lived on the desolate Smuttynose Island , one of the Isles of Shoals off the coast of Maine and New Hampshire , were brutally murdered. Maren Hontvedt, a ... (Wikipedia)
The Forgotten Garden
by Kate Morton
A woman's quest to uncover the secrets of her family's past, leading to a mysterious garden.
At Nell's joyous 21st birthday party her world falls apart when her father tells her she was adopted as a 4-year-old in 1913, seemingly abandoned on an Australian wharf and unable to remember her ... (Wikipedia)
Five Quarters of the Orange
by Joanne Harris
A gripping tale of a young woman's struggle to uncover the secrets of her past and confront her family's dark history.
The novels of Joanne Harris are a literary feast for the senses. Five Quarters of the Orange represents Harris's most complex and sophisticated work yet - a novel in which darkness and fierce joy ... (Goodreads)
The Winter Sea
by Susanna Kearsley
A writer travels to Scotland to research her novel and discovers a personal connection to the past. Historical fiction with a touch of romance.
A NEW YORK TIMES AND USA TODAY BESTSELLER! "I've loved every one of Susanna's books! She has bedrock research and a butterfly's delicate touch with characters—sure recipe for historical fiction that ... (Barnes & Noble)
The House at Riverton
by Kate Morton
A family saga spanning generations, uncovering secrets and lies of a mysterious house.
Ninety-eight-year-old Grace Bradley, a maid at Riverton Manor in the 1920s, has long hidden a terrible secret. A film is being made about a famous incident at Riverton when well-known poet Robbie ... (Wikipedia)
The Thirteenth Tale
by Diane Setterfield
A mysterious storyteller reveals a dark family secret, transforming the lives of those around her.
Vida Winter, a famous novelist in England, has evaded journalists' questions about her past, refusing to answer their inquiries and spinning elaborate tales that they later discover to be false. Her ... (Wikipedia)
Dragonfly in Amber
by Diana Gabaldon
Romantic adventure through history as two time travelers fight to change their destiny.
Claire Randall has returned to her own time, where she has been living for 20 years with her husband Frank. Following his death, she brings her daughter, Brianna, to the home of the Randalls' old ... (Wikipedia)
The White Queen
by Philippa Gregory
A tale of love, loyalty and betrayal, set in the turbulent times of the War of the Roses.
Brother turns on brother. The throne of England is at stake. The deadly Wars of the Roses have begun. . . ."They ruled England before the Tudors, and now internationally bestselling author Philippa ... (Goodreads)
Duma Key
by Stephen King
A man moves to a remote island to recover from a traumatic accident and discovers his artistic talent has a dark power.
Wealthy Minnesotan building-contractor Edgar Freemantle barely survives a severe work-site accident wherein his truck is crushed by a crane. Freemantle loses his right arm, and suffers severe head ... (Wikipedia)
Suite Française
by Irène Némirovsky
A story of love and loss set against the backdrop of Nazi-occupied France.
The first two stories of a masterwork once thought lost, written by a pre-WWII bestselling author who was deported to Auschwitz and died before her work could be completed. By the early l940s, when ... (Goodreads)
Peace Like a River
by Leif Enger
A young boy's journey of faith, hope, and courage in the midst of tragedy.
Once in a great while, we encounter a novel in our voluminous reading that begs to be read aloud. Leif Enger's debut, Peace Like a River , is one such work. His richly evocative novel, narrated by an ... (Goodreads)
Snow Falling on Cedars
by David Guterson
A murder trial in a small, coastal town reveals secrets of the past and its inhabitants.
Set on the fictional San Piedro Island in the northern Puget Sound region of the state of Washington coast in 1954, the plot revolves around a murder case in which Kabuo Miyamoto, a Japanese American ... (Wikipedia)
One Day
by David Nicholls
A story of friendship and love, exploring the complexities of life and relationships.
Dexter and Emma spend the night together following their graduation from the University of Edinburgh , in 1988. They talk about how they will be once they are 40. While they do not become ... (Wikipedia)
The Kitchen House
by Kathleen Grissom
A young Irish girl is taken in by a plantation family in Virginia and becomes entangled in the lives of the slaves who work there.
When a white servant girl violates the order of plantation society, she unleashes a tragedy that exposes the worst and best in the people she has come to call her family. Orphaned while onboard ship ... (Goodreads)
The Prince of Tides
by Pat Conroy
A man's search for solace and understanding in his troubled family's past.
Tom Wingo is a middle-aged man with a wife and three young daughters who has recently lost his job as a high school English teacher and football coach. He learns that his twin sister, Savannah, has ... (Wikipedia)
The Signature of All Things
by Elizabeth Gilbert
A woman's quest for knowledge and self-fulfillment, spanning through the 19th century.
A glorious, sweeping novel of desire, ambition, and the thirst for knowledge, from the # 1 New York Times bestselling author of Eat, Pray, Love and Committed. In The Signature of All Things, ... (Goodreads)
