*At midnight, the dogs, cats, and rats rule Venice. The Ponte di Ghetto Nuovo, the bridge that leads to the ghetto, trembles under the weight of sacks of rotting vegetables, rancid fat, and vermin. Seeping refuse on the streets renders the pavement slick and the walking treacherous.It was on such a night that the men came for Hannah.*Hannah Levi is famed throughout Venice for her skills as a midwife but, as a Jew, the law forbids her from attending a Christian woman.

Safiye had more to worry about than simply birthing this child. Her only son might not live to hear the call for morning prayers. If there ever was a time when the Empire required a male heir it was now.In the opulent royal palace of Murat III, on the shores of Constantinople, midwife Hannah Levi is charged with ensuring the Sultan’s harem provides him with a male heir.If she fails, the entire Ottoman Empire will collapse. But the slave girl who has been stolen awa...

In a tale spanning the 20th century, Ami McKay takes a primitive and superstitious rural community in Nova Scotia and creates a rich tableau of characters to tell the story of childbirth from its most secretive early practices to modern maternity as we know it.Epic and enchanting, ‘The Birth House’ is a gripping saga about a midwife's struggles in the wilds of Nova Scotia.As a child in the small village of Scot's Bay, Dora Rare – the first female in five generations of Rare...

'In the end, they celebrated. They bragged. They got me finally, was their feeling. They said I would take my secrets to the grave.They should be so lucky.'Defiant and daring, Axie Muldoon claws her way from the streets up to the dizzying heights of New York society. But as her fame grows and her name hits the headlines, her reputation as the most scandalous midwife of her time begins to threaten everything...

Where Theodora went, trouble followed….In sixth-century Constantinople, one woman, Theodora, defied every convention and all the odds and rose from common theater tart to empress of a great kingdom, the most powerful woman the Roman Empire would ever know. The woman whose image was later immortalized in glittering mosaic was a scrappy, clever, conniving, flesh-and-blood woman full of sensuality and spirit whose real story is as surprising as any ever t...

Set in St Petersburg during the Russian Revolution, a sweeping novel of love and loss as one woman fights for her own personal survival - and for the man she loves. By the acclaimed author of Blood Royal and Queen of Silks.St Petersburg,1911: Inna Feldman has fled the pogroms of her native Kiev to take refuge with distant relatives in Russia’s capital city.Welcomed into the flamboyant Leman family, she is apprenticed into ...

The year is 1140 and England is torn by the strife of civil war. Oliver Pascal chances upon a village raided by mercenaries and rescues the survivors: an orphaned boy, who is the illegitimate son of the old king, and his mother's maid, a young widow named Catrin. After escorting them to Bristol Castle, they are accepted into the household of Robert of Gloucester and while Catrin finds herself falling in love with Oliver she suffers a deep boredom at the frivolity of court life. Thus when t...

A novel from the acclaimed author of The Tiger Queens, for readers looking for “strong and determined female protagonists” (Historical Novel Society) and “a sprawling historical saga” (Renee Rosen)...We are the women who loved Alexander the Great. We were lovers and murderers, innocents and soldiers.And without us, Alexander would have been only a man.Instead he was a god.330s, B.C.E., Greece: Alexander, a handsome young warri...

Egypt, 1400s BC. The pharaoh’s pampered second daughter, lively, intelligent Hatshepsut, delights in racing her chariot through the marketplace and testing her archery skills in the Nile’s marshlands. But the death of her elder sister, Neferubity, in a gruesome accident arising from Hatshepsut’s games forces her to confront her guilt...and sets her on a profoundly changed course.Hatshepsut enters a loveless marriage with her half brother, Thut, to secure his claim to the Isis Thron...

Part 3 of the White Lotus trilogy.In the fifth century BCE, Egypt is the greatest civilization known to mankind. But with a foolish king on its throne, the Nile Valley is ripe for conquering.Amid this climate of danger and strife, in the alleys and brothels of Memphis, an extraordinary young woman comes of age. To spare her siblings from starvation, Doricha is sold into prostitution. But she has gifts beyond mere beauty. Through wit and determination, she works her way into...

PART 1 of the Book of Coming Forth by Day series.In the waning years of Egypt’s Eighteenth Dynasty, when female power can only come at an unsettling price, four royal women struggle against the shadowy influence of Akhenaten, the infamous heretic Pharaoh. Akhenaten wields control of a strange, emerging religion unlike anything Egypt has seen. His power can’t be denied, but whoever can maintain her grip on the unpredictable Pharaoh will hold all of Egypt in her hands—and better stil...

Those averse to magic need not apply...The perfect novel for Halloween!1880Witches Adelaide Thom and Eleanor St Clair have opened a tea shop in Manhattan specialising in cures, palmistry and potions.When an enchanting woman called Beatrice joins the witches as an apprentice, she soon proves indispensable, but her new life is marred by strange occurrences.She sees things no one else can see. She hears voices no one ...