Russian Concubine and the Secret of a Concubine are 2 beautiful novels that start in St Petersburg right after the First Russian Revolution and the aristocracy is killed to give the room to communism and shared state property.

The beautiful pianist Valentina Ivanova somehow managed to escape and buy a five-year-old daughter, Lidija, with her jewels, and her husband was allegedly killed. The

fugitives found themselves in the International Colony in China, where they hardly survived. Lidia grew into a red-haired, young woman, who could not curl her depressed mother. One day, she walked into Chinese hands on a pocket walk, which she would surely have killed if she was not saved by the wild Chang Anla, a young Chinese Communist commander.

A hot love has entered, which has outgrown intercultural and political differences and has changed their pathways for ever. In this romantic story, the English writer also listed some of her mother’s experiences, which she showed to her daughters at an early age that life is fragile and swift and that the only real values ​​are those we carry in our heads and grow in our heart .

This story is from biblical times and as such follows The Bible and the  Genesis 34,  but it is different in many important ways.

It is explaining how women in time of their periods needed to stay in red tent, telling each other’s story to amuse themselves.

It is the story of women in the men times. No woman has a leadership role in the Bible. No woman in the Old Testament has a role but to give birth to progeny. Even when there is a woman appearing in the Old Testament she is usually only mentioned in the listing.

So this is a story about Dinah – the daughter of Jacob, only sister of Joseph. She is raped by a prince whose father then offers to pay a dowry so that his son might wed her. Jacob agrees on the condition that all the men of the town are circumcised according to their family’s tradition. The king agrees. While all the men are still in pain from their circumcision, Jacob’s sons raid the town and slaughter them all.

Dinah then drops out of the Bible and is never heard from again.

The Red Tent tells this story from Dinah’s point of view, and it is the story as we have never heard it before. She begins with the story of her mothers, Jacob’s wives: Leah, Rachel, Zilpah, and Bilhah. She then tells her story…

The story of Princess Sultan is true. The words are the authors’, but the story is princesses’. The shocking human tragedies described in this book are factual.

In a country still ruled by kings, she is a princess. The men of her country hold firmly patriarchal laws. The Saudi Arabian male’s honor rests on the honor of women, and therefore the man must impose his authority on and control of a woman’s sexuality or whether she is faced with public disgrace.

Sultana tells of her life in The Al S’ud Family: appalling oppressions, everyday occurrences that in any other culture would be seen as shocking human rights violations.

This is an epic story about Genghis Khan – a founder of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history after his death. He came to power by uniting many of the nomadic tribes of Northeast Asia in 12th and 12th century.

Invading Europe many times, it is said that 1/5 of the descendants in Europe and directly from his raping moments.

The story starts with the birth of a child (later the Genghis Khan) with the blood clot in his hand. Apparently, the legend says it was a sign of a great warrior. The sotry follows epic moments of nomadic tribe family: a father and his sons in eagle huntings and domestication etc…  upon battles of the Genghis amongs tribes for the great unification.

Cleopatra’s Alexandria (nowaday’s Egypt) is tragically fallen after Caesar‘s assassination in 1 century BCE, and her allieanation with Mark Antony (the following Roman Emperor).

Cleopatra kills herself with letting the royal cobra snake bites her.

Her twins children survived and they are ment to rule Alexandria together as half-gods The Sun and The Moon.

Selena (daughter of Mark Antony) was taken from Egypt and together with her twoin brother Ptolomey and half-brother Cesarion (the son of Cesar Augustus) were exhibited in Rome as a war trophy. The Romans kept them chained by chains through the city.

However, at the moment their life is about to end, they are saved by the emperor’s nurse who takes them to a home for the royal orphan. Egypt is deeply enrolled in Selena’s heart and she is ready to re-build the empire again in the name of her mother Cleopatra.

The author is Simon Sebag Montefiore – one of my favourite writers.

The story follows the prohibited love affair of two which came to light in 1945. While Russia celebrates victory over the Nazis, shootings are scattered in the midst of the great Moscow celebration: on the earth are the lifeless body of two students, young men and girls in costumes from the 19th century.

It is about the boys of Soviet leaders who attend the most prominent school in the country. Was it a murder? Or a suicide? Or love triangle? And maybe even a riot against Stalin – or one of the leader’s ruthless intrigues?

The entire story is a complete missunderstanding where young students are encouraged by romantict poets like Puškin, acting the drama play while the dangerous times of communism are more and more surrounding them.

Missunderstanding becomes even deeper when Stalin orders to investigate the murder as  a potential conspiracy theory against him.

Philippa Gregory is one of the best historical novel writers nowadays. Her most famous iteration of books is The Cousin’s Wars describing through her novels the War of Roses for control of the throne of England fought between supporters of two rival branches of the royal House of Plantagenet: the House of Lancaster (associated with a red rose), and the House of York (whose symbol was a white rose). The conflict lasted through many sporadic episodes of 15 and 16 century.

At the court of Edward IV and his beautiful Queen Elizabeth Woodville, Ann from a bright child grows into a frightened and desperate girl whose father set off to war against her former friends.

She is married at the age of fourteen, since her father dies, her mother ends up in a monastery, and her sister marries an enemy, she is soon widowed and orphaned. Ann is able to rescue her to marry Richard, the Duke of Gloucester, but her choice will come into conflict with an overwhelming royal family and cost the lives of those she loves most in the world, above all her precious son, Prince Edward’s.

Finally, her father Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick the so-called Kingmaker becomes fulfilled as his daughter Ann will succeed in achieving the greatest ambition of him…

The book comes in two sequels, written by two authors Rita Monaldi and Francesco Sorti. 

The place of happening is Rome, in September 1683. While the Turkish army spends on the borders of the West and opens Vienna, the sudden death of a passenger at the inn in the center of the Holy City invites the panic: is it a poison or plague?

From the fear of infection, the quarantine was inaugurated in the inn and the guests were imprisoned in their rooms; Among them is Abbot Ato Melani, a ghost and secret agent in the service of Louis XIV, determined to discover what lies behind this unusual death.

His investigation will, however, reveal a terrible secret, an international conspiracy in which religion, politics and espionage are intertwined.

In an atmosphere of baroque Rome full of uncertainty, among secret underground corridors and alchemical laboratories, hunter-dogs on relics and illegal printing, strange medical and culinary recipes, an unimaginable aspect of Europe’s history – emerges a great plot managed to reconstruct historical times of Middle Ages.