Girl with a Pearl Earring

The Three Musketeers Alexandre Dumas

D'Artagnan arrives in Paris with nothing but a horse and outsized ambition, and within weeks is fighting duels alongside the most famous swordsmen in France.

The Little Stranger Sarah Waters

A country doctor becomes obsessed with a crumbling post-war English manor house and its declining family -- and something in the house begins responding to his obsession.

The Last Kingdom Bernard Cornwell

A Saxon boy captured by Vikings grows up to fight for both sides, uncertain which he is -- and finds himself at the center of Alfred the Great's struggle to hold England together.

The Water Dancer Ta-Nehisi Coates

A young enslaved man with a photographic memory and a mysterious power he cannot understand becomes part of the Underground Railroad.

Rules of Civility Amor Towles

A secretary from Queens with impeccable taste navigates 1938 Manhattan society, where everyone is rewriting their own origins and some do it better than others.