Historical Women

New York City, 1899. When it comes to show business, Gilded Age opera singer Ella Shane wears the pants. The unconventional diva breaks the mold by assuming "trouser roles"-male characters played by women - and captivating audiences far and wide with her travelling theater company. But Ella's flair for the dramatic takes a terrifying turn when an overacting Juliet to her Romeo drinks real poison during the final act of Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi.

Heartbroken and hoping for a new start, Abi Howes takes a summer job in rural France at the Château Bellevue. The old château echoes with voices from the past, and soon Abi finds herself drawn to one remarkable woman’s story, a story that could change the course of her summer - and her life. In 1938, Eliane Martin tends beehives in the garden of the beautiful Château Bellevue. In its shadow she meets Mathieu Dubosq and falls in love for the first time, daring to hope that a happy future awaits.

When a notorious cad is bludgeoned to death with a candlestick in the library at the most important ball of the London social season, Cleo finds herself in the prime position to solve the crime. After all, she stumbled across the body soon after the victim’s demise and is a witness to the evening’s events.

Elsie and her two best friends made a childhood vow to never marry. But when Elsie begins her first season in London, her mother presents her with an irresistible bargain: If she says yes to each and every man's invitations and still remains unattached by the end of the season, she will receive her inheritance and become a free woman. She's thrown into the spotlight by increasing attention in the newspaper gossip articles. Keeping her end of the bargain seems impossible - especially when her best friend's tyrant of a brother begins to make advances that Elsie literally cannot refuse.

Blessed with great beauty and wealth, Emily Armstrong had the highest privileges that youth can bestow. But all that is behind her now. Pregnant and abandoned by the man she loved, she struggles to survive in the slums of Philadelphia after the Civil War. Vowing never to be fooled by love again, she builds a new life as the mistress of a boardinghouse, known for her morals, virtue, and strictly guarded heart. But when a traveler from out West visits for the Centennial Exhibition and checks into Emily's lodging, something stirs within her.

Auschwitz, established in 1940, stands as a profound symbol of the Holocaust, representing not only the systematic extermination of millions but also the resilience of the human spirit. Initially conceived as a concentration camp for Polish political prisoners, it expanded rapidly to become a major center for the Nazi regime's genocidal policies. By the time it was liberated in January 1945, over 1.1 million people, primarily Jews, had perished within its walls.

August 1911. Emily Hardcastle and her inimitable lady’s maid Florence Armstrong are enjoying a fine summer until Harry, Lady H’s brother, turns up out of the blue with a mystery for them to solve. A routine parachute test at a local aeroplane factory has gone horribly wrong - with pilot Dickie Dupree plummeting to his death. Harry is certain there is more to this ‘tragic accident’ than meets the eye, having discovered that someone at the airfield is leaking top secret intelligence to foreign rivals.

1620s Lancashire. Away from the village lies a small hamlet, abandoned since the Plague, where only one family dwells amongst its ruins. Young Sarah Haworth, her mother, brother and little sister, Annie, are a family of outcasts by day and the recipients of visitors by night. They are cunning folk: the villagers will always need them, quick with a healing balm or more, should the need arise. They can keep secrets, too, because no one would believe them anyway.

Sussex, 1957: When Flora Steele and handsome crime writer Jack Carrington attend the grand re-opening of the Priory Hotel in the beautiful little village of Abbeymead, their day out is cut short when the flame-haired female singer in the band suddenly drops dead before their eyes. Flora is stunned by the unexpected turn of events and immediately deduces foul play. Beverly Russo was a spirited young woman with a big voice, and Flora is determined to get to the bottom of her untimely demise—especially as the detective sergeant leading the investigation is so hopeless.

Morocco, 1941. With France having fallen to Nazi occupation, twelve-year-old Josie has fled with her family to Casablanca, where they await safe passage to America. Life here is as intense as the sun, every sight, smell and sound overwhelming to the senses in a city filled with extraordinary characters. It’s a world away from the trouble back home—and Josie loves it. Seventy years later, another new arrival in the intoxicating port city, Zoe, is struggling—with her marriage, her baby daughter and her new life as an expat in an unfamiliar place.

Flavia Albia is a private investigator, always drawn to an intriguing puzzle - even if it is put to her by her new husband's hostile ex-wife. On the Quirinal Hill, Clodia Volumnia, a very young girl with stars in her eyes, has died, amid suggestions that she was poisoned by a love potion. It will have been supplied by a local witch, who goes by the name of Pandora, though Albia learns that Pandora carries on a trade in herbal beauty products while hiding much more dangerous connections.

Even before they were transformed into Gorgons, Medusa and her sisters Stheno and Euryale were unique among immortals. Curious about mortals and their lives, Medusa and her sisters entered the human world in search of a place to belong, yet quickly found themselves at the perilous center of a dangerous Olympian rivalry and learned – too late – that a god's love is a violent one. Forgotten by history and diminished by poets, the other two Gorgons have never been more than horrifying hags, damned and doomed.

When Elsie and Bert Jones move with their children, Ann and Arthur, to Candle Lane, a modest street in Battersea, they miss their comfortable house in Wimbledon. But the move is the right thing to do, as it will enable Bert to finance his new removal business. They are a warmhearted family, and Elsie soon makes friends with her less fortunate neighbour, Ruth, and her daughter, Sally. But before long Elsie realises that all is not well in the house next door....

The life of a Bomb Girl isn't usually glamourous. But Maggie is getting married, so she is going to make sure her wedding day is - even if she does have to spend every other day slaving on the factory floor. This blasted factory was not what Julia had in mind either. She had always dreamed of attending Oxford University rather than getting her hands dirty, and the easy laughter of the other women intimidates her terribly. But they are all here together in this munitions factory in a Lancashire mill town, sharing firsts, pitching in and getting on. These Bomb Girls are going to do their best at work and in love.

She was admired by women and desired by men, until jealousy and past secrets took center stage. Help Cleo and her friends solve the murder of one of London’s leading actresses. When a hotel guest’s mistress is found dead in the stalls of the Piccadilly Playhouse, a verdict of suicide is given. Convinced his lover didn’t kill herself, Lord Rumford wants the truth uncovered. Against his better judgement, he hires Cleo Fox to find the murderer. Cleo needs to solve this case if she wants to make a living from being a private detective.

1850s Shropshire. Returning to her mother's birthplace at the age of 18, Beatrice Ashford encounters a complex family she barely knows. Her great-grandmother Queenie adores her, but the privileged social position of Beatrice's family as masters of the local brickworks begins to make her uncomfortable. And then she meets Owen Malone: handsome, different, refreshing - and from a class beneath her own.

A naive young woman at the mercy of her ambitious family. At just 19, Katheryn Howard is quick to trust and fall in love. She comes to court. She sings, she dances. She captures the heart of the king. Henry declares she is his rose without a thorn. But Katheryn has a past of which he knows nothing. It comes back increasingly to haunt her. For those who share her secrets are waiting in the shadows, whispering words of love...and blackmail.

England 1928. Mystery writer Marius Quin receives alarming news from his sleuthing partner Lady Bella Montague that their childhood friends are in danger. Back in their charming village of Hurtwood, the three Heaton cousins have all been sent identical death threats. When the local constable refuses to help, it’s up to Marius and Bella to stop the would-be killer. But they arrive too late, and Marius finds his former best friend dead in his kitchen with a knife through the heart.

Her beauty almost certainly saved her from the rising Nazi party and led to marriage with an Austrian arms dealer. Underestimated in everything else, she overheard the Third Reich's plans while at her husband's side, understanding more than anyone would guess. She devised a plan to flee in disguise from their castle, and the whirlwind escape landed her in Hollywood. She became Hedy Lamarr, screen star.

In July 1882, Ellen O'Hara stepped off a ship from the West of Ireland to begin a new life in New York. What she encountered was a world of casual racial prejudice that characterized her as ignorant, dirty, and feckless, the butt of many jokes. From the slim range of jobs available to her she, like, many of her kind, found a position as a domestic servant, working long hours and living in to save on rent and keep. After an unfortunate marriage, Ellen determined to win financial security on her own, and eventually opened a boarding house where her two children were able to rejoin her.