heiresses

"In Renthia, everything has a spirit: the willow tree with leaves that kiss the pond, the stream that feeds the river. But the spirits of the land want to rid it of all humans. The queen is the only woman who stands between the spirits and the end of humankind, and no matter how strong or good the queen is, the threat of danger always looms. And so, Daleina is one of the young women chosen and trained as heirs to the throne. She joins forces with Ven, a disgraced champion who has nevertheless spent his exile secretly fighting against the growing number of spirit attacks. The partners embark on a quest to find the source of the spirits' restlessness, which will test their courage and trust, and force them to stand against both enemies and friends to save their land."--adapted from author's website.

"Empress Elizabeth of Austria, known as "Sisi," is the Princess Diana of nineteenth-century Europe. Famously beautiful, as captured in a portrait with diamond stars in her hair, she is unfulfilled in her marriage to the older Emperor Franz Joseph. Sisi has spent years evading the stifling formality of royal life on her private train or yacht or, whenever she can, on the back of a horse. Captain Bay Middleton is dashing, young, and the finest horseman in England. He is also impoverished, with no hope of buying the horse needed to win the Grand National--until he meets Charlotte Baird. A clever, plainspoken heiress whose money gives her a choice among suitors, Charlotte falls in love with Bay, the first man to really notice her, for his vulnerability as well as his glamour. When Sisi joins the legendary hunt organized by Earl Spencer in England, Bay is asked to guide her on the treacherous course. Their shared passion for riding leads to an infatuation that threatens the growing bond between Bay and Charlotte, and all of their futures. This brilliant new novel by Daisy Goodwin is a lush, irresistible story of the public lives and private longings of grand historical figures"--.

When Pulitzer Prize?winning journalist Bill Dedman noticed in 2009 a grand home for sale, unoccupied for nearly sixty years, he stumbled through a surprising portal into American history. Empty Mansions is a rich mystery of wealth and loss, connecting the Gilded Age opulence of the nineteenth century with a twenty-first-century battle over a $300 million inheritance. At its heart is a reclusive heiress named Huguette Clark, a woman so secretive that, at the time of her death at age 104, no new photograph of her had been seen in decades. Though she owned palatial homes in California, New York, and Connecticut, why had she lived for twenty years in a simple hospital room, despite being in excellent health? Why were her valuables being sold off? Was she in control of her fortune, or controlled by those managing her money?.