Books like The cultured handmaiden by Catherine Cookson

Monsieur Perdu, a literary apothecary aboard a Seine barge, prescribes novels to heal broken hearts. When his own love remains a mystery, he journeys south of France to find closure and prove stories can mend souls.

Tara reluctantly accepts Adam Blackmore’s offer to help ailing secretarial agency, only to find her professional and personal boundaries blurred when they travel to Bahrain.

A New York City police typist in 1923 becomes entangled with a glamorous new recruit, leading her from the precinct’s interrogation rooms into the glittering speakeasy underworld, where obsession threatens her life.

A concise historical exploration of Mary Boleyn, the lesser-known sister of Anne, set within the Tudor court of 1508–1543.

On London’s grueling docks, John O’Brien strives to keep his large family fed while marrying a distant teacher, Mary Llewellyn, in a romance that battles both poverty and societal barriers.

Former Texas Ranger and rancher Dane Lassiter leads the Lassiter Agency, a Houston private detective group, and vows to protect his assistant Tess Meriweather from drug dealers, while their rocky past tests their trust and loyalty.

It is impossible to read The Handmaid of Desire without laughing out loud - the funniest novel about the petty ambitions of academics since Randall Jarrell's Pictures From an Institution. It is wonderfully merciless, taking no prisoners from amongst the self-congratulatory, self-referential, and self-absorbed intellectuals. They are wicked and hilarious, especially Olga Kominska - the vain feminist theorist - who is newly arrived and instantly enlisted by Zachary Kurtz to deconstruct the English Department. (When not secretly reading novels - for pleasure - Kurtz schemes his colleagues' downfall, and his ascendancy.). Olga Kominska: beautiful, brilliant, a chameleon with foreign accents that come and go, seems to have strange, mysterious powers. Olga promises to give the various scholars and writers whom she has come among "whatever they want." "But beware of answered prayers," she warns. No one heeds her: and so she proceeds to fulfill all their desires - up to a point. As politically incorrect as they come, and full of human foibles and fumbling sex, The Handmaid of Desire has something to offend everyone. This is John L'Heureux's funniest book: satire just this side of tragedy.

At a boarding house, young Dale Hathaway finds faith, friendship, and love when a surprise baby brings her unexpected companionship.

A charismatic Texas executive finds himself outplayed when a determined supervisor challenges him. Their competitive games turn into an unexpected romance, forcing the man to reconsider his priorities and the woman’s future in the corporate world.

In Victorian London, a secretarial agency’s top employee is murdered, and her boss suspects foul play. An archaeologist and secretary team up to uncover a killer amid London’s polite society.