Books like Sanctuary by Edith Wharton

In post‑war New York, Newland Archer faces a dilemma when his fiancée’s cousin, the rebellious Ellen Olenska, challenges his elite society’s expectations and his own loyalty.

In wintry Starkfield, Massachusetts, disabled farmer Ethan Frome is trapped in a loveless marriage to Zeena while his unrequited love for Zeena’s cousin Mattie drives a desperate, tragic triangle that culminates in a failed attempt to escape together.

In Edith Wharton’s classic, Lily Bart, a beautiful and intelligent young woman devoted to luxury, struggles to navigate New York’s strict social hierarchy and moral expectations, ultimately confronting the limits of her independence.

An epic tale of memory, intrigue, and betrayal set against a panoramic backdrop of twentieth-century history.

Summer is a 1917 American novel by Edith Wharton that explores a young woman's sexual awakening amid New England society.

Young Caroline Meeber's journey from girlhood to womanhood in 19th-century Chicago and New York, exploring themes of independence, relationships, and the struggles of rising above expectations in a harsh environment and the promise of the American Dream through the eyes of a runaway teenager, with a twist of psychological thriller elements.

A Christmas story about the Earl of Devonmont and a widowed vicar's wife, Camilla Stuart, who are drawn into a love triangle at Montcliff Hall.

Framboise Simon returns to a Loire‑bank village where her past as the daughter of a wartime figure remains concealed. A scrapbook of recipes and memories she inherited from her mother holds the key to a tragedy that scarred her childhood.

Patty Dickerson faces the unimaginable: her husband is sent to prison, and she must raise an infant son alone while confronting a judgmental community and a system that offers no support.

Henry James’s novel *The American* reprinted with a textual history, background notes, source materials, and critical essays.

Edith Wharton's satiric anatomy of American society in the first decade of the twentieth century appeared in 1913; it both appalled and fascinated its first reviewers, and established her as a major novelist. It follows the career of Undine Spragg, recently arrived in New York from the Midwest and determined to conquer high society. Glamorous, selfish, mercenary, and manipulative, her principal assets are her striking beauty, her tenacity, and her father's money. With her sights set on an advantageous marriage, Undine pursues her schemes in a world of shifting values, where triumph is swiftly followed by disillusion. Wharton was re-creating an environment she knew intimately, and Undine's education for social success is chronicled in meticulous detail. The novel superbly captures the world of post-Civil War Ameria, as ruthless in its social ambitions as in its business and politics. - Back cover.

When widowed Helen Ames discovers her late husband’s hidden affairs and vanished savings, she turns to an odd job that reshapes her life and forces her and her daughter Tessa to reevaluate family, grief, and independence.

A tale of ancient elven nations and their quest for a sanctuary in the treacherous desert world of Krynn.

A young woman's quest for love and reconciliation after her husband's death in a French plantation setting in the 1870s.

In Colm Tóibín’s quiet, lyrical novel, Nora Webster, a widowed mother of four, wrestles with loss, poverty and the weight of secrets in a small, interconnected community.

A curated selection of Edith Wharton’s short stories, portraying the manners, social customs, and everyday life of New York’s upper class through vivid, character-driven vignettes.

The Reef follows American diplomat George Darrow as he navigates an illicit affair with widow Anna Leath while in France, exposing the moral contradictions of early 20th‑century society.

In a Mediterranean cruise, bachelor Martin Boyne encounters the Wheater stepchildren, who, under their sister Judith’s leadership, expose the absurdities of American family life abroad.

From Hermione Lee, the internationally acclaimed, award-winning biographer of Virginia Woolf and Willa Cather, comes a superb reexamination of one of the most famous American women of letters.Delving into heretofore untapped sources, Lee does away with the image of the snobbish bluestocking and gives us a new Edith Wharton-tough, startlingly modern, as brilliant and complex as her fiction. Born into a wealthy family, Wharton left America as an adult and eventually chose to create a life in France. Her renowned novels and stories have become classics of American literature, but as Lee shows, Wharton's own life, filled with success and scandal, was as intriguing as those of her heroines. Bridging two centuries and two very different sensibilities, Wharton here comes to life in the skillful hands of one of the great literary biographers of our time.From the Trade Paperback edition.

In Philadelphia’s crime‑ridden streets, a mother’s desperate search for her runaway son intersects with a world of drug dealers, run‑away teenagers and relentless violence.

At 53, a woman in a midlife crisis reflects on her youthful marriage to a widower with three daughters, a large house and a business, exploring identity and self‑actualization.

Hope Tanner seeks a safe haven for herself and her pregnant sister, returning to her hometown of Enchantment, New Mexico, where mysteries about her past and a possible romance with the clinic’s administrator unfold.

Two families waiting for their Korean‑adopted babies meet at the airport, and their lives become intertwined at an annual welcome party. As the families navigate friendship, grief and cultural tension, a widowed Donaldson courts Maryam, an Iranian‑American whose values are challenged.