Books like Following Hadrian by Elizabeth Speller

Sisters Vianne and Isabelle are pulled into the turmoil of World War II, each forging a path of courage and resistance against the Nazi occupation of France.

A young scholar uncovers a labyrinthine family legacy, tracing the truth of Vlad the Impaler and the myth of Dracula across centuries and borders, risking life and sanity to confront an ancient evil.

In January 1946, London novelist Juliet Ashton receives a mysterious letter from a Guernsey native, opening a lively epistolary journey that reveals the island’s quirky community, wartime struggles and a beloved book club born of curfew-breaking escapades.

A historical mystery set in 18th-century London that explores themes of women's empowerment and time travel in a twist of fate, featuring a precocious girl solving centuries-old murders.

Set in a crumbling Georgian manor in rural Warwickshire, *The Little Stranger* follows a doctor arriving at a long‑standing family home where a death‑bed patient and chilling supernatural forces intertwine against the backdrop of post‑war Britain.

In 1888 East London, tea‑factory worker Fiona Finnegan and her lover Joe Bristow dream of owning a shop. After tragedy forces her into New York, Fiona rises from a modest storefront to a top tea‑industry magnate, only to confront her past to secure her future.

In Hadrian and the Triumph of Romethe first major account of the emperor in nearly a centuryEveritt presents a compelling, richly researched biography of the man whom he calls arguably "the most successful of Rome's rulers." Born in A.D. 76, Hadrian lived through and ruled during a tempestuous era, a time when the Colosseum was opened to the public and Pompeii was buried under a mountain of lava and ash. Everitt vividly recounts Hadrian's thrilling life, in which the emperor brings a century of disorder and costly warfare to a peaceful conclusion while demonstrating how a monarchy can be compatible with good governance. Hadrian was brave and astutedespite his sometimes prickly demeanoras well as an accomplished huntsman, poet, and student of philosophy. What distinguished Hadrian's rule, according to Everitt, were two insights that inevitably ensured the empire's long and prosperous future: He ended Rome's territorial expansion, which had become strategically and economically untenable, by fortifying her boundaries (the many famed Walls of Hadrian), and he effectively Hellenized Rome by anointing Athens the empire's cultural center, thereby making Greek learning and art vastly more prominent in Roman life. With unprecedented detail, Everitt illuminates Hadrian's private life, including his marriage to Sabinaa loveless, frequently unhappy bond that bore no heirsand his enduring yet doomed relationship with the true love of his life, Antinous, a beautiful young Bithynian man. Everitt also covers Hadrian's war against the Jews, which planted the seeds of present-day discord in the Middle East. Despite his tremendous legacyincluding a virtual "marble biography" of still-standing structuresHadrian is considered one of Rome's more enigmatic emperors. But making splendid use of recently discovered archaeological materials and his own exhaustive research, Everitt sheds new light on one of the most important figures of the ancient world. - Publisher.

"Hadrian, a Roman emperor, the builder of Hadrian's Wall in the north of England, a restless and ambitious man who was interested in architecture and was passionate about Greece and Greek culture. Is this the common image today of the ruler of one of the greatest powers of the ancient world?" "Published to complement a major exhibition at the British Museum, this wide-ranging book rediscovers Hadrian. The sharp contradictions in his personality are examined, previous concepts are questioned and myths that surround him are exploded."--Jacket.

An engaging biography of Roman Emperor Hadrian (76‑138), chronicling his expansion of the empire to Britain, his military leadership, and the cultural peak he achieved in Rome.