top of the world. (autoplay)

Nonfiction

The Reluctant Empress: A Biography of Empress Elisabeth of Austria by Brigitte Hamann (reread)

The Lonely Empress: Elizabeth of Austria by Joan Haslip

The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire (Studies in Middle Eastern History) by Leslie P. Peirce

Twilight of the Habsburgs: The Life and Times of Emperor Francis Joseph by Alan Palmer

The Romanovs: 1613-1918 by Simon Sebag Montefiore

The Romanov Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Daughters of Nicholas and Alexandra by Helen Rappaport

Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow

Osman's Dream: The History of the Ottoman Empire by Caroline Finkel

Harem: The World Behind the Veil by Alev Lytle Croutier

Wu: The Chinese Empress who schemed, seduced and murdered her way to become a living God by Jonathan Clements

Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China by Jung Chang

Wu Zhao: China's Only Female Emperor by N. Harry Rothschild

Fiction

Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente 

The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

The Wrath and the Dawn by Renée Ahdieh 

Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

Dreams of Joy: A Novel by Lisa See

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

Sisi: Empress on Her Own: A Novel by Allison Pataki (if only to shit on it tbh because I hated the first)

His Majesty's Dragon: A Novel of Temeraire by Naomi Novik