Summer, 1856. Nineteen-year-old Mary Ann Patten and her husband, Joshua, already had completed their first clipper-ship voyage around the world with Joshua as captain. If they could win the race to San Francisco that year, their dream of building a farm and a family might be within reach. As their ship, Neptune’s Car, left New York Harbor and sailed down the jagged coast of South America, Joshua fell deathly ill and was confined to his bunk. The treacherous first mate, confined to the brig for insubordination, was agitating for mutiny. With no obvious option for a new captain, Mary Ann stepped into the breach and convinced the crew to support her, just as they slammed into a gale that would last 18 days. Determined to save the ship, the crew and their future, she faces down the deadly waters of Drake’s Passage.

In 1944, news of secret diaries kept by Italy's Foreign Minister, Galeazzo Ciano, had permeated public consciousness. What wasn't reported, however, was how three women --- a Fascist's daughter, a German spy and an American banker’s wife --- risked their lives to ensure the diaries would reach the Allies, who would later use them as evidence against the Nazis at Nuremberg. Drawing from in-depth research and first-person interviews with people who witnessed these events, Tilar J. Mazzeo gives readers a riveting look into this little-known moment in history and shows how, without Edda, Hilde and Frances' involvement, certain convictions at Nuremberg would never have been possible.

Fans fell in love with Eliza Hamilton --- Alexander Hamilton’s devoted wife --- in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s phenomenal musical “Hamilton.” But they don’t know her full story. A strong pioneer woman, a loving sister, a caring mother and, in her later years, a generous philanthropist, Eliza had many sides. Tilar J. Mazzeo’s biography follows Eliza through her early years in New York, into the ups and downs of her married life with founding father Alexander Hamilton, beyond the aftermath of his tragic murder, and finally to her involvement in many projects that cemented her legacy as one of the unsung heroes of our nation’s early days.

In 1942, social worker Irena Sendler was granted access to the Warsaw ghetto as a public health specialist. While there, she reached out to the trapped Jewish families, going from door to door and asking the parents to trust her with their young children. She started smuggling them out of the walled district, convincing her friends and neighbors to hide them. Driven to extreme measures and with the help of a network of local tradesmen, ghetto residents, and her star-crossed lover in the Jewish resistance, Irena ultimately smuggled thousands of children past the Nazis. In IRENA’S CHILDREN, Tilar Mazzeo tells the incredible story of this courageous and brave woman who risked her life to save innocent children from the Holocaust.

When France fell to the Germans in June 1940, the legendary Hôtel Ritz on the Place Vendôme --- an icon of Paris frequented by film stars and celebrity writers, American heiresses and risqué flappers, playboys and princes --- was the only luxury hotel of its kind allowed in the occupied city by order of Adolf Hitler. Tilar J. Mazzeo traces the history of this cultural landmark from its opening in Fin-de-Siècle Paris.