Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Traitor’s Wife | 2014 | Allison Pataki | Buy |
| 2 | Where the Light Falls | 2017 | Allison Pataki | Buy |
| 3 | The Queen’s Fortune | 2020 | Allison Pataki | Buy |
| 4 | The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie Post | 2022 | Allison Pataki | Buy |
| 5 | Finding Margaret Fuller | 2024 | Allison Pataki | Buy |
| 6 | It Girl | 2026 | Allison Pataki | Buy |
Pataki’s standalone novels follow women who shaped history from the margins — wives of traitors, daughters of emperors, journalists who forced social change, heiresses who built cultural institutions. Each book is grounded in historical research but written as narrative fiction, with Pataki using imagined dialogue and interiority to bring the documented record to life.
The Traitor’s Wife (2014) was her debut, focusing on Peggy Shippen, wife of Benedict Arnold and a figure often overlooked in American Revolutionary history. The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie Post (2022) marked a shift toward 20th-century American biography, following the creator of General Foods from her origins in Battle Creek to her Palm Beach estate Mar-a-Lago. Finding Margaret Fuller (2024) turns to the 19th-century abolitionist and journalist who became one of America’s first female foreign correspondents.