LibGuides: Readers' Advisory: Historical Fiction

Historical Fantasy

She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan
She Who Became the Sun follows Zhu Chongba as the reimagined emperor of the Ming dynasty rising to power. As a peasant girl, she is fated to amount to nothing, until her brother dies and she snatches the opportunity to cloak herself in his identity and take his own destiny of greatness.
Ordinary Monsters by J. M. Miro
In Victorian London, two children with mysterious powers are hunted by a figure of darkness —a man made of smoke. Sixteen-year-old Charlie Ovid, despite a lifetime of brutality, doesn't have a scar on him. His body heals itself, whether he wants it to or not.
Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone by Diana Gabaldon
When Jamie and Claire Fraser sent their daughter, Brianna, her husband, Roger, and their two children back through the stones to the future, they'd resigned themselves to never seeing them again. But they unexpectedly returned, leaving Jamie and Claire rejoicing over having their family back together again.
A Restless Truth by Freya Marske
A Restless Truth focuses on Maud Blyth, sister to A Marvellous Light's Robin, as she discovers her own strengths and explores her sexuality in this magical murder mystery. Maud is working as a lady's companion for the older and sometimes aggravating magician Elizabeth Navenby aboard the transatlantic ocean liner Lyric.
The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker
In The Golem and the Jinni, a chance meeting between mythical beings takes readers on a dazzling journey through cultures in turn-of-the-century New York. Chava is a golem, a creature made of clay, brought to life to by a disgraced rabbi who dabbles in dark Kabbalistic magic and dies at sea on the voyage from Poland.
The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden
The Bear and the Nightingale is set in medieval Russia and incorporates elements of Russian folklore. The central character is a young girl, Vasya Petrovna, who is able to communicate with mythological creatures, at a time when Orthodox Christianity is attempting to stamp out all belief in such beings.
The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang
The Poppy War is the story of passionate yet ruthless Fang Runin, also known as Rin, who grows up poor, orphaned by a previous war. But she studies and gets into an elite military academy, and develops a gift for shamanism that lets her call upon the fire powers of a vengeful Phoenix god.
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is the debut novel by British writer Susanna Clarke. Published in 2004, it is an alternative history set in 19th-century England around the time of the Napoleonic Wars. Its premise is that magic once existed in England and has returned with two men: Gilbert Norrell and Jonathan Strange.

Historical Horror

Dread Nation by Justina Ireland
ISBN: 9780062570604
Publication Date: 2018-04-03
The novel blends elements of science fiction, fantasy, and horror to create an altered timeline in which the American Civil War is interrupted by a zombie apocalypse, and a young Black woman must find her way in a world where the living may be more dangerous than the undead.
Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez; Megan McDowell (Translator); Pablo Gerardo Camacho (Illustrator)
A young father and son set out on a road trip, devastated by the death of the wife and mother they both loved. United in grief, the pair travel to her ancestral home, where they must confront the terrifying legacy she has bequeathed: a family called the Order that commits unspeakable acts in search of immortality.
Ring Shout by P. Djeli Clark
The story follows Maryse Boudreaux on her quest to hunt and destroy the demons summoned by the Ku Klux Klan known as "Ku Kluxes". She is joined by fellow hunters Sadie Watkins and Cordelia Lawrence, as a supernatural evil is rising in an alternate history of 1920s Macon, Georgia.
Lone Women by Victor LaValle
Lone Women follows Adelaide Henry, who after the deaths of her parents, leaves her life in California behind to start again in the wide-open spaces of Montana. It's 1915 and Adelaide is essentially fleeing from her previous life, leaving death and destruction behind her. At least that is what she is hoping.
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Mexican Gothic is a 2020 gothic horror novel by Mexican Canadian author Silvia Moreno-Garcia. It centers on a young woman investigating her cousin's claims that her husband is trying to murder her.
The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas
Mexican Gothic meets Rebecca in this debut supernatural suspense novel, set in the aftermath of the Mexican War of Independence, about a remote house, a sinister haunting, and the woman pulled into their clutches… During the overthrow of the Mexican government, Beatriz's father was executed and her home destroyed.
The Deep by Alma Katsu
Brilliantly combining the supernatural with the height of historical disaster, The Deep is an exploration of love and destiny, desire and innocence, and, above all, a quest to understand how our choices can lead us inexorably toward our doom.

Historical Romances

Bridgerton: The Duke & I by Julia Quinn
ISBN: 9780063078901
In the ballrooms and drawing rooms of Regency London, rules abound. From their earliest days, children of aristocrats learn how to address an earl and curtsey before a prince--while other dictates of the ton are unspoken yet universally understood. A proper duke should be imperious and aloof. A young, marriageable lady should be amiable...but not too amiable. Daphne Bridgerton has always failed at the latter. The fourth of eight siblings in her close-knit family, she has formed friendships with the most eligible young men in London. Everyone likes Daphne for her kindness and wit. But no one truly desires her. She is simply too deuced honest for that, too unwilling to play the romantic games that captivate gentlemen. Amiability is not a characteristic shared by Simon Basset, Duke of Hastings. Recently returned to England from abroad, he intends to shun both marriage and society--just as his callous father shunned Simon throughout his painful childhood. Yet an encounter with his best friend's sister offers another option. If Daphne agrees to a fake courtship, Simon can deter the mamas who parade their daughters before him. Daphne, meanwhile, will see her prospects and her reputation soar. The plan works like a charm--at first. But amid the glittering, gossipy, cut-throat world of London's elite, there is only one certainty: love ignores every rule...

Historical Fiction Resources

Historical Novel Society

A literary society devoted to promoting the enjoyment of historical fiction. Find reviews, discussion forums and more!

Mostly Fiction - Facing History

MostlyFiction.com is an online book review site. Share opinions and discover literary gems and top-notch genre novels.

Historical Novels.info

A guide to historical novels and authors of historical fiction; books organized by setting, with information on literary style and genre.

Historical Family Sagas

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
Pachinko follows one Korean family through the generations, beginning in early 1900s Korea with Sunja, the prized daughter of a poor yet proud family, whose unplanned pregnancy threatens to shame them all. Deserted by her lover, Sunja is saved when a young tubercular minister offers to marry and bring her to Japan.
The Mountains Sing by Que Mai Phan Nguyen
In The Mountains Sing, Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai has created a luminous, complex family narrative that spans nearly a century of Vietnamese history, from the French colonial period through the communist Viet Minh's rise to power, the separation between North and South Vietnam, the Vietnam War, all the way to the present day.
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
his is the author's epic tale of seven generations of the Buendía family that also spans a hundred years of turbulent Latin American history, from the postcolonial 1820s to the 1920s. Patriarch José Arcadio Buendía builds the utopian city of Macondo in the middle of a swamp.
Roots by Alex Haley
Roots is a novel by Alex Haley. It was published in 1976. Roots describes the life of a young man named Kunta Kinte who is sold into slavery in the United States, then goes on to tell the story of seven generations' worth of his descendants - the last of whom is supposed to be the novel's author.
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
Cutting For Stone follows twin brothers Marion and Shiva Stone, born of a secret union between an Indian nun and a brash British surgeon. They are orphaned at a young age and must learn to navigate the world together as they grow up in Ethiopia on the brink of a revolution.
Beyond That, the Sea by Laura Spence-Ash
Beyond That, the Sea tells the story of a British girl taken in by a prosperous New England family in the Second World War, and of the legacy of the intimate relationships that ensue—a story as rich and vital as life.
The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
In 1985, Yale Tishman, the development director for an art gallery in Chicago, is about to pull off an amazing coup, bringing in an extraordinary collection of 1920s paintings as a gift to the gallery. Yet as his career begins to flourish, the carnage of the AIDS epidemic grows around him.
The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo
A multigenerational novel in which the four adult daughters of a Chicago couple--still madly in love after forty years--recklessly ignite old rivalries until a long-buried secret threatens to shatter the lives they've built.

New Historical Fiction

Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The #1 bestselling, award-winning author of Life after Life transports us to a restless London in the wake of the Great War--a city bursting with money, glamour, and corruption--in this spellbinding tale of seduction and betrayal.
Afterlives by Abdulrazak Gurnah
From the winner of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature, a sweeping, multi-generational saga of displacement, loss, and love, set against the brutal colonization of east Africa.

Historical Mystery series

The historical mystery or historical whodunit is a subgenre of two literary genres, historical fiction and mystery fiction. These works are set in a time period considered historical from the author's perspective, and the central plot involves the solving of a mystery or crime (usually murder).

A Duty to the Dead by Charles Todd
World War I nurse Bess Crawford promises Lieutenant Arthur Graham that she will carry his dying request to his brother, a request that is treated with skepticism, leading Bess to carry it out herself and put her own life at risk for Arthur's sake.
A Beautiful Blue Death by Charles Finch
When Victorian gentleman Charles Lenox begins to investigate the apparent suicide of a friend's former servant, he suspects murder-but to find the killer, he must untangle a complex web of loyalties and animosities before it's too late.
What Angels Fear by C. S. Harris
The year is 1811. As old King George III sinks deeper into madness, and the threat of social unrest and revolution haunts the privileged classes, a beautiful young woman is found raped and savagely murdered on the altar steps of an ancient parish church. An ornate dueling pistol and the damning testimony of a witness point to one man: Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, a brilliant young nobleman shattered by his experiences in the Napoleonic Wars.
Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear
She started as a maid in an aristocratic London household; studied her way into prestigious Girton College at Cambridge; then became a front-line nurse in World War I. There she found - and lost - an important part of herself. Now she has set up on her own as a private investigator, one who has learned that coincidences are meaningful. And Fate brings her a case that will force her to confront the ghost that has haunted her for over ten years.

Set in the 1930's

Feature Read

Always Remember by Mary Balogh
Left unable to walk by a childhood illness, Lady Jennifer, sister of the Duke of Wilby, has grown up to make a happy place for herself in society. Outgoing and cheerful, she has many friends and enjoys the pleasures of high society--even if she cannot dance at balls or stroll in Hyde Park. She is blessed with a large, loving, and protective family. But she secretly dreams of marriage and children, and of walking--and dancing. When Ben Ellis comes across Lady Jennifer as she struggles to walk with the aid of primitive crutches, he instantly understands her yearning. He is a fixer.

Alternate History

Victory of Eagles by Naomi Novik
Unfortunately, the dragon Temeraire has been removed from military service—and his captain, Will Laurence, has been condemned to death for treason. Separated by their own government and threatened at every turn by Napoleon's forces, Laurence and Temeraire must struggle to find each other amid the turmoil of war.
Everfair by Nisi Shawl
Everfair is a steampunk alternative history of the Belgian Congo in which Fabian socialists and black American missionaries band together to buy land from King Leopold and establish their own colony, meant to be a utopia and haven for their own people as well as the native people of the Congo who flee Belgian

Coming Soon

The House of Eve by Sadeqa Johnson
From the author of Yellow Wife, a gut-wrenching novel set in the 1950s about two Black women working to overcome the stumbling blocks that threatens to upend everything they worked so hard for.
The Mitford Affair by Marie Benedict
As the Nazis rise in power, novelist Nancy Mitford grows suspicious of her sisters' constant visits to Germany and the high-ranking fascist company they keep. When she overhears alarming conversations and uncovers disquieting documents, Nancy must make excruciating choices as Great Britain goes to war with Germany.
In the Upper Country by Kai Thomas
Lensinda Martin, a reporter for the Coloured Canadian newspaper, lives in the Black village of Dunmore, a stop on the Underground Railroad. One day, American bounty hunter Pelham Beall arrives in pursuit of six Kentucky fugitives from slavery who are staying with a farmer named Simeon.

New in Westerns

Brannigan's Land by William W. Johnstone; J. A. Johnstone
The greatest western writers of the 21st century, William W. Johnstone and J. A. Johnstone, kick off a blazing new series featuring Tynan "Ty" Brannigan, a man who traded his tin star for a cattle ranch and a family. But the men he left to rot behind bars have their own hash to settle with him . . .
Bullets and Silver by Nik James
In this gritty and action-packed historical western, temporary lawman Caleb Marlowe must face his worst enemy by fighting his own kin. The nationally famous solar eclipse is almost upon the country and a peak overlooking the fledgling town of Elkhorn is one of the centers of attention. In the midst of boisterous and chaotic frontier pre-celebrations, Caleb Marlowe--reluctantly deputized for the coming event--learns that local power broker Judge Horace Patterson is targeted for assassination by agents of a financial magnate.
Ralph Compton Prairie Fire, Kansas by John Shirley; Ralph Compton
Fresh from a successful trail drive, cattle hand Seth Coe is feeling flush, especially after a lucky streak at the poker table. But his good fortune earns him a dangerous enemy, notorious tinhorn gambler Hannibal Fisher, who is none too happy about being cleaned out

Historical Saga series

Historical fiction presents a story set in the past, often during a significant time period. In historical fiction, the time period is an important part of the setting and often of the story itself.

The Last Kingdom by Bernard Cornwell
This is the exciting—yet little known—story of the making of England in the 9th and 10th centuries, the years in which King Alfred the Great, his son and grandson defeated the Danish Vikings who had invaded and occupied three of England’s four kingdoms.
The Gates of Rome by Conn Iggulden
From the spectacle of gladiatorial combat to the intrigue of the Senate, from the foreign wars that created an empire to the betrayals that almost tore it apart, the Emperor novels tell the remarkable story of the man who would become the greatest Roman of them all: Julius Caesar.
Fall of Giants by Ken Follett
Follows the fates of five interrelated families -- American, German, Russian, English, and Welsh -- as they move through the world-shaking dramas of the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the struggle for women's suffrage.

Popular Historical Periods

Conflicts between Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons or Homo sapiens (our own species) are prominent in many novels set in Europe, while novels set in America feature a wide variety of settings, from the crossing of the Bering Straits during the Ice Age to life in prehistoric Louisiana.

Covering ancient civilizations such as Greek, Roman, Egypt, Britain, Ireland, Biblical times, and more.

Popular Novels: The Iliad, The Odyssey

The Medieval period is subdivided into the Early (c. 476-1000), the High (c. 1001-1300), and the Late (c. 1301–1500) Middle Ages.

Popular Authors: Ken Follett, George R. R. Martin, Alison Weir, J.R.R. Tolkien

In the history of Great Britain, Anglo-Saxon England refers to the historical land roughly corresponding to present-day England, as it existed from the 5th to the 11th century, but not including Devon until the 9th century.

Popular Authors: Bernard Cornwell, Angela Elwell Hunt

The House of Plantagenet was a royal house which originated from France and ruled over England from 1154 to 1485.

The Tudor period is the period between 1485 and 1603 in England and Wales and includes the Elizabethan period which ends with the completion of the reign of Elizabeth I in 1603. Monarchs: Henry VII; Henry VIII; Edward VI; Lady Jane Grey; Mary I; Elizabeth I.

Popular Authors: Philippa Gregory, Alison Weir, Sharon Kay Penman

The Stuart period of British history usually refers to the period between 1603 and 1714 and sometimes from 1371 in Scotland. Includes Jacobean era, Caroline era, English Civil War, The Protectorate or Interregnum, & the Restoration.

Popular Authors: Geraldine Brooks, Anne Stuart, Jean Plaidy

The Victorian era of the United Kingdom was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era was preceded by the Georgian period and succeeded by the Edwardian period.

Popular Novels: Middlemarch, Wuthering Heights, Frankenstein

In America, "Civil War" is often used to refer to the American Civil War. In Britain, it usually refers to the English Civil War (one of many). Other civil wars in modern times include the Irish Civil War, the Spanish Civil War, and the Syrian Civil War.

Popular Novels: Gone with the Wind, Red Badge of Courage

Popular Authors: Michael Shaara, Jeff Shaara, Shelby Foote

The global conflict that took place between July 28, 1914 and November 11, 1918. Also know as the First World War, or the Great War, it was a global war centered in Europe.

Popular Novels: A Farewell to Arms, All Quiet on the Western Front

Popular Authors: Charles Todd

The global conflict that took place between 1939 and 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. World War II is also known as the Second World War.

Popular Novels: The Book Thief, All the Light We Cannot See, Catch-22

Popular Authors: Ken Follett

Readers' Advisory: Historical Fiction