Historical Fiction recommendations?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The First Ladies by Heather Terrell

I can't find this - OP

https://www.target.com/p/first-ladies-target-exclusive-edition-by-marie-benedict-hardcover/-/A-89450830#lnk=sametab

[Anonymous]

It’s old, but The Red Tent is excellent.

[Anonymous]

The Island of the Sea Women

[Anonymous]

It has a male protagonist, but I love Below the Salt by Thomas B. Costain. It’s set roughly around the time of the Magna Carta and has a slight fantasy (reincarnation) element in its framing which interweaves some modern (1950’s) scenes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff.

I love Lauren Groff but found this almost completely unreadable.

I hear you. I was very skeptical, but I guess I happened to be in the right frame of mind for it when I picked it up. It’s slow and dark, but I found it imaginative. Ready for something brisker and lighter now for sure!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff.

I love Lauren Groff but found this almost completely unreadable.

I hear you. I was very skeptical, but I guess I happened to be in the right frame of mind for it when I picked it up. It’s slow and dark, but I found it imaginative. Ready for something brisker and lighter now for sure!

NP. I also loved Vaster Wilds but disliked Matrix so YMMV.

[Anonymous]

Katherine by Anya Seton is a classic.

[Anonymous]

These are military-based (not WWI or II). All excellent:

- The Conqueror series (Conn Iggulden, about Genghis Khan)
- Saxon Tales (Bernard Cornwell)
- Agincourt (Cornwall)
- Gates of Fire (Steven Pressfield, about ancient Sparta)
- Alexander the Great trilogy (Mary Renault)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These are military-based (not WWI or II). All excellent:

- The Conqueror series (Conn Iggulden, about Genghis Khan)
- Saxon Tales (Bernard Cornwell)
- Agincourt (Cornwall)
- Gates of Fire (Steven Pressfield, about ancient Sparta)
- Alexander the Great trilogy (Mary Renault)

Mary Renault is so amazing!

I’d add her Theseus trilogy to the list— which I loved even more than the Alexander trilogy!

[Anonymous]

I, Claudius by Robert Graves.

Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ken Follet’s Kingsbridge series (start with Pillars of the Earth) and Century Trilogy.

Hamnet and the Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell

The Physician by Noah Gordon

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

The Kitchen God’s Wife by Amy Tan

I know you said no WWII (and I agree, the market is oversaturated!) but All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doer is a really beautiful novel.

Love you list we could be book friends
Follet is a favorite/ I’d add pillars of the earth.

[Anonymous]

Check out The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave. Based on a true story about 1600s witch trials in Norway and a modern sculpture by Louise Bourgeois commemorating those who died in the trials.

I’ll add that I enjoyed The Vaster Wilds (and The Matrix is on my list to read). It was a sad but good, fast read.

I liked Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, by the same author as Wicked. It takes place in Holland during tulip madness.

Richard Mason has a book called Who Killed Piet Barol? about South Africa as apartheid is starting. There’s also a prequel about Piet’s beginnings in Holland.

[Anonymous]

Code Name Verity is SO damn good. It’s about women in WWII who were pilots and one gets taken by the Nazis and then tells her story but it’s hard to know what’s true and what she’s saying to throw them off.

Also Pachinko

[Anonymous]

I just read Matrix. I thought it was amazing.

[Anonymous]

I agree Matrix is amazing.

All We Were Promised by Ashton Lattimore.
The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue.
The White Lady by Jacqueline Winspear