Great historical fiction books?

[Anonymous]

Madison Smartt Bell's Haiti Trilogy

Lonesome Dove

Second (or) third the recommendations for the Wolf Hall trilogy.

And I really liked Philip Meyer's Texas novel The Son. It's been a decade since I read it and I remember many scenes and lines.

[Anonymous]

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein is amazing. Set in WWII, super well written and researched.

[Anonymous]

Some of these have been named already, but for “readable” historical fiction (more mass-market than highbrow), I’ve enjoyed: Kate Quinn, Paula McLain, Susan Meissner, Martha Hall Kelly (Lilac Girls is rough but a good book, Lost Roses not as great but an easier topic), Fiona Davis (NYC stories), Beatrice Williams (slightly more chick-lit-y), plus Ken Follett’s historical novels and Joseph Kanon’s slightly depressed spy novels.

Two that were “good, not perfect” but memorable because they are WWII novels from the German side: The Woman in the Castle (Jessica Shattuck) and The German Midwife (Mandy Robotham).

[Anonymous]

I’m the last PP, adding a few more because I’m ashamed to realize that I always tend to think of WWI and WWII books but there are other countries in the world:

Homegoing, by Yaa Gyasi

The House of the Spirits, Isabel Allende

The Perveen Mistry series by Sujata Massey, which starts with The Widows of Malabar Hill

[Anonymous]

Also love Dorothy Dunnett. Lymond is my favorite character ever. The Chronicles of Arundel by Kenneth Roberts is also terrific. takes place in maine around the revolutionary war.

[Anonymous]

The "Flashman" series by George MacDonald Fraser and anything by Sharon Kay Penman.

[Anonymous]

Barkskins by Annie Proulx is incredible

The Tree of Life trilogy by Chava Rosenfarb. Chronicles 12 characters as they move into the Łódź ghetto in Poland. It’s fiction but barely; the author herself lived through the ghetto and concentration camps. This one is life changing for real: https://www.thriftbooks.com/series/the-tree-of-life-a-trilogy-of-life-in-the-lodz-ghetto/64961/

[Anonymous]

This Tender Land

[Anonymous]

Cryptonomicon Neal Stephenson

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This Tender Land

Ooh, agreed. That was a good one.

[Anonymous]

The Pale Blue Eye by Louis Bayard.

Soon to be a movie on Netflix.

[Anonymous]

Sharon Kay Penman. All of them.

[Anonymous]

Half of a Yellow Sun was good...it's a war story and long, so a little challenging of a read in that sense, but interesting and illuminating in terms of topic/locale.

[Anonymous]

Anything by Leon Uris:

Battle Cry
The Angry Hills
Exodus
Mila 18
Armageddon
Topaz
Trinity
QB VII
The Haj
Mitla Pass
A God in Ruins
O’Hara’s Choice

[Anonymous]

A Very Long Engagement

Birdsong