I liked The Other Einstein and The Paris Wife for stories about the wives of famous figures

City of Girls

Also anything by Philippa Gregory if you like old history (she wrote The Other Boleyn Girl and many others)

And I second The Historian. It is LONG but good.

Paulette Jiles writes civil war fiction based around Texas.
She hasn't written that many books, maybe 10 total. Her most well known book is "News of the World" which was made into a movie starring Tom Hanks.

Sharon Kay Penman

Blood of flowers

Wrapping up Eleanore of Avignon now, about a midwife and herbalist living through the Black Death of the 1340s. Leisurely paced? but an enjoyable immersion into the Middle Ages with a lot period detail.

If you like women as main characters, I would read "The Plantagenent and Tudor Novels" by Philippa Gregory: https://www.philippagregory.com/novels-reading-order

I plowed through these several years ago!

Reading West with Giraffes right now and its excellent.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/west-with-giraffes-lynda-rutledge/1137065395?ean=9781542023344

The Astronaut Wives Club by Lily Koppel

Anything by Gary Jennings - Aztec, Raptor, the Journeyer - are outstanding.

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

I just read Matrix. I thought it was amazing.

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

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 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.