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What's your favourite historical novel? Tell us and be in with a chance to WIN a SIGNED COPY of Helen Dunmore's new novel Exposure plus backlist book bundle

138 replies

UrsulaMumsnet · 01/02/2016 15:11

Set against a backdrop of the Cold War, spies and scandal, Helen Dunmore's remarkable new novel, Exposure, out this week, tells the story of a woman's determination to protect her family at all costs. When Lily's husband is accused of passing on highly sensitive information to the Soviets, and arrested, Lily is forced to confront forbidden love, intimate betrayal and the devastating power of exposure.

"Exposure is the sort of winter read you hanker for...the period is so meticulously re-created that you almost hear the hiss of the gas streetlamps." - The Times

"This book is a triumph - a marvellous piece of seamless storytelling." - Penelope Lively

Share your favourite historical novels for a chance to win a signed copy of Exposure, plus a backlist bundle of books including Sunday Times bestseller The Lie and The Betrayal.

Helen Dunmore is the author of fourteen novels. Her first, Zennor in Darkness, explored the events which led to D H Lawrence’s expulsion from Cornwall (on suspicion of spying) during the First World War. It won the McKitterick Prize. Her third novel, A Spell of Winter, won the inaugural Orange Prize, now the Bailey’s Prize for Women’s Fiction. Her bestselling novel The Siege, set during the Siege of Leningrad, was described by Antony Beevor as ‘a world-class novel’ and was shortlisted for the Whitbread Novel of the Year and the Orange Prize.

She is fascinated by the Cold War era, which was also the era of her childhood, and is the setting for Exposure, and by the secrets, betrayals, loves, lies and loyalties which make up the period’s intimate history.

What's your favourite historical novel? Tell us and be in with a chance to WIN a SIGNED COPY of Helen Dunmore's new novel Exposure plus backlist book bundle
What's your favourite historical novel? Tell us and be in with a chance to WIN a SIGNED COPY of Helen Dunmore's new novel Exposure plus backlist book bundle
What's your favourite historical novel? Tell us and be in with a chance to WIN a SIGNED COPY of Helen Dunmore's new novel Exposure plus backlist book bundle
OP posts:
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Quogwinkle · 01/02/2016 15:59

I think it has to be Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. I'm just about to start a reread of it this week. Close favourites also would have to be C J Sansom's Shardlake series and S J Parris's Giordano Bruno series.

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Clawdy · 01/02/2016 17:12

I loved We Speak No Treason by Rosemary Hawley Jarman. It turned me into a life-long Ricardian, and made the discovery of his bones in the car park many years later beyond thrilling!

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MrsRedWhite214 · 01/02/2016 17:22

I adore A Place Called Winter by Patrick Gale. I was completely swept away by it!

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Persistentdonor · 01/02/2016 17:32

"Katherine" by Anya Seton is one of my all time favourites. Sister-in-Law of Geoffrey Chaucer, and third wife of John of Gaunt; mother of the Beauforts. It is fascinating and evocative. One I have re-read many times over the last 45 years.

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lindarumsey · 01/02/2016 17:34

The Cousins' War book by Philippa Gregory - great to read detailed history books from a female perspective!

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LeighAO · 01/02/2016 17:35

Lots of choices but I think Kate Mosse writes brilliantly, sending her readers to a believable, vivid past, so my choices are Labrynth For a taste of Middle Ages Languedoc and The Taxidermists Daughter for a closer to home Sussex in 1912.

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lindarumsey · 01/02/2016 17:36

Should say The Cousins' War books!

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navylass · 01/02/2016 17:38

Definitely Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel for me.

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cavylover · 01/02/2016 17:38

A Grove of Eagles by Winston Graham, author of the Poldark books. Excellently written book I would love to see turned into a film.

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pennwood · 01/02/2016 17:40

The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey is a book I enjoyed

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eddiemairswife · 01/02/2016 17:42

A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel. Following the lives of Danton, Desmoulins and Robespierre from their childhoods through to the French Revolution and its aftermath.....a period of history we don't study in detail in England. I lent it to a French friend, who was captivated by it.

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labradoodlemum · 01/02/2016 17:51

I loved Melting the Snow on Hester Street by Daisy Waugh

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nannyt · 01/02/2016 18:03

Loved Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier.

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Cerealchanger · 01/02/2016 18:04

I second 'Katherine' by Anya Seton, I loved it as a teenager. I also enjoyed 'pillars of the earth' by ken follett.

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lesley37 · 01/02/2016 18:05

My favourite book is Gone with the wind.

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CoteDAzur · 01/02/2016 18:12

This Thing Of Darkness

Runners-up:

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
The Luminaries
Measuring The World

Wolf Hall would not even make it into the first hundred.

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burwellmum · 01/02/2016 18:14

I also remember enjoying The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey when I was a teenager as did my DD when I gave it to her. When I was younger I loved Rosemary Sutcliff's books such as the Eagle of the Ninth trilogy which seem to have completely disappeared.

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SouthWestmom · 01/02/2016 18:14

It's the villa triste by lucretia grindle, mixing second world war with modern day. Absolutely beautiful and engrossing. It's a find I just picked off a bookshelf in the shop and is now in my top three books.

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henbane · 01/02/2016 18:20

As a teenager I loved Margaret Irwin's historical novels about the Tudor and Stuart period. My favourite was "The Stranger Prince: The Story of Rupert of the Rhine". More recently it has to be Wolf Hall which I only read after seeing the tv series - now I'm searching charity shops for Bring Up the Bodies.

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GranAnn42 · 01/02/2016 18:23

Definitely has to be Swallows and Amazons - reminds me of my childhood! Mucky constantly.

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FoxInABox · 01/02/2016 18:23

I adored the help, and Calling Me Home. I almost found myself thinking in a southern American drawl! I also love all of Kate Mortons books- early 1900s novels that set the scene beautifully of period houses and estates. I also loved Lesley Pearces Belle series, again wary 1900s. I loved wolf hall too and also (although I seem in the minority!) really enjoyed the Tv adaptation.

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henbane · 01/02/2016 18:25

And I've just thought of The Miniaturist, which I've just read!

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glasgow1975 · 01/02/2016 18:29

The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber

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Andrews55 · 01/02/2016 18:30

War Horse by Michael Morpurgo was excellent. I also enjoyed The Lie by Helen Dunmore.

(I loved The Miniaturist too, henbane)

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Maddaddam · 01/02/2016 18:34

I have many favourite books written a long time ago, but, assuming "historical novel" has to be one written significantly after the events described (does it?) I might choose War and Peace.
Or perhaps Tale of Two Cities.

I was quite mesmerised by Helen Dunmore's The Siege, which is why I came onto the thread. It was chilling but unforgettable.

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