Historical fiction fans - step this way please......

Has Barbara Wood or Rebecca Gable been mentioned?
Sarah Lark also wrote some lovely books about Australia and new Zealand.

Great thread. I am getting so many recommendations for my summer reading

I like historical crime - Deanna Raybourn's Julia Grey and Veronica Speedwell series are good, I love Sarah Waters and have just picked up Kaite Welsh's The Wages of Sin which I think is the first in a series as well.

Maria McCann and Michelle Lovric are both absolutely wonderful. Really intelligent, quick witted, surprising historical fiction writers. Pretty sexy too.

Any or all of the George MacDonald Fraser "Flashman" novels.

Ooooh, my favourite genre

Rosemary Hawley Jarman (my number one favourite author of all time) - she writes about the Plantagenets, and her writing is so passionate and beguiling.

Elizabeth Chadwick is pretty good - nice, easy reads. Earlier books are a bit bosom-heaving. Later books more detailed.

Norah Lofts - love, love, love her. Books are very atmospheric, real and edgy, and there's not always a happy ending.

Sharon Penman - it was reading The Sunne in Splendour that made me fall in love with Richard III.

Mary Renault - mainly writes about Ancient Greece, but her style of writing is mythically beautiful. I must have read The Persian Boy a dozen times.

Philip Kerr's Berlin Noir crime novels featuring Bernie Gunther are good, especially the earlier ones. I think his publishers want a new one annually now and Bernie's getting on but most recently has been residing in Cap Ferrat and helping out W Somerset Maugham.

The Revenant (forget the film, the book is fantastic)
The North Water (great book, longlisted for last year's Booker Prize)

Niminy you're welcome.

This a great thread

Thank you for that! I read that book years and years ago and have been wondering about it ever since.

Oh, have just thought of a brilliant book that is great historical fiction AND one 'where stuff happens' ... double post coming up. It's The Beacon at Alexandria by Gillian Bradshaw. A young woman passes herself off as a eunuch (bear with me) to train as a doctor in 4th century AD Alexandria, and becomes a doctor in the Roman army. Love it.

There was a BBC dramatisation of the William Golding sea novels in the noughties - IIRC it was Benedict Cumberbatch's big break. It was great but the books are even better.

YY to Mary Renault, esp the Theseus ones. I also like The Praise Singer.

One of my all-time favourite historical novels is Peter Abelard by Helen Waddell. I remember reading the Norah Lofts house series as a teenager and loving them but when I went back the shine had gone off them. And I must re-read Instance of the Fingerpost. I tried another one of his - set in WW2 IIRC but not at all so good.

Elizabeth Chadwick, especially her Eleanor of Aquitaine trilogy
Sharon Kay Penman's Welsh and Angevin trilogies. Sunne in Splendour makes Richard III to be St Dickon of Middleham and I find him very dull.
Cynthia Harrod-Eagles Morland Dynasty books, which have followed the same family from the Wars of the Roses to the 1930s so far. Also her Russian trilogy for anyone interested in Russian history.
Susan Howatch's historical novels all feature a family based on medieval royals, if that makes sense.
Reay Tannahill is great if you like Scottish history.
Dorothy Dunnett is brilliant but requires quite a lot of effort.

Lindsey Davis' Marcus Didius Falco series. I find them entertaining and I think her research is good.

I was going to suggest these but forgot the authors 's surname!. I love the description of England as a muddy place with lousy food! I love how before his marraige his mum would come round with a fish dinner for him and remove rope dancers (pre pole dancers) from his bed!!!

A little late in the day (Amazon have changed the email notification time) but I noticed that The Bookseller's Tale by Ann Swinfen is just 99 pence today.
Set in Oxford just after the Black Death, it's a detective story. The author gets rave reviews, and though I've only read a chapter so far, it seems interesting.

Wow, what a great thread!
I have read many of the recommendations, I especially love Manda Scott and Andrew Taylor. Both excellent people as well as great writers.

I loved Sarah Waters' first few books but can't 'get' the Little Stranger and Stronger than Water.

I adore Georgette Heyer, and I don't care if they aren't accurate about life in Regency London and Bath then they should be!

Phil Rickman's books about John Dee are really good; he's a fab writer and a very nice man. (He emailed me personally when I was moaning about some of his books not being available in the early days of Kindle. I was thrilled, I expected some anonymous response)

Stevie Davies' The Awakening and Impassioned Clay are beautifully written, her work is haunting.

I also enjoy historical mysteries, Ellis Peters, Susanna Gregory, Sansom and Parris. Marcus Didius Falco, Lyndsey Davies's Roman hero, has taught me so much about life in the Empire.

Thanks for all the other recommendations on this thread.

So many fantastic recommendations! My to read list is growing massively!

I've found my people and can second the Elizabeth Chadwick recommendations especially the Eleanor of Aquitaine trilogy. Fascinating woman!

Love Conn Iggulden Emporer series (Ancient Rome) and Conqueror series (Genghis Khan)! Pretty intense undertaking as Conqueror is 7 books and Emporer 5 but really incredible stories. At the other end of the scale Deborah Challinor does easy reading trilogies with nuggets of hard history packed in based on New Zealand / Aussie emigration :)

It was very sad when Diana Norman died as I really would love to know what she had planned next for her characters. I read somewhere that one of her daughters is writing now. It was the same when Ruth Rendell died

Sharon Penman (been reading her for decades); ditto Dorothy Dunnet (since I was 18, am now 51); Ellis Peters;Bernard Cornwell; Elizabeth Chadwick, especially the William Marshal books,;Hilary Mantel; the Shardlake series, and for good books on Waterloo and Henry IV and V, Georgette Heyer. An Infamous Army used to be required reading at Sandhurst, and My Lord John is excellent on Richard II/ Henry IV and Henry V, and John, Duke of Bedford.

Diana Norman as Diana Norman, I loved The Vizard Mask and have read most of her others as well.

Can also second Arianna Franklin historical crime, and Elizabeth Chadwick - prefer her to P Gregory
Don't see a mention of Jules Watson - The White Mare Trilogy - I enjoyed those ( though the last one lost it a bit...)
I really enjoyed the Robert Harris series on Cicero too , ( starts with Imperium) and the stand alone Pompeii.

Ariana Franklin ( Diana Norman, the late wife of Barry Norman the film critic)
Love her The Mistress Of The Art Of Death series, is the first of her medieval novels about a female anatomist named Adelia Aguilar.

Reay Tannahill, The Seventh Son is her novel about Richard III. She writes non fiction and fiction.

Boris Akunin. Pelagic And The White Bulldog, is the first of his novels about Sister Pelagia, a Russian nun and detective