Can anyone recommend any must read historical novels - for kindle if poss?

[MrsMeow]

I love books set in 1800's/Victorian times (Sarah Waters etc.) but am spoiled for choice on Amazon so am looking for recommendations please :)

Lady Emily Mysteries by Tasha Alexander
Lady Emily Ashton moves in the most exclusive circles of Victorian London. But behind the veneer of sumptuous drawing rooms and ballrooms, even the aristocracy is not immune to burglary, betrayals and brutal murders. Follow Lady Emily through country estates and Mayfair mansions, on Continental excursions and journeys to exotic locales, as she uncovers cluesand romancein this historical mystery series

Inspector McLevy series by David Ashton
About a Victorian Police Inspector set in Edinburgh - based on a real man

The Thief-Taker: Memoirs Of A Bow Street Runner by T.F. Banks

Railway Detective series by Edward Marston

Brilliant, thanks very much :) have you read these yourself?

This Thing Of Darkness by Harry Thompson, about Charles Darwin's 5-year voyage aboard the survey brig The Beagle before he published Origin Of Species.

The Thousand Autumns Of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell.

Both are fantastic.

Seconding the David Mitchell, though admittedly the fine historical novel part set in Japan has an immensely silly Evil Monks genre bit buttoned on. Also, I may be misremembering, but I think that's set in the eighteenth century?

Do you definitely want contemporary novels set in Victorian times, rather than actual Victorian novels?

Michel Faber's The Crimson Petal and the White? Sarah Moss's Bodies of Light and its sequel Signs for Lost Children (both about an female medical student in the 1870s and Victorian asylums.) Anne Enright's The Pleasure of Eliza Lynch, which is about an Irishwoman who travels to Paraguay in the 1850s as the mistress of a general?

Jacob de Zoet is set at the beginning of 1800s.

I wasn't a big fan of the monastery bits, either, but overall the book is just sublime. I think Mitchell was just setting the scene for The Bone Clocks with that sub-plot.

Yes I quite like the Victorian mystery fiction, those were all taken from my read list. The McLevy ones are a BBC Radio 4 series as well with Brian Cox and Siobhan Redmond

You could also check out Drood by Dan Simmons. It is a mystery narrated by Wilkie Collins and is about the last year in the life of Charles Dickens.

Thanks loads, there's a lot to pick from there! Siege, I don't mind contemporary or just novels, I'm just fascinated by the Victorian era :)