Good historical novels

[Torvean32]

I've just been binging on good historical series on Netflix. I love Barbarians and also The Last Kingdom (involves mainly fighting between saxons and vikings). I'm nearly at the end and I'm gutted.

Anyway in the past I've found historical fiction to be poor, far too focused on relationships.

So I wonder is there good historical literature out there ( please no Philippa Gregory)? I love from the Romans onwards. Lose intetest after Battle of Culloden 1725 ish. Love history about those who fought in the resistance in WW2.

Any information on good books/authors is great.

Also any series/films I may have missed out please fill me in.

Thank you

'Birdsong'is amazing.

Have you read any Robert Harris? Pompeii is brilliant.

CJ Samson is really great. The Shardlake series is set in Tudor times, and Winter in Madrid is set in the Spanish Civil War.

Innocent Traitor by Alison Weir is very good and is about Lady Jane Grey.

Charlotte Gray by Sebastian Faulks is amazing and is set in WW2. Also All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. Both of those moved me to tears. They were incredible.

Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. About building a Cathedral in the middle ages. It's amazing, and so much better than that sounds!

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah and Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys - both set in WW2.

I'll second the Shardlake series by CJSanson. Brilliant books.

Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks is good; it is based on the plague village of Eyam

Oh and Wolf Hall of course! It’s brilliant (Thomas Cromwell/Henry VIII etc)

The Winter King series by Bernard Cornwell? Stonehenge was good too. I then do additional reading on the subject.

I liked both Charlotte Grey and Birdsong mentioned above

Dorothy Dunnett, Lymond Chronicles. Sixteenth century. Series needs to be read in order, as there is an ongoing storyline which will be spoiled if read out of order.

I also read Gone with the Wind when I was a teenage, and enjoyed that.

Katherine by Anya Seton: a classic. (Set at the beginning of Richard II's reign).

I presume you've read Rosemary Sutcliff? Eagle of the Ninth was the gateway drug in childhood for many people now interested in Roman history. (It's not accurate re the "eagle" but it's so evocative.)

If you like mystery novels, then there are two fantastic series:
Steven Saylor's Roma Sub Rosa series, with "Gordianus the Finder" as the detective type.
Lindsay Davis with the Falco novels. I think they are a bit slighter than the Gordianus ones, but still v enjoyable.

Colleen McCullough's Masters of Rome series. It traces from the last decades of the roman republic through to its fall and foundation of the empire. Huge books, fantastically evocative of time, place, and personalities.

Restoration by Rose Tremain

Weina Dai Randel's Empress Wu duo of books, about the first (only?) ruling empress of China in the 7th century.

Fascinating and horrifying in equal measure.

Robert Graves I Claudius and Claudius The God. Superb books if you want a really well researched account of the Roman Emperors from Augustus through to Nero.

Love Rosemary Sutcliff being a gateway drug!
I've enjoyed the Lindsay Davis Falco novels, now passing on the baton to the next generation.
Enjoyed Shardlake but also Andrew Taylor's novels set around the time of the Great Fire of London.

We Speak No Treason by Rosemary Hawley Jarman (novel about Richard III told by women in his life).

Sharon Penman is very good.

I came on to say Sharon Penman too

A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel. It's about the French Revolution

Elizabeth Chadwick has written a lot generally set between the Norman conquest and the Plantagenets.
Anya Seton wrote other books as well as Katherine.
Older authors who were good are Jean Plaidy and Norah Lofts. Their books are usually available secondhand on Ebay or Amazon.
Edward Rutherford write long books set in specific places then gives their history. James A Mitchener did similar.

I absolutely loved Sarum, by Edward Rutherford, a history of Salisbury from its very beginnings told through the lives of its people. I'm reading his "London" now and enjoying that too.

Oh yes, I loved New York by Edward Rutherford too.

I was very pleasantly surprised by Remember Me by Lesley Pearse. It’s about the convict transports to Australia in the late eighteenth century and is a more intelligent read than the cover suggests.