Your favourite historical fiction?

[pallisers]

few of us are starting a bookgroup focusing on historical fiction with possible inclusion of non-fiction (for example I think A Distant Mirror would be a good one). I would love if people gave me their favourite historical fiction ideas. Thanks!

Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. Although it's probably too long for a book club read. So good though!

Any particular era? I loved Winter in Madrid by CJ Sansom, set in the Spanish Civil War. Is that too modern?

Shardlake series, C J Sansom. You can thank me later.

The Lymond Chronicles, Dorothy Dunnett

I recently read Katherine by Anya Seton - loved it and found it surprisingly educational as well.

The Ghost Road by Pat Barker

Shardlake are good as pp said.

Sarum is also an oldie but a goodie. Very different style to each other though!

The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber. Just amazing.

I have just finished Half of a Yellow Sun which is 1967-70. Phenomenal book and I wish that I had known more of the history prior to reading. If that's not historical enough then any of the CJ Samson books mentioned already.

The Paris Wife by Paula McLain - it's a fictionalised account of Ernest Hemingway's first marriage to Hadley.
I also enjoyed Fever by Mary Beth Keane.

Most of Bernard Cornwell’s many books, especially the Sharpe series (Peninsula Wars up to Waterloo) and the Last Kingdom, but mainly the earlier ones, they are going on a bit too long IMO.
I’m very fond of Mary Stewart’s Merlin series, set in the dark ages. 4 books if you include the last one whic is about Mordred rather than Merlin. (The Crystal Cave, The Hollow Hills, The Last Enchantment and The Wicked Day.)

Thank you all so much. These are great.

No particular era but my friend who is setting it up is trying to write a novel set in Elizabethan times so she has been immersing herself in that period.

I've been thinking of

The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey (not strictly historical but within the spirit of the group)
In a Dark Wood Wandering by Helle Haasse (highly recommend this to anyone)
The House on the Strand by Daphne du Maurier

I'd love to recommend some Norah Lofts but I think she is really hard to get now.

Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey Maturin series.

Mary Renault's novels of Ancient Greece.

@WonkyCactus

The Paris Wife by Paula McLain - it's a fictionalised account of Ernest Hemingway's first marriage to Hadley. I also enjoyed Fever by Mary Beth Keane.

I loved Fever too. I felt very immersed in turn of the century New York.

The Son by Philipp Myer. Starts in Texas in 1849 and goes up to the present day. Violent (in parts) and sad, though. One of few recent books to make an impact on me.

Norah Lofts (a favourite of mine) many available on Kindle, and excellent Audible productions.

Elizabethan: Firedrake's Eye, Unicorn's Blood, Gloriana's Torch by Patricia Finney
and under her P. F. Chisholm name the Robert Carey series (a long story cycle) and the James Enys books (only two so far, hoping for more.)

Judith Merkle Riley - they do tend to have a fantasy element though. Good audible productions of the Margaret of Ashbury trilogy and The Serpent Garden.

Yes, Shardlake!

'An Instance of the Fingerpost'. Iain Pears. Highly recommend.

I love London by Edward Rutherford, really clever. Same author as Sarum, think there is a New York too? Goes from ancient to modern through an ancestral thread.

I second an Instance of the Fingerpost and Mary Renault. I absolutely love Dorothy Dunnett and am in a DD reading group but it’s not for everyone- very complex books. I disagree about Ken Follett - I hated Pilars of the Earth. I’m going through a Georgette Heyer phase at the moment - I think it’s lockdown! Very easy reading but could still be fun for a book group.

The Morland series by Cynthia Harrod Eagles. Follow a family from medieval times through to more modern eras. Incorporates many known historical characters along the way.

Jean Plaidy wrote loads of historical novels mainly based on the royals . I have most of them in the attic. I think I started with ones about Eleanor of Aquitaine and Henry II. They go through pretty much all the royals upto Victoria. Historical fact with a bit of padding. I loved them.

@mrsnibblesisahero

I love London by Edward Rutherford, really clever. Same author as Sarum, think there is a New York too? Goes from ancient to modern through an ancestral thread.

New York is the only one of those I've read but it was fantastic. Must check out the others.

An old one that I absolutely love is Edith Pargeter - it's the real name of Ellis Peters and she wrote a great series of novels set in the Middle Ages, mostly around the building of cathedrals etc. She wrote a lovely series starting with The Heaven Tree. I read them as a teen and they were moving and quite easy reads, like the Cadfael books but not as formulaic. Learning all the monastic language through those meant that The Name of the Rose was a relatively easy read afterwards! I also loved her novel about Henry IV's reign, A Bloody Field by Shrewsbury. Covers the same ground as Shakespeare's Henry IV part 2 (which again made that an easy read later). I love doing that - back-to-backing the more challenging reads with a straightforward retelling to get the ideas clear and the emotions and frame of reference in place first. Anyone who's read The Other Boleyn Girl then Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies will know what I mean.

Another lovely one is The Sunny in Splendour by Sharon Penman - about Richard III before he was king.

The Map of Love by Ahdaf Soueif about Egypt in the Edwardian era (there's a modern love story as well). Or The Children's Book by AS Byatt about Britain in the same period. Both very dense books with lots of period detail. Agree Regeneration by Pat Barker on WW1 is wonderful. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks is another WW1 option.

Outlander