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!

Edward Rutherford as previously mentioned re London and Sarum has also done Dublin, Paris and Russia. All well researched and fascinating.

I agree about Katherine by Anya Seton (£1.99 on Kindle at the moment)
www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00FRKP9S6/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1&tag=mumsnetforu03-21

Easy to get into, plenty of romance, great settings (court/luxury and yorkshire farmhouse I think)

"Katherine comes to the court of Edward III at the age of fifteen. The naïve convent-educated orphan of a penniless knight is dazzled by the jousts and the entertainments of court.
Nevertheless, Katherine is beautiful, and she turns the head of the King's favourite son, John of Gaunt. But he is married, and she is soon to be betrothed.
A few years later their paths cross again and this time their passion for each other cannot be denied or suppressed. Katherine becomes the prince's mistress, and discovers an extraordinary world of power, pleasure and passion."

And I hadn't read any historical fiction until I started the Shardlake series. It took my a while to get into the first one, but then I raced through the rest. Great characters and situations, and I learned a lot about the time of Henry VIII.
Also £1.99 on Kindle at the moment :)
www.amazon.co.uk/Dissolution-Tenth-Anniversary-Shardlake-Book-ebook/dp/B003O86FM2/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&s=digital-text&crid=3QHOTC5OXBZ7R&keywords=dissolution+by+c+j+sansom&sprefix=dissol%2Cdigital-text%2C168&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&qid=1614441569&sr=1-1

It's got me wanting to read more historical fiction, so I'll be looking at the other suggestions people have given - thank you for starting this thread, and to everyone for suggestions :)

Hamnet - Maggie O'Farrell
Burial Rites - Hannah Kent
The Confessions of Frannie Langton - Sara Collins

For historical non-fiction I really recommend The Five: The Lives of Jack the Ripper's Women by Hallie Rubenhold.

I must admit I'm sticking to the more historical romance end of things in lockdown, life is too stressful to want to be upset by anything too gritty. Currently bingeing on Elizabeth Chadwick again, she really does know her period - 1066 through to about 1220. I prefer her earlier works, which are more likely to focus on fictional characters with major figures as supporting cast, but her more recent biographical novels are also good.

This Thing of Darkness by Harry Thompson

Shogun by James Clavell

Measuring the World by Daniel Kehlmann

The Thousand Autimns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell

Shardlake series by C J Sansom

The North Water by Ian McGuire

The Revenant by Michael Punke

Yashim books by Jason Goodwin

The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton

Ah, I was going to recommend The Heaven Tree! Edith Pargeter also wrote The Brothers of Gwynedd Quartet.

Lyndsey Davis' Falco novels are fun.

I tend to get annoyed by books based on real historical characters but I like Robert Graves' "I,Claudius" and "Claudius the God" and other novels set in ancient times. Naomi Aitchison's "The Corn King and the Spring Queen" set in 3rd century BC is a good read.

The Physcian by Noah Gordon ,
Pullers of the Earth
Clan of the cave Bear
Henry the Eighth A novel by Margaret George
For a series nothing beats the Moreland Dynasty
These are books I’ve reread over the last 30 years

I love Falco! I read them through university and, in desperation, following a serious lack of revision of aqueducts, based my finals exam answer on what I'd learned from Three Hands in the Fountain and got a first on that paper. That's how good Lindsey Davis's research is! I'm forever grateful.

The Flashman series

The Shardlake & Giordano Bruno (C J Sansom & S J Pariss) are usually good reads if you like well written historical thrillers. The Instance of the Fingerpost (I Pears) is brilliant in the same genre.

Hilary Mantel is an obvious along with Philippa Gregory.
I’m probably going to be on my own here & I’m not going to pretend they’re not potboilers but I do love a Bernard Cornwell, Simon Scarrow and the like!

I enjoyed The Sealed Letter by Emma Donoghue. And it might be good book group fare as it isn't too long and has a plot that would be open to a bit of discussion.

Languedoc Trilogy - Labyrinth, Sepulchre and Citadel by Kate Mosse

Well I'm showing my age but we used to absolutely love Georgette Heyer when I was in school and I still occasionally read them now. Funny, wonderful sense of history, plus some romance thrown in. What's not to like 👍

Ellis Peters...her Cadfael series is brilliant. Real writing.

The Sealwoman's Gift Sally Magnusson-17th century Iceland and Algiers
The Ninth Child Sally Magnusson Mid 18th century Scotland
The Chelsea Girls Fiona Davis New York in the McCarthy era.

Thanks for the great recommendations

Another vote for the Shardlake series. Hard to beat in my opinion.

@ElizabethinherGermanGarden

I'm a huge Falco fan too, since buying Venus in Copper on a uni field trip to Hadrian's Wall many years ago! Enjoying the Flavia Alba series too.

A Place of Greater Safety- Hilary Mantel, French Revolution
Sharon Penman- has a wealth of amazing historical fiction.
Simone de Beauvoir- the Blood of Others, is the French resistance long ago enough I wonder?
Jean Plaidy/Victoria Holt etc. More fiction less history, but easy reads and informative nonetheless.

I hated New York by Edward Rutherford (sorry!) I found the shoehorning of the characters and the events which shaped the city just silly after a while. Great grandfather bumps into Abraham Lincoln, Grandfather happens to be in Dallas on business in 1963, somebody else gets a job in the North Tower. Please.....

Norah Lofts. Some of her books have been reissued, but the rest can easily be found on Abebooks.
Also Mary Renault, especially the 2 Theseus novels.

NOT Phillippa Gregory.

great thread! I agree with so many of these - Pillars of the Earth, any Edward Rutherfurd (though my particular favourite is Russka), and Katherine by Anya Seton is another great one I read years ago, but still remember.
One other lesser known one that I really enjoyed is I am Livia by Phyllis T. Smith - it is about the wife of Augustus Caesar, and honestly I didn't know that she was kind of a "bad guy" in history before I read this, and I loved this account. Perfect historical fiction - a compelling story set in a time and place you didn't know much about, so you learn as you enjoy the story!

Anything by Sharon K Penman but particularly Here Be Dragons which I've read 3/4 times. Colleen McCullough's Masters of Rome series is also phenomenal.

Marguerite Yourcenar - Memoirs of Hadrian
Zoe Oldenbourg - The World is Not Enough (medieval France/crusades)

And recently published top quality mysteries set in 18th century London: Laura Shepherd-Robinson - Blood and Sugar (Deptford slavers), and Daughters of Night (London whores and the beau monde)