Recommendations for books where Fact and Fiction merge

[nannynick]

Hi all, I have just finished The Cottingley Secret by Hazel Gaynor. Intermingling real information about the photos of the Cottingley Fairies with a fictional storyline. Are there other books like this, where there is a factual story interwoven with a fictional one?

Place marking,

The 100yr old man who climbed out of the window and ran away! He has adventures and reflects on his life, seeming to have met most of the pivotal people across the 20th century. Brilliant book. I would say you need to be aware of history to appreciate it. I don't think it's educational, just funny!

Also, a current series by Anthony Horowitz. Hawthorne and Horowitz. He writes murder mysteries as though he's involved. I was a bit confused by the first one, before I twigged.

Robert Harris also did another series about Cicero starting with Imperium. Wonderful books if you are interested in ancient history at all.

I like Ken Follets Century Trilogy based on 6 families in the 20th century across various countries.

The Haunting of Alma Fielding. Is mostly fact based with a bit of imagining. Set in the 1930s a London Housewife gets her story in the papers about a poltergeist who is haunting her house, destroying cups and saucers infront of journalist's eyes. The book followers a paranormal investigators research into proving or disproving the Haunting.

Lily king Euphoria

Innocent Traitor by Alison Weir- fictionalised account of the life of Lady Jane Grey

The Plantagenet and Tudor books by Philippa Gregory.

The Outlander series. Starts in Scotland in 18c before Culloden and moves to France the King's Court and The Bonnie Prince through to the New World and the American Revolution. Lots if History and real people woven into the books.

The books are huge and a lot more detailed than the TV series.

I second Regeneration Trilogy. My absolute favourite of this kind of book; which can go jarringly wrong imo.

@Maggiesgirl

The Outlander series. Starts in Scotland in 18c before Culloden and moves to France the King's Court and The Bonnie Prince through to the New World and the American Revolution. Lots if History and real people woven into the books.

The books are huge and a lot more detailed than the TV series.

I second the Outlander series of books, by Diana Gabaldon.

The Pull Of The Stars, Emma Donoghue. Midwifery in the time of Spanish Flu.
A Terrible Kindness, Jo Browning Wroe. While I’m still not entirely convinced the two bits of the book successfully gel together, the Aberfan Disaster is very sensitively handled.

Curtis Sitenfield American Wife a fictionalised history of Laura Bush. Fab fab book. Really strange true story but not written as the Bush characters so licence taken with dialogue and motivations.

The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton. One of the characters was orphaned by a train crash near to Kirkby Stephen. I googled it, as I know it's a real place (I was born near there) and the train crash was a tragic real life event, and the victims are buried in the churchyard there. Sad but interesting.

Midnight In The Garden of Good and Evil By John Berendt.

The Manningtree Witches, very much based on true events

Year of Wonders, about the village that quarantined itself during the plague so as not to infect others

In the Unlikely Event - about a town that had three planes crash on it in less than a year in the US in the 1950s

Rodham by Curtis Sittingfield, which has a first section based upon the real relationship between Bill and Hillary Clinton but then goes on to examine how things would have been different if they hadn't married.

The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict. Its a story written round all the historical evidence about Belle Da Costa Greene who was JP Morgans librarian for his personal collections.

On my to read list is 'The Other Einstein' which is on the same lines but about Einsteins wife

The Dictionary of Lost Words (true story of how the Oxford Dictionary was compiled running with a fiction story of the daughter of one of the editors)

The Seven Sisters series (for example, first book is about the creation of Christ the Redeemer statue in Brazil interwoven into a fictional love story)

@DoorLion

The Manningtree Witches, very much based on true events

Year of Wonders, about the village that quarantined itself during the plague so as not to infect others

In the Unlikely Event - about a town that had three planes crash on it in less than a year in the US in the 1950s

I loved Year of Wonders!

Another one I loved was Witch Light, a fictional tale about a woman who was rumoured to live in the hills during the Massacre of Glencoe and the events leading up to it.

HHhH by Laurent Binet about the assasination of Reihard Heydrich during WWII is a totally gripping read that also analyses the idea of fictionalising real history in a really interesting way.

Robert Harris' An Officer and A Spy is almost entirely facts, about the Dreyfus Affair. So so good.

And I also agree about the Regeneration Trilogy.

Jude Morgan has wriiten several books where real lives are fictionalised:
A Taste of Sorrow about the life of the Brontes
Passion - about the Romantic poets
The King's Touch - Charles II and the Restoration

Rose Tremain also writes about the Restoration in Restoration and Merivel(sequel) and the Foundling Hospital in Lily.

I loved the first book in the seven sisters series (Lucinda Riley), set between Rio and France

Gone with the windsors by the fantastic Laurie Graham has the factual story of the abdication woven in around a truly wonderful book and also The Liars Daughter has Lord Nelson at the heart of the plot, Growing up Kennedy is unsurprisingly about JFK and his siblings
She is a fantastic author.

A Terrible Kindness is wonderful. One of the best things I’ve read in a long time.