What FICTION books would you recommend around the periods in GCSE History?

[LittleOwl153]

My DD is doing GCSE History. She likes to read around the history topics she is doing and is well read in the Tudor period (her favourite period!) through Phillippa Gregory, Anne O'Brien, Alison Weir, Susan Higginbotham.

Syllabus includes:

• British America 1713-1783: Empire and revolution
• Early Elizabethan England 1558-1588
• Weimer and Nazi Germany 1918-1939
• Whitechapel 1870-1900
• Crime and punishment c1500- present day!

She gets alot from historical context
through reading so looking for authors with a reasonable reputation for being historically correct.

She's 14, but reads very well and usually adult books these days. She has picked out some My Story books too which are children's level.

I don't like historical fiction so I'm clueless so hoping the hive mind will come up with some good materials for her!

Thank you!

It's an Edexcel course - but not the main one I believe.

Suggest your dd looks at the my story and my royal story books. I think they are similar levels to her recommendations but still on the bookshelves here! There is one about the Berlin Olympics and a few on the Elizabethan time period I think... maybe more.

@mdh2020 Forever Amber is set in restoration times, although still a great read.
CJ Samson books are great, all about a Tudor lawyer so a lot of crime etc.
Rory Clements books are Elizabethan murder mysteries.

Anya Seton wrote Katherine which iirc is about John of Gaunt.

Another vote for this, I read it as a teen 30 years ago and it has really stayed with me.

The Book Thief
Moll Flanders
Shardlake series/ CJ Sansom

Is there a geographical focus for the crime and punishment paper?

Oh, and the Susanna Gregory books set in restoration London about the time of the plague / great fire of London might have some relevant stuff for crime and punishment too.

Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell is good- is a fictional story of Shakespeare's son

Surely that’s the difficulty with all historical fiction novels though? They are always going to foreground the writer’s personal notions and prejudices, and they tend to prioritise a good yarn over historical accuracy (rightly imo, although if you know a period too well it is annoying)

Historical fiction can still give you a feel for a period and introduce you to some of the main players.

@LittleOwl153 yes! Though it's a novel rather than a biography, though there are elements of it being based on vita sackville west. Time travels through different periods but I found the Elizabethan bit v evocative. A long time since I read it though!

Her style is a little old fashioned by modern standards but Jean Plaidy wrote generally accurate historical novels, more fictionalised history really.

She also wrote a series called the Daughters of England about a family from Tudor times to WWII, some of the later books were ghost written and it shows in the style.

For American history including Revolutionary period try John Jake's.

Oh and for restoration period you could try Alathea by Pamela Belle although it makes more sense if you read the two previous books set in the civil war.

I third this! Really vivid descriptions of life as a teenage girl during this period.

Although I now realise the OP asked for fiction..

Fair point. Although I read this as a teen and it felt as readable as fiction if that makes sense?

Yes definitely very readable.

What about the book London ? By the author that wrote Airport. It's based on the history so covers a longer period but still interesting.

A few of us had read Jean Plaidy on the history modules at university. Entertaining stuff. She took rumour and ran with it in a lot of cases. I'd recommend, as the people who read it for history A'Level especially thought her books were an interesting read.

Great thread

Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood might be useful for the Crime and Punishment topic. it's reasonably historically accurate.

Norah Lofts. She wrote books centred on historical characters - The Concubine on Anne boleyn and The Kings Pleasure on Catherine of Aragon, and many others. But also books on houses through time.
She was a good writer but also historically accurate. Unlike Phillippa Gregory, who is obsessed with her characters having anachronistic sex lives.
Also The Observations by Jane Harris,

And for the Restoration period, the Merrival books by Rose Tremain.

Sorry - keep on remembering stuff. Now we shall be entirely free, by Andrew Miller. About a soldier returning from the napoleonic wars.
Quite wonderful.

Aimed at slightly younger children (probably pitched at around 13) but I still enjoy it as an adult: Cue for Treason by Geoffrey Trease.

Non fiction but very readable is Reaching for the Stars by Nora Waln, an American who spent time in Nazi Germany before WW2. It's very interesting for seeing how (at least some) people at the time saw the Nazi regime.

A little late in the Elizabethan period but Shadow of Night, book 2 of the Discovery of Witches/All Souls trilogy by Deborah Harkness. Harkness is a historian, and the tv series of that book was supposed to be the most historically accurate depiction of Elizabethan London that's so far appeared on screen.