Historical Fiction Recommendations?

[AnneCatherineJane]

I am trying to get back into reading more regularly as my youngest is getting slightly more sensible. I really love historical fiction, and wondered if anyone had any good recommendations? Particularly women-focussed. I have read quite a lot of Tudor historical fiction (Philippa Gregory etc), so might be good to read about a different era. I have already read and loved The Red Tent and most Tracey Chevalier books.

Thanks in advance!

Plantagenet The Summer Queen. Elizabeth Chadwick 'Starring' Eleanor of Aquitaine
It covers her life in France.

Last years of Elizabeth 1, set in the area around Carlisle. Famine of Horses by PF Chisholm. A series about a real person, and features some strong women.

Georgette Heyer, Georgian novels. They are not all Rom-Com Jane Austen Lite. 'Civil Contract' 'Toll Gate' 'Unknown Ajax' are real stories giving a few clues about how they lived. "Cousin Kate" is totally Gothic.

I wouldn't call Heyer or Austen 'rom-com lite.' All of Heyer's novels are very well written, researched and plotted.

Second this suggestion. Her novel on Madame Tussaud is good as well.
And of course don't forget Jean Plaidy, her two books about Lucrezia Borgia are brilliant.
in fact there are very few historical women she hasn't written about!

I love all these suggestions.

If you don't mind a more modern era, I've just read "The Nightingale" by Kristin Hannah about two sisters living in Nazi-Occupied France during WW2. I have little interest in war stories, but this one blew me away and the research and quality of writing were exceptional. One reviewer wrote, "It's probably the most in-depth, sensitive WW2 book I've ever read, and I've read numerous ones."

Elizabeth Chadwick
Diana Norman (also wrote as Ariana Franklin)
Jean Plaidy/Phillipa Carr /Victoria Holt
Mary Stewart
Catherine Gavin

Molly Kaye
John Galsworthy
Anthony Trollope
Elizabeth Gaskell
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Howard Spring
RF Delderfield
AJ Cronin

The Shardlake series by CJ Sansom are so good and have lots of good historical detail.

The Rose Code by Kate Quinn. I haven’t finished it yet but I’m loving it. She’s such a good writer.

@ZenNudist Aren't the Cazalet Chronicles wonderful?

Elizabeth Chadwick - Early and British/Norman/Plantagenet eras.

Sharon K Penman - Medieval

Barbara Erskine - Mainly medieval, but nearly always dual time supernatural theme.

Not female based, but a fantastic collection of 9 (so far) stories about Beobrand, a 7th century Bernician Lord by Matthew Harffy

The series is called The Bernicia Chronicles.

Mary Renault's Ancient Greece stories are excellent. The Mask of Apollo is one of my favourite books.

Josephine Tey The Daughter of Time.

I’ve just seen Tom Holland recommending this on Twitter! Must be very good.. (hoping you are Tom Holland on Mumsnet 😂)

Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks. It has a female protagonist and is about the villagers of Eyam quarantining themselves when the village was hit by plague. Beautifully written.

Ps. I read it again during the first Covid lockdown. Makes you realise how lucky we are to have been born when and where we are.

Slightly before Tudors but way better history imo

The Sunne in Splendour
Bearnshaw
Conn iggulden (also his ghenghis khan stuff)

Alison Weir is great. Very different from Philippa Gregory in style. I'm working my way through her Six Queens series, with each volume telling the story of one of Henry VIII's wives. Three down three to go; I am leaving a gap of a couple of months between each book.

At the moment I'm in the middle of The American Boy by Andrew Taylor. I've read quite a lot of 19th century novels and if I didn't know this had been written in 2003 I'd be convinced it was a contemporary work. Amazing atmosphere of pre-Victorian London with murders, attacks in stinking alleyways, school brutality, hopeless longing inspired by a glimpse of ankle, dodgy deathbed codicils added to wills, family feuds .. I am really enjoying it.

Haven't read full thread so sorry if any of these have come up:

The Essex Serpent - Sarah Perry
The Doll factory and The Circus of wonder - Elizabeth McNeal
Anything by Laura Purcell (Gothic creepy)
Once upon a river - Diane Setterfield ( only historical novel I have ever read with a character with Down’s syndrome)
The Leviathan- Rosie Andrews
The gifts - Liz Hyder
The shrines of Gaiety - Kate Atkinson
Anything by Sarah Waters
Gillespie and I - Jane Harris
The Whalebone theatre - Joanne Quinn
Still life -Sarah Winman
The metal Heart, The Glass women, Prize Women- Caroline Lea
Hex - Jenny Fagan
Hamnet and The Marriage Portrait - Maggie O Farrell
Bodies of Light, Signs for Lost Children - Sarah Moss
Anything by Hannah Kent
Now we can be Entirely free - Andrew Miller
Cunning women - can remember author
The mermaid and Mrs Hancock - Imogen Hermes Gower

Bookmarking.

The Silence of the Girls is excellent. In a similar vein, A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes and Circe by Madeleine Miller are female perspectives of the Trojan war.

Alison Weir’s fiction rolls
along nicely.

Outlander series is brilliant

Five Wounds by Katherine Edgar

The King’s Witch by Tracey borman

If you haven't read Pat Barkers Regeneration Trilogy about 1st World war then that is a must.

I liked A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson and The Nightwatchman by Louise Erdritch.

A question: I have watched Outlander as a series. Will I still enjoy the books? I'm really interested in that period.

Outlander Series, brilliant.

@WearyLady year of wonders is one of my favourite books. I grew up near Eyam and I was quite obsessed with it as a child :)

As a child I used to love 'a traveler in time' by Penelope Lively, and I still re read it now from time to time. Set in Derbyshire, it's got a time travel aspect but I loved the Tudor setting-sort of home life of Anthony Babington who was involved in the Babington plot to free Mary Queen of Scot's.

Everybody should read this series, absolutely fantastic.

Either the Shakesoeare series or the Tom Wolfe series by Rory Clements.