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Historical Fiction Recommendations?

121 replies

AnneCatherineJane · 04/06/2023 18:51

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!

OP posts:
QueenOfThorns · 06/06/2023 07:28

Howyoualldoworkme · 04/06/2023 20:38

Rosemary Hawley Jarman - We Speak No Treason and The King's Grey Mare

Yes, also Crown in Candlelight

SiouxsieSiouxStiletto · 06/06/2023 08:19

Has anyone read the Sarah Dunant? I read Sacred Hearts and The Birth of Venus and really loved them, I forgot about those. I love Italy so that helps!

Yes, I've read both of those and now reading Blood & Beauty.

SiouxsieSiouxStiletto · 06/06/2023 09:05

And if you've never read Kate Atkinson, I'd recommend starting with Life After Life.

MrsDanversGlidesAgain · 06/06/2023 09:08

WearyLady · 05/06/2023 20:16

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.

And a very unexpected ending.

catlovingdoctor · 06/06/2023 10:07

Act of Oblivion by Robert Harris. Set in Restoration Britain/America about a man hunt for two of Charles I's killers.

cormorant5 · 06/06/2023 10:38

@AnneCatherineJane May I ask for ideas from anyone about the 1890 to 1920 period.
The Country House Family sagas are done and in the Charity Shop.
Worst of the bunch Fanny Craddock's Castle Rising series.
I am also looking for ideas for a man to read. He liked Gavin Lyall, Spy's Honour series of 4 (I think) and Bernard Cornwell series on America's Civil War.
He does not read Fantasy or "Arthurian bollocks."He says.

GettingStuffed · 06/06/2023 11:24

CJ Sansom Shardlake series, starts with reformation.

beguilingeyes · 06/06/2023 11:30

For 'Arthurian bollocks' (in case anyone else is interested), Mary Stewart's King Arthur books are amazing. The Crystal Cave, The Hollow Hills and The Last Enchantment.

beguilingeyes · 06/06/2023 11:44

This reply has been deleted

This has been withdrawn by MNHQ at the request of the user.

She died in 2021. I got to meet her once when she gave a talk at Bosworth Field soon after they found Richard and Sunne was re-issued. Here Be Dragons is my favourite book ever.

Sausagenbacon · 06/06/2023 19:46

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.
I loved it too, but wasn't it written by Alison Uttley?

AMonthOfSundaes · 06/06/2023 19:54

Anne O'Brien

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Anne-OBrien/e/B001HD1NHI/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1

She taught me history and has since gone on to write books. I've read a few and found them all really excellent! Plus, she writes about something other than the Tudors Grin

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Anne-OBrien/e/B001HD1NHI/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1?tag=mumsnet&ascsubtag=mnforum-what-were-reading-4820467-historical-fiction-recommendations

lastminutewednesday · 06/06/2023 20:08

@Sausagenbacon yes you're right! Confused the two

Dorrmouse · 06/06/2023 20:17

If you don't mind a bit of woo you might enjoy Dinah Lampitt, Judith Merkel Riley, or for non woo how about Emma Drummond or Pamela Belle.

Yuja · 06/06/2023 20:19

Kate Quinn - The Rose Code and The Huntress are both excellent WWII historical fiction (and I'm not usually into ww2 based stuff)
Circus of Wonders - Elizabeth MacNeil
Lily - Rose Tremain
Moonlight and the Pearler's daughter - Lizzie Pook. Hasn't had much publicity but this is really good, it's setting is the pearling industry in British Colonial Australia.

StrictlyAFemaleFemale · 06/06/2023 20:19

I've really enjoyed Dana Schwartz's books.

LunaNorth · 06/06/2023 20:29

I’ve gone old school recently and read I, Claudius, by Robert Graves. I really enjoyed it.

The Familiars by Stacey Halls was a page-turner.

And Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell.

tobee · 07/06/2023 17:46

beguilingeyes · 05/06/2023 11:04

Part of the problem is that I'm sick to death of the Tudors. Write about something other than Henry VIII ffs!

Historical fiction is seemingly very limited in time periods. As if people are only interested in Tudor times or 20th century. And that's mostly just the world wars.

tobee · 07/06/2023 17:49

I mean that's obviously not true looking at this thread. But it feels that way

JaninaDuszejko · 07/06/2023 18:21

Kristin Lavrandatter by Sigrid Undset, but make sure you read the recent the Tiina Nunnally translation which is fabulous. It's a 20th century novel about medieval Norway. It's a trilogy and Sigrid Undset won the Nobel Prize but the first in the trilogy is all about Kristin's love life as a teenager. It's all very exciting but also historically accurate.

BigFatLiar · 07/06/2023 18:27

Georgette Heyer

SiouxsieSiouxStiletto · 07/06/2023 18:40

LunaNorth · 06/06/2023 20:29

I’ve gone old school recently and read I, Claudius, by Robert Graves. I really enjoyed it.

The Familiars by Stacey Halls was a page-turner.

And Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell.

I'll have a look at the first two you recommend as I loved Hamnet.

MrsDanversGlidesAgain · 07/06/2023 18:48

cormorant5 · 06/06/2023 10:38

@AnneCatherineJane May I ask for ideas from anyone about the 1890 to 1920 period.
The Country House Family sagas are done and in the Charity Shop.
Worst of the bunch Fanny Craddock's Castle Rising series.
I am also looking for ideas for a man to read. He liked Gavin Lyall, Spy's Honour series of 4 (I think) and Bernard Cornwell series on America's Civil War.
He does not read Fantasy or "Arthurian bollocks."He says.

For 1890-1920

The Shooting Party - Isabel Colegate
A Month in The Country - JL Carr
The Go Between - LP Hartley
The Edwardians - Vita Sackville West
Memoirs of a Foxhunting Man and Memoirs of An Infantry Officeer - both by Siegfried Sassoon
The General - CS Forester

MrsDanversGlidesAgain · 07/06/2023 18:51

And Galsworthy's The Forsyte Saga. Nine books covering late 1880s to mid 1920s.

TheGaffer · 07/06/2023 18:55

Triple Sharon Kaye Penman…the whole Plantagenet series is outstanding and the Welsh trilogy….just brilliant. I learned more about history from her than I ever did in school!

similar vein is Margaret George…she has a couple of tudors but also covers Helen of troy, Mary Magdalen, Nero, Cleopatra etc…

cicero trilogy by Richard Harris is outstanding

I quite like Edward Rutherfurd books, specially China.