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!

Patrick O’Brian’s series on Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin - don’t need to be interested in the navy to find these funny, humane and fascinating.

Diana Norman should be far better known. Her books explore the way women’s lives were constrained by the law favouring men - but are also exciting and interesting.

Patricia Finney who also writes as P F Chisholm - also funny, exciting and interested in a wide variety of people

Minette Walters The Last Hours about the Black Plague is great - there is a sequel too

Have you tried Robert Graves? He wrote lots of historical fiction, and all of it is superb. C. S. Lewis also wrote a fantastic historical novel set in ancient Greece.

The great thing about Lewis and Graves is their range of knowledge.

Patrick O’Brian’s series on Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin - don’t need to be interested in the navy to find these funny, humane and fascinating

I'd recommend CS Forester's Hornblower novels as well on those grounds. A flawed but self-aware hero who's in the thick of the naval war against Napoleon.

I Clavdivs..as we called it at school, is a fantastic book.

Also Pamela Belle’s Wintercombe series - especially the first two about living through the Civil war in the 1640s. Free on Kindle unlimited

Just thought of Pat Barker’s Ancient Greece novels.

The Silence of the Girls was brilliant.

Terrible title but my absolute favourite historical novel ever is The World is Not Enough by Zoe Oldenburg.

Set in medieval France, it describes the story of a marriage, including how the heroine copes when husband goes to the crusades.

These are quite gritty but I enjoyed the Manda Scott Boudicca series, set in Roman Britain. Can’t remember the first on but they are all called Dreaming the…(insert name of animal).

Margaret Irwin wrote a wonderful time travel novel called Still She Wished For Company.

I’ve just read Transatlantic. Set in the second world war. Picked it up randomly in Waterstones and really enjoyed it.
About to start Shrines of Gaiety, loved Life after Life.

Sharon Penman was good but her books are clearly written for an American audience as the dialogue can be a bit Renaissance Fayre. I like her Plantagenet trilogy best.

Elizabeth Chadwick is extremely prolific and her research is impeccable. Her Eleanor of Aquitaine novels give a really fresh view on someone who's been written about a lot and she strips away the myths that surround her too. Elizabeth is very active on social media too and always willing to chat to her readers.

Cynthia Harrod-Eagles' Morland Dynasty books cover the Wars of the Roses to Edward VIII so far and are a brilliant way to painlessly soak up some history. There's 35 of them and she's currently writing volume 36 so if you start now you'll be done in time for the new book and won't have had the 10 year wait the rest of us have had!

Dinah Lampitt also wrote a straightforward historical called The King's Women, which was excellent. All about the women associated with Charles VII of France, from his mother to his mistresses to Joan of Arc.

Thanks so much everyone, I think I will need to start a spreadsheet! I actually started reading the Elizabeth Chadwick book on Eleanor of Aquitaine and I really liked it (it was on the shelf of someone’s house I was visiting - didn’t steal it at the end of the visit!). So must go back to that one.

So many of these sound really interesting. Sharon Penman sounds interesting but to be honest I’m put off by the length of some of the books 😬😂

Cynthia Harrod-Eagles' Morland Dynasty books cover the Wars of the Roses to Edward VIII so far and are a brilliant way to painlessly soak up some history

That was who I was trying to remember last night.

Re Penman - the cod medieval language in The Sunne in Splendour annoyed me. It always read like a script for a 50s Hollywood movie where they all have American accents and and I could imagine the trailer - War! Chivalry! Intrigue! and True Lurrrrrrve......

Gone With The Wind!!!!!

Some great suggestions here, thank you everyone - I must dig out my copy of Forever Amber and re-read it, I remember really enjoying that one!

Georgette Heyer - some are a bit dated but I would start with The Grand Sophy, The Talisman Ring, The Unknown Ajax, Venetia or Cotillion

Just wanted to give this a thumbs up.

I massively recommend Robert Graves. People know him mainly for I Claudius (and the superb TV series), but he wrote lots of historical fiction, all of it superb:

Count Belisarius (set in 600s AD/Byzantium)
Wife to Mr Milton (set in the 1680s)
Homer's Daughter (set in Ancient Greece)
They Hanged my Saintly Billy (Victorian/1850s)
Proceed Sergeant Lamb (set in American Revolution, 1770s)

Someone I read as a teenager was Martha Rofheart. She was one of the first writers I came across to write from the perspective of different people; the one I recall was Cry God for Glendower which was narrated by Glendower's wife, his bard and IIRC a couple of others.

https://www.fantasticfiction.com/r/martha-rofheart/

Lots of my favourite historical authors and series already mentioned but I'd like to add Stella Riley - her books aren't mega tomes but they are really good!

Perhaps start with The Marigold Chain or A Splendid Defiance.

Books about lucrezia borgia from various authors