Your favourite book - historical fiction, not UK/US based?

[RejectedAgainandAgain]

I've been reading a lot of historical fiction recently and realised I'm very blinkered in my geographical choice. I prefer Middle Ages or earlier and would like to try something that is not set in the UK or US. What do you recommend?

Only 18th century but how about The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell set in Japan amongst a colony of Dutch traders?

The Blood of Flowers by Anita Amirrezvani is based in Iran in 1620s, a bit later than you prefer but i thought it was really interesting

How much farther back? I like the Jean M Auel books, but they are set in pre-history.

I've just read and enjoyed The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell.

I found The Book of Night Women by Marlon James incredibly gripping. 18th century again though...

The World is Not Enough by Zoe Oldenbourg. French crusaders. Superbly well written. Brutal.

The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco

The Leopard - Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (this one isn't medieval, though)

I really like Sarah Dunant's books which are all set in Italy (not a series).

Might not be at all your thing, but I am just reading the Patrick O'Brien naval series. They are set in the Napoleonic wars and the action takes place mostly on board war ships all over the world.
They have a bit of a reputation for being for male readers but I'm a woman and I love them!
The only problem is that there are more than 20 and I have been reading them for so long I have started using 18th century naval expressions in my normal speech!
The two main characters are men but there are women, and all the characters are drawn in depth. As you can see I'm a total fan.

The four books in the Boudicca series, by Manda Scott. Absolutely brilliant.
i liked a Norah Lofts, she wrote mostly about ordinary people, often set in Suffolk or a Norfolk where she lived. There a trilogy she wrote starting with the Town House, about the building of a house just after the black Death, and all the people who lived in it up to the present. Love all her books.
i liked the first four Jean Abel books too, but the later ones were repetitive and rather parochial, I think she lost her way a bit.
love historical fiction.

Kate Moss has a good trilogy. The last one just came out and it’s about South Africa

Mary Renault’s novels set in Ancient Greece: The King Must Die and its sequel The Bull from the Sea, which are based on the legend of Theseus; The Praise Singer, The Mask of Apollo and The Last of the Wine, which are stand-alone novels set largely in classical Athens; and her Alexander the Great trilogy, Fire from Heaven, The Persian Boy and Funeral Games.

I also adore Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin series, as do DH and DD. Gripping, humane and so very funny.

The Sealwoman's Gift by Sally Magnusson. Set in seventeenth century Iceland and Algiers.

This is an absolutely superb book, I think it's the best historical novel I've ever read.

There is a sequel too, called The Cornerstone.

Mary Renault and Patrick O'Brien seconded very heartily.

And The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is excellent if you're not turned off by David Mitchell's occult element invading a historical novel.

Another one that is absolutely not my thing but that I enjoyed, to my surprise, is Connie Willis's Domesday Book -- set in a 'slightly future' Oxford where there are no mobile phones but time travel is practiced by historians for research purposes, and a student gets stranded at the time of the Black Death by a pandemic in her present. The author has some very weird ideas about a roughly-contemporary Oxford (and it's never entirely clear to me why time travel is only practiced by historians), but it's gripping and would work for your time period preferences.

Robert Harris does a good range of fiction based around different historical periods, in different locations.

Also Horrible History!

Robert Harris - The Cicero trilogy (roman era, based on Cicero's life, told from his slave's perspective)

Try Circe, then Ariadne and Medusa (different writers, all wonderful - Circe in particular is outstanding). The Women of Troy, the Song of Achilles. Hell, just go straight to the source and read The Odyssey! :)

Have you tried Dorothy Dunnett?

I started A Place of Greater Safety today. A good bit later than your preferred period, but it has one virtue in that it will occupy you for a good while (at least I anticipate that it will keep me quiet for a few weeks!).

I also loved The Marriage Portrait mentioned above. (And Maturin/Aubrey too.)

The Sea Road, by Margaret Elphinstone. The Viking exploration of Greenland and discovery of America

A haunting, compelling historical novel, The Sea Road is a daring re-telling of the 11th-century Viking exploration of the North Atlantic from the viewpoint of one extraordinary woman. Gudrid lives at the remote edge of the known world, in a starkly beautiful landscape where the sea is the only connection to the shores beyond. It is a world where the old Norse gods are still invoked, even as Christianity gains favour, where the spirits of the dead roam the vast northern ice-fields, tormenting the living, and Viking explorers plunder foreign shores.

Taking the accidental discovery of North America as its focal point, Gudrid's narrative describes a multi-layered voyage into the unknown, all recounted with astonishing immediacy and rich atmospheric detail.

The Bride, by Margaret Irwin set in Scotland and Holland during the English Civil war, or Royal Flush, the story of Charles II's sister and set at the court of Louis XIV. Irwin's a very neglected writer

Dorothy Dunnett - her Niccolo series has a Belgian/French character as lead, and the Lymond series although the lead is Scottish, spends very little time in the UK. Both series travel far and wide. Niccolo is an 8 book run, and Lymond 6. Niccolo set in 1470s or thereabouts and Lymond possibly a hundred or so years later?

Norah Lofts ‘The Lute Player’ is riveting ( and with several , all very different central female characters : Eleanor of Aquitaine, Berengaria, and the fictional but enchanting Anna Apicata).
Gillian Bradshaw has several set in Byzantium, esp ‘Imperial Purple’ and ‘The Bearkeepers’Daughter’.

@Passerillage my reading likes seem very similar to yours as I've loved all of those.

Have you read The Heroines by Laura Shepperson? It's just been promoted by Women's Prize for fiction and looks like my kind of thing.

I'm currently reading The Burning Chambers by Kate Mosse, which is set in 16th Century France and is based around the expulsion of the Hugenots. I'm enjoying it so far, and it is currently free on Amazon Prime reading, so that's a bonus!

I recently read Essex Dogs by Dan Snow which I really enjoyed (was also free on Prime reading, but not sure if it still is), set in France again at the beginning of the Hundred Years war.

I think both are the beginning of a series too, which is always good if you've enjoyed something!

Kristin Lavrandatter by Sigrid Undset, translated by Tiina Nunnally (do not read the Archer and Scott translation which is written in fake 'ye olde worlde' language). Set in Norway in the 14th century it's a trilogy that follows the life of the fictional Kristin Lavrandatter.

Romola by George Eliot set in 15th century Florence during the time of Savonerola.