Historical fiction please!

[Artemis6]

Recently enjoyed:
Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
The Crimson Petal and the White
Hamnet

Any other suggestions?

CJ Sansom's Shardlake series set in the time of Henry VIII are excellent. Great murder mysteries and very evocative descriptions.

Just about to come on here and mention these. Brilliant series

Yy to Forever Amber & Elizabeth Chadwick

Also, Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth Trilogy. I didn't think I'd like them but was very pleasantly surprised.

I loved this trilogy.

Phillipa Gregory is a good writer & great storyteller but her history is dreadful.

@DdyDaisyDaresYou I thought she was a historian who had turned to writing. Her books have been well researched. I failed history O level so what do I know? However, I do enjoy reading her books.

She's never been an historian, she's always been a writer.

There was a long period where she kept being promoted as an historian, popping up in history documentaries as Professor Gregory - she's a professor of English, not history.

From a historical perspective, her books lack objectivity and historical rigour...It's a bug bear of mine and other historians in case you hadn't guessed 😄

Read her because she's a good author, not for history. For history, read others.

That's me told then
Can you tell I'm not a historian? ?

🤣

Is Philippa Gregory a good writer?

That's subjective - in my opinion, no, but other people love her.

Sarah Walters has done other books set in various periods - off the top of my head Nightwatch was very good (second world war) and The Little Friend.

I really like Sarah Dunant, who writes Italian historical fiction and Mantell's Wolf Hall. I also liked the Alison Weir one up until Anne of Cleves and was put off by the speculation there.

One last mention and that's the Poldark series. Don't be put off by the TV adaptations, they do cover historical events and people pertinent to Cornish history. Unfortunately, the stories have been reduced to just light romance by TV companies.

Anything by Alison Weir - I love her fiction books. The proper history books are really good too.

Any of Maria McCann’s three novels. Sublime.

My go-to is always Norah Lofts. The best historical novelist imo. Historically accurate and very readable.
The Observations by Jane Harris is always overlooked, which I can't understand.
Also Now we Shall be Entirely Free by Andrew Miller.
Tbh everybody brings up the Wolf Hall trilogy on these threads, but I have not managed to get through the final one, though I've tried more than once.
Pg is dreadful. Neither historical nor good writing.

And, of course, Mary Renault.

I use to love jean plaidy

I really enjoyed Pachinko by Min Jin Lee about the history of Korea and Japan.

Came here to say Edward Rutherford is fantastic. I read his books 25 years ago and I still remember how much I loved them.

Edward Rutherford Sarum was my favourite and London was good too. still remember both over 25 years since I read them.

im not sure if I read Paris or Russia. Will look for them

Poldark! A wonderful series of books. CJ Samson-if you’ve not read his novels you’re in for a treat. I don’t rate Phillippa Gregory at all-dreadful. Her very early novels were better as she concentrated on fictional characters rather than real ones. Elizabeth Chadwick writes medieval romance-again her books centred on fictional characters are better. A medieval novel I really enjoyed was The Kings Mistress by Emma Campion about Alice Perrers, mistress of Edward 111. And if you want something earlier, the Wolf’s Den novels by Elodie Harper, set in a Pompeii brothel are completely absorbing.

I must re-read Forever Amber and Norah Lofts-devoured them as a teenager!

Any Philippa Gregory

Cynthia Harrod Eagles Morland Dynasty will keep you going for 35 books

Delderfield - Avenue goes to War books and others

One of my absolute favourites!

Sarum - Edward Rutherford - that was huge back in the day . Everyone seemed to read it.

The Matthew Bartholomew series by susannah Gregory - medieval Cambridge murder mysteries. The audiobooks are particularly well read.

Thomas Chaloner series by the same author. Restoration London.

Slightly less silly but featuring the same period and in fact some of the same
characters Ashes of London series by Andrew Taylor.

The Falco novels - first century Roman fun - Lindsay Davis.

None of these series are likely to win any prizes for literary fiction but better than Philipa Gregory IMO. They’ve also got a lot of books between them so something to get your teeth stuck into!

I don’t think so. I know everyone has different taste, but I like the books you have listed so we may have similar taste. I find PG unreadable. Historically inaccurate too.

Sharon Penman's late medieval novels are good - esp The Sunne in Splendour on Richard III and her trilogy on Lewellyn of Wales. The ones on Eleanor of Aquitaine as less good - I think because she had less sources to inspire her.

Robert Harris' historical novels are fab esp Fatherland, which is terrifying.

Noah Lofts House trilogy.

Another vote for Hillary Mantel esp the Wolf Hall novels (& the BBC adaption).

I also thoroughly enjoyed the Master & Commander series - both the film and the Patrick O'Brian books - though I did have to download a diagram of a 3-mast ship with all the bits labelled to help me know what was going on (& his female characters are paper thin).

Are all the Philippa Gregory haters historians?

I really enjoyed her cousins wars books. They may be historically inaccurate, but I don't think there is anything wrong with the way she writes. Whenever I read her or any historical fiction it always prompts me to look up the facts anyway.

I see that Robert Harris has been mentioned. I loved Pompeii. I used to love reading Mary Renault, but haven't read anything by her for years.

RF Delderfield-oh yes! A book I really enjoyed of his was To Serve Them All My Days about a WW1 shell shocked soldier teaching at a boys’ school.