recommend me good historical novels

[parietal]

I love historical novels - the feeling of being in a different place and time. So why are 50% of the modern ones full of anachronisms, especially in people's attitudes and interpretations. I'm currently reading one with an 11 year old black boy in 18th century London who is worrying about structural racism rather than just trying to survive. Yes, obviously there is lots of racism around in that era, but I don't believe that a kid would be theorizing about it, he'd just be living it. And it would be so much more powerful if the author just showed his experience. Similarly, I hate it when novels make their characters into modern feminists in a way that is completely out of place.

what authors / novels can you recommend that depict strong interesting characters that will not jar in this way?

I really enjoyed Winter in Madrid ( Spanish civil war) by CJS.

Yes, yes to the Poldark novels. Winston Graham is a wonderful writer and his research is impeccable. So much better than that god-awful recent adaptation.

This is a bit of a ridiculous answer, and missing the point of the thread. Of course reading fiction requires suspension of disbelief. But almost wilfully anachronistic, especially to make some 21st century socio-political point, really frustrating. At other times, it just seems to be lazy writing.

I agree, Hamnet was good, but I’ve just finished The Marriage Portrait, it’s brilliant. I couldn’t put it down.
Its set in Florence, one of my favourite cities.

In Memoriam by Alice Winn in the best book set during the First World War that I've ever read.