'Real' historical fiction for 16yo

[FruAashild]

My 16yo would like to read some fictionalised history books. She's read the feminist greek myth retellings by Madeline Miller and Jennifer Saint (yes, I've pointed out those are completely fictional) and has enjoyed a few of Dominic Sandbrook Adventures in Time books, and Laura Ingalls Wilder and Judith Kerr's fictionalised biographies. She says she doesn't want to read about completely fictional characters.

I'm trying to think of books that aren't as heavy going as Hilary Mantel but can only think of Philippa Gregory. Any good suggestions? She's not fussy about period but would prefer books about women.

Hamnet and others by the same author

sarah dunant “in the name of the family” is great

This ☝️ x 100!

Wow, loads of suggestions so quickly, thank you all so much. A good mix of some I've read myself, some I know of and some I hadn't heard of at all.

Agree Cynthia Harnett is fabulous, I reread Stars of Fortune recently and was really impressed by the historical details of everyday life.

Brotherless Night is fiction set in Sri Lanka in the 1980s - the main character is a woman.

Half of a Yellow Sun is fiction set in Nigeria in the 1960s and one of the main characters is a woman.

Very light and easy to read (and probably only tenuously historical!) - Fiona Valpy books.

Robert Massie's book on the last Tsar of Russia is an enjoyable read.

Mary Renault. Great books. The Bull From the Sea. Superb modern classics set in Ancient Greece. Reprinted by Virago.

I second Dorothy L Sayers!

Also I don’t know if they count as historical fiction but some of the 19th century classics certainly depict the era well - North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell with a female protagonist and focus on 19th century industrial relations (honestly the problems are still the same!!), also The Tenant of Wildfel Hall and Tess of the d’Urbervilles are wonderful tales of women’s situations at that time.

Not fiction but Housewife, 49 and the other Nella Last diaries are also an easy read and historically fascinating on the lives of women during and after the war years.

Oh my gosh - I’d completely forgotten about half of a yellow sun! I loved it - I’m going to re-read! Thank you x

The Endless Steppe by Esther Hautzig. Set in WW2, but mostly in Siberia. Made a huge impression on me as a young teen.

I've already got this one on my TBR shelf so will suggest it straight away, thanks.

The St Mary’s books are great. Fictional as it’s about time travel but lots of historical detail and research has gone into them.

agree re the Dominic Sandbrook books and Anya Seaton’a Katherine. Medieval Woman by Ann Baer is good as well.

And this is one of my Mum's favourite novels, can't believe I didn't think of it.

Another vote for The Sunne in Splendour.

Venetia Stanley is a great female character in Precipice, which has the benefit of containing the actual letters from HH Asquith to Venetia (though hers to him are invented by Robert Harris)

@Medenagan I've got a few Isabel Allende novels so will point her that way.

@Conchiglie Half of a Yellow Sun is one of my favourite novels ever.

Thanks all, I'll suggest the ones we have in the house straight away, she's already said she wants to read Oranges are not the Only Fruit which is making me feel old because I don't think of that as historical fiction. But there's lots on here for her to think about reading over the summer.

The last Kingdom books by Bernard Cornwell are good fun.

Mary Renault, Robert Harris, Hilary Mantel.

There are interesting female characters in the above, but the protagonists in the ones I have read are male.

She might enjoy Sarah Dunant's 'The Birth of Venus' for something with a female lead - it fictional story and protagonist but within a historical setting and featuring historical characters too. Tracy Chevalier's 'The Glassmaker' evokes various periods but the main character and story is again fictional.

Another one with a male lead, but I really enjoyed 'The Agony and the Ecstasy' a few years ago. I think I read it in one sitting!

I love "Katherine" by Anya Seyton and read it first when I was 15 or 16. Katherine was the sister-in-law of Geoffrey Chaucer who is in it as a supporting character, lived through various wars and plagues and peasant revolts and was mistress to the Duke of Lancaster, who she much later (when her bastard children by him were adults) actually married him and the pope declared the bastards to be legitimised - one of whom became the great grandmother of Edward IV and Richard III and another became the great grandfather of Henry VII. It's a fascinating run through history through a somewhat rose-tinted and romancy lens

Passion by Jude Morgan (fiction based on the lives of Byron, Shelley and Keats)
Taste of Sorrow by Jude Morgan (lives of the Brontes)
The Household (about the home for 'fallen women' opened by Charles Dickens)
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant (Dinah and other biblical figures)
Daphne by Justine Picardie (life of Daphne du Maurer interwoven with a story about a fictional biographer)
Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood (Greek mythology)
Silence of the Girls (Pat Barker - more Greek mythology)
The Players by Minette Walters (includes real historical figures and events of the reign of James II but has quite a nice lightweight story)

Slightly different:
Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky (a novel set during the Nazi invasion of Paris written during it by a woman living through it - fictional characters but obviously very accurate telling from life)
The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd - the life story of a fictional 'wife of Jesus'.
Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee - not about famous historical people, but semi-fictionalised autobiograph

Also - last Days of Dogtown by Anita Diamant (19th century American history - fiction loosely based on a real community)

I love a Barbara Erskine book - always spend ages googling all the historical events and go down many rabbit holes! The last one I read was The Story Spinner and I spent ages researching and reading about St Elen!

How much into history is she? One of my favourite books is Richard Evans "Telling Lies About Hitler" which is about the work he did in supporting the defence in David Irving's libel trial against Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin Books. It is very much factual history and about the processes of researching into history and using contemporary. resources, but it's fascinating to see how he went to work. It's particularly enjoyable to see how he ferrets out every lie and piece of misrepresentation that there was in Irving's works on Nazism and the Third Reich, and it's great just because he is so passionate and angry about the sheer intellectual laziness and dishonesty that Irving exhibited.

The film about the trial, Denial, is also well worth watching.

The Boys in the Boat is a very readable fictionalized account of real people and real events. Written by Daniel James Brown. It was made into a movie, but imo the book was better.

@CaesarAugusta funnily enough we had a discussion about her level of interest at dinner last night. Her big sister is doing A level History (paper 2 today - eek!) and very much was of the view that you read history books not fiction. So she would love the Richard Evans but DD2 wants something where it has been made into more of an easy reading story. Obviously some historians are great at making history come alive but I don't think DD2 is quite there yet, she wants the slight fictionalisation.

@Reader19 , I've got The Birth of Venus (read it when on holiday in Florence a few years ago) so will definitely suggest that. We've also got the YA The Smile by Donna Jo Napoli which has similar themes (artists in Florence), possibly bought around the same time. Clearly I have too many books in the house already but DD2 and I will have a lovely time going through this list and choosing books for one or both of us to read.

I have moved a few times and that is the one book that stays.

Agree about Jean Plaidy too.

DD is currently reading the "Six Tudor Queens" books by Alison Weir. I believe they are biographys rather than fiction, but may be of interest.