Historic novels.... what would you recommend?

[juicychops]

ive read Loads of Tudor historic books by Philippa Gregory and Alison Weir which i loved so so much.

Now i would like to try a different period of time and a different author.

can anyone recommend anything? maybe something of similar style to Gregory and Weir?

Peter Ackroyd?

The Clerkenwell Tales is set in the 14th C. and Hawkesmoor in the 18th. Both are very cinematic, and are particularly interesting if you know London well. He has a different tone to Gregory and Weir, but really captures the essence of both periods.

Haven't read either of those authors, but Iain Pears, The Instance of the Fingerpost, was good; as was Maria McCann, As Meat Loves Salt. You might like Suskind, Perfume, too.

Have you read Pat Barker's Regeneration trilogy (WWI)? Of Sebastian Faulks, Birdsong. Devastating, but excellent.

The CJ Sansom Shardlake books are great if historical detective fiction floats yer boat.

cool thanks for the ideas guys... keep em coming!

The Pillars of The Earth by Ken Follet

it's about 700 pages long and spans about 200 years by telling the story of a family and it's various members. Really compelling.

CJ Sansom "Winter In Madrid" was brilliant, about the Spanish Civil War.

Also I really loved the series by Cynthia Harrod_Eagles, all about the Morland dynasty through the ages. It wss a fictional novel set against real events, I thought they were un-putdownable!!!!

ladymariner, do you need to start at volume 1? or can you read them in any order?

I was going to recommend the Morland books! You don't need to start at book one but it helps. The first few are fairly self contained as each book covers roughly a generation of the family - I think she was commissioned to do 12 books or something from medieval times to the present day and the series is now up to number 30 or so and still going, so each book now only covers a couple of years - she is up to the first world war which has taken three books so far.

Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle.

Follows a set of characters, fictional and real (Newton, Liebniz, Churchill, etc) around the late 1600's, and the beginnings of the modern world.

I've banged on about it before on here but it's great & I love it. Start with Quicksilver.

Anya Seton - Katherine, and she wrote others as well, I think.

Norah Lofts wrote some interesting historical novels, iirc.

as did Georgette Heyer (as well as her more famous romances)

MM Kaye - "The Far Pavilions" and my personal fave, "Shadow of the Moon" set in India at the time of the 1857 mutiny. Plenty of brilliant historical info but with sweeping romantic storylines. Not naff. Comfort reading.

Ah yes, Nighbynight - another vote for Anya Seton's 'Katherine'. I've re-read it so many times; it's great.

The 'Daughter of Time' by Josephine Tey is also a cracking read - it's set in the 60s (I think) but is about a 'modern-day' policeman investigating the Princes in the Tower case.

Thanks ladyglencorra, my computer threw a wobbly and wouldn't let me back on it for a while!!!!

I read them in order, and tbh, I would recommend that you do. The one set around the Battle of Waterloo had me up till 3am as I just couldn't put it down. I had tears streaming down my face!!

Imperium by Robert Harris is brilliant, if ancient Rome's not too far back.

Restoration by Rose Tremain
Music ans Silence by Margaret Atwood

name of the rose

anything by Sharon Penman. I particularly enjoyed Here Be Dragons.