Historical Fiction Books

Hate. Vengeance. She will be Queen. Whatever it takes... Daughter of an ousted king.Descendant of powerful druids. Destined to take her place in history. As a child, Gruoch s grandmother prophecies that she will one day be Queen o…

One extraordinary woman. One hundred years of history. One unforgettable story. Violeta comes into the world on a stormy day in 1920, the first daughter in a family of five boisterous sons. From the start, her life is marked by ex…

LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2022 In 1822, a stage is set: Englishman Junius Booth - celebrated Shakespearean actor and man of mesmerising charm and instability - moves to a remote cabin outside Baltimore with his wife, who bea…

Ellis Spender, only son of a once-esteemed society family, believes money, success and the high life are his birthright -- only prevented by a cruel trick of fate.Struggling to stay ahead of his creditors, the dejected writer deci…

A haunting Victorian ghost story of love, loss and the mystery of death from the bestselling author of THE THIRTEENTH TALE. As a boy, William Bellman commits one small cruel act that appears to have unforeseen and terrible consequ…

The No.1 Sunday Times bestseller from the author of A LITTLE LIFE To Paradise is a bold, brilliant novel spanning three centuries and three different versions of the elusive idea of utopia; driven by Yanagihara's understanding of …

Eleven-year-old Anna O'Donnell stops eating, but remains miraculously alive and well. A nurse, sent to investigate whether she is a fraud, meets a journalist hungry for a story Set in the Irish Midlands in the 1850s, Emma Donoghue…

Ray Carney was only slightly bent when it came to being crooked...' To his customers and neighbors on 125th street, Carney is an upstanding salesman of reasonably-priced furniture, making a life for himself and his family. He and …

1628. Embarking on a journey in search of her father, a young girl called Mayken boards the Batavia, the most impressive sea vessel of the age. During the long voyage, this curious and resourceful child must find her place in the …

Even when you come out of bloodshed and disaster in the end you have got to learn to live. Winona is a young Lakota orphan adopted by former soldiers Thomas McNulty and John Cole. Living with Thomas and John on the farm they work …

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2022 SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2021 THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER TIME MAGAZINE BOOK OF THE YEAR From her days as a wild child in prohibition America to the blitz and glitz of w…

The epic new novel from the bestselling author of Birdsong'Wistful, yearning and wise' Elizabeth Day1914: Aspiring journalist Anton arrives in Vienna where he meets Delphine, a woman of deep secrets. Anton is entranced by the ligh…

LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2022 Moving away from their lovely apartment in Munich isn't nearly as wrenching an experience for Frau Greta Hahn as she had feared. Their new home is even lovelier than the one they l…

Frances Howard has beauty and a powerful family - and is the most unhappy creature in the world.Anne Turner has wit and talent - but no stage on which to display them. Little stands between her and the abyss of destitution.When th…

A fine, lyrical novel, impressive in its complex interweaving of the grand and the intimate, of the personal and political' ObserverLandry and Prentiss are two brothers born into slavery, finally freed as the American Civil War dr…

Loodeen Winders - Lewy, six years of age - is growing up sharp. It's the turbulent early 1920s in a market town in the west of Ireland. Free State soldiers patrol in front of the Workhouse. Lewy's worried about his father's car be…

She walks unseen through our world. Cares for our children, cleans our homes.Her voice unheard. Will you listen to her story? Nisha has crossed oceans to give her child a future. By day she cares for Petra's daughter; at night she…

By 1535 Thomas Cromwell is Chief Minister to Henry VIII, his fortunes having risen with those of Anne Boleyn, the king's new wife. But Anne has failed to give the king an heir, and Cromwell watches as Henry falls for plain Jane Se…

Longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction Annie, Francie and Archie were inseparable growing up, but in 1914 the boys are seduced by the drama of the Great War. Before leaving their small Irish village for the t…

In the year of our Lord 1894, I became an outlaw. On the day of her wedding-dance, Ada feels lucky. She loves her broad-shouldered, bashful husband and her job as an apprentice midwife.But her luck will not last. It is every woma…

The case is unexceptional, that is what I know. A house full of stuff left behind by a dead woman, abandoned at the last . .When trauma cleaner Essie Pound makes a gruesome discovery in the derelict Edinburgh boarding house she is…

BY THE AUTHOR OF STONER. Will Andrews is no academic. He longs for wildness, freedom, hope and vigour. He leaves Harvard and sets out for the West to discover a new way of living.In a small town called Butcher's Crossing he meets …

The Sunday Times Bestseller and BBC Radio 2 Book Club Pick 2020 'Chilling and page-turning' - The Times 'Dark, dramatic and full of danger' - Daily Mail 'Gripping' - Madeline Miller 'Took my breath away' - Tracy Chevalier The sto…

Set in a thinly disguised sixteenth-century England, Megan Campisi's The Sin Eater is a wonderfully rich story of treason and treachery; of women, of power, and the strange freedom that comes from being an outcast - because, somet…

Alfa and Mademba are two of the many Senegalese soldiers fighting in the Great War. Together they climb dutifully out of their trenches to attack France's German enemies whenever the whistle blows, until Mademba is wounded, and di…

Olga is an orphan raised by her grandmother in a Prussian village around the turn of the 20th century. Smart and precocious, she fights against the prejudices of the time to find her place in a world that sees her as second-best. …

Discover the unforgettable finale to Ali Smith's dazzling literary tour-de-force. In the present, Sacha knows the world's in trouble. Her brother Robert just is trouble. Their mother and father are having trouble.Meanwhile the wor…

A LOVE THAT DRAWS THEM TOGETHER. A LOSS THAT THREATENS TO TEAR THEM APART. On a summer's day in 1596, a young girl in Stratford-upon-Avon takes to her bed with a sudden fever.Her twin brother, Hamnet, searches everywhere for help.…

An impossible murder. A remarkable detective duo. A demon who may or may not exist. It's 1634 and Samuel Pipps, the world's greatest detective, is being transported from the Dutch East Indies to Amsterdam, where he is facing trial…

c.1000 AD: Erik the Red's daughter heads south from Greenland1492: Christopher Columbus does not discover America1531: the Incas invade EuropeCivilisations is the world as we don't know it: set at different points in history it li…