Historical Fiction

A young noblewoman must join forces with a rumoured witch to conquer an ancient curse in this devilishly funny and heartwarming sapphic Regency romantasy from TikTok titan and bestselling author of Boyfriend Material Alexis Hall -…

The sequel to the critically acclaimed The Children of Gods and Fighting Men, The Words of Kings and Prophets is a powerful historical fantasy novel by Shauna Lawless, set in war-torn medieval Ireland. Power fades but fire endures…

Jamaica and Britain. Who gets to tell their story? In her first historical novel, Zadie Smith transports the reader to a Victorian England transfixed by the real-life trial of the Tichborne Claimant, in which a cockney butcher, re…

Re-imagines a story of gay men in London 200 years ago and under the pain of their betrayal and injustice, he uncovers loyalty and above all, love. By day, minister John Church preaches to a congregation of commonfolk in Southwark…

In 1903 Mary Mackenzie sails for China to marry the British Military Attache, a man who turns out to be every bit as chilly as the Peking Winter. During one of his many absences, Mary has an affair with a Japanese soldier, Count K…

With gorgeous prose, European glamour, and an expansive wanderlust, Christine Mangan's The Continental Affair is a fast-paced, Agatha Christie-esque caper packed full of romance and suspense. Meet Henri and Louise. Two strangers,…

Winner of the 1970 lost Man Booker prize 'A work of genius' GUARDIAN 'One of the finest novels of the past 50 years' MAIL ON SUNDAY 'Funny, sad and beautifully written; prescient, wise, original and unexpectedly eccentric' OBSERVE…

Nahr has been confined to the Cube: nine square metres of glossy grey cinderblock, devoid of time, its patterns of light and dark nothing to do with day and night. Journalists visit her, but get nowhere; because Nahr is not going …

On the evening of December 11, 1920, a production of The Gondoliers is in full swing at the Cork Opera House when word comes through that the Black and Tans and Auxiliaries are rampaging through the streets and setting b…

Morocco, 1968. The air is electric. Anything feels possible, and Mathilde is determined to celebrate it.Doesn't she have the right to enjoy life, after dedicating her best years to the war and then to this farm?Looking out at her …

1980s Cork. Jack Shine discovers a shoe box full of love letters in his mother's belongings. Rebekah came to Cork alone as a young Jewish refugee from Vienna when the Second World War broke out.She died soon after, and Jack never…

At the very centre of the life of one of the twentieth-century’s greatest artists was the most unexpected of life-long influences. The aptly named Jessie Lightfoot shielded the young Francis Bacon from the brutish violence of his …

11 July 1986. They meet by chance on a bus.She is a young student, he is older and married. Theirs is an intense and sudden attraction, fuelled by a shared passion for music and art, and heightened by the secrecy they must maintai…

Power. History. Love.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 prophesies that she wil…

Tartelin Brown is all alone in the world. So when she sees an advert for a job on a remote island, she knows she has nothing to lose. Her employer, Marianne Stourbridge, is a woman as strange and mysterious as the place she inhabi…

A modern classic work of Irish literature, this award-winning novel is an exploration of love, art and identity.  This was the night train to Barcelona, some hours before the dawn. This was 1950, late September.I had left my husba…

Set against a backdrop of 1950s New York, this experimental novel follows an ensemble cast of all-singing, all-dancing butch dykes and Yiddish anarchists through eternal Friday nights, around the table, and at the bar. In one of m…

An astounding debut, both epic and intimate, about grief, trauma, revelation, and the hidden lives of women - by a major new talent. In the year of 1413, two women meet for the first time in Norwich.Before they part, Julian will e…

South Korea, 1970. San is a lonely child, ostracised from her community. She soon finds a friend in a girl called Namae, until one afternoon changes everything.Following a moment of intimacy in a minari field, Namae violently reje…

Bestselling and award-winning Irish author, Nuala O’Connor's sixth novel is her most ambitious yet. In crisp, shimmering prose, she conjures a completely unexpected portrayal of Anne Bonny, giving us so much more than just the 18t…

Chinatown, New York.After a chance encounter with an old friend, Simon Hanlon, an Irish architect, experiences a seizure, his first in almost thirty years. Soon, they come to him daily. As he awaits a brain operation, Simon turns …

This is James Clavell's tour-de-force; an epic saga of one Pilot-Major John Blackthorne, and his integration into the struggles and strife of feudal Japan. Both entertaining and incisive, SHOGUN is a stunningly dramatic re-creatio…

Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water follows a family in southern India that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning - and in Kerala, water is everywhere.At the tu…

A deeply poetic account of love and resistance through a young girl’s eyes by acclaimed writer, Sahar Khalifeh, called "the Virginia Woolf of Palestinian literature” (Börsenblatt)Nidal, after many decades of restless exile, return…

Life and Fate is an epic tale of twentieth-century Russia told through the fate of a single family, the Shaposhnikovs, from the Sunday Times bestselling author of Stalingrad. As the battle of Stalingrad looms, Grossman's character…

In 1792, formerly enslaved Benjamin Honey and his Irish wife, Patience, discover an island where they can make a life together. More than a century later, the Honeys' descendants remain, with an eccentric, diverse band of neighbou…

When the Nazis take Rome, thousands go into hiding. One priest will risk everything to save them. September 1943: German forces occupy Rome.SS officer Paul Hauptmann rules with terror. An Irish priest, Hugh O'Flaherty, dedicates h…

Death in Spring is a dark and dream-like tale of a teenage boy's coming of age in a remote village in the Catalan mountains; a place cut off from the outside world, where cruel customs are blindly followed, and attempts at rebelli…

*Kazuo Ishiguro's new novel Klara and the Sun is now available* WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE BY THE NOBEL-PRIZE WINNING AUTHORONE OF THE BBC'S '100 NOVELS THAT SHAPED OUR WORLD' In the summer of 1956, Stevens, the ageing butler of …

After signing up for the US army in the 1850s, aged barely seventeen, Thomas McNulty and his brother-in-arms, John Cole, fight in the Indian Wars and the Civil War. Having both fled terrible hardships, their days are now vivid and…