Authors of Historical Fiction

General historical

Read Phillipa Gregory then try…

Ancient worlds

Read Steven Saylor then try…

War in Fiction

War inspires this collection of very human stories

• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Half of a yellow sun
  Three people swept up in the Nigerian Civil War
• Lyn Andrews Angels of mercy
  Nursing experience during the Great War
• David Baddiel Secret purposes
  Love, loss and survival during internment on the Isle of Man
• Pat Barker Regeneration Trilogy - Regeneration, Eye in the door, Ghost Road
  The insanity of war explored in this trilogy set in the Great War
• Sebastian Barry A long long way
  Irish soldier's conflict between the Great War and the Easter Rising
• William Boyd An ice cream war
  English brothers fighting in German East Africa during the Great War
• John Boyne Boy in the striped pyjamas
  Child's eye view of friendship forged across the wire of a concentration camp
• Frances Cottam Hamer's war
  More than a love story between a German soldier and a Polish POW
• Louis De Bernieres Captain Corelli's mandolin
  The complexities of love in war-time Cephalonia
• Helen Dunmore The siege
  Powerful story of the siege of Leningrad.
• Elizabeth Elgin Turn left at the daffodils
  Love in Yorkshire during World War 2
• Ben Elton The first casualty
  Murder and truth investigated in the Great War.
• Sebastian Faulks Birdsong
  Drama of love and trauma set around the Great War
• Sebastian Faulks Charlotte Gray
  Tale of love set against occupied France
• David Fiddimore Tuesday's war
  The feats and fears of the crew of the bomber 'Tuesday's Child'
• Ken Follett Jackdaws
  A daring plan to infiltrate a Gestapo base by "The Jackdaws"
• Alexander Fullerton Staying alive
  Tale of SOE espionage
• Gunter Grass Crabwalk
  Complex story exploring how the sinking of the Willem Gustloff reverberates through German generations
• Hilary Green Now is the hour
  Friendship, romance and courage of the Fairbourne Follies during World War 2
• Ha Jin War trash
  An American POW camp during the Korean War experienced by a young Chinese Officer.
• Robert Harris Enigma
  Tense mystery of the struggle to break the Nazi "Enigma Code"
• Sarah Harrison A flower that's free
  Kate's personal struggles echo those of the world during World War 2
• LilianH arry A song at twilight
  Family story of life caught up with the RAF during World War 2
• Ernest Hemingway Farewell to arms
  Classic description of war
• Ernest Hemingway For whom the bell tolls
  Love and tragedy during the Spanish Civil War
• Jack Higgins Valhalla exhange
  Mystery thriller of World War 2
• Susan Hill Strange meeting
  Friendship set against the horror of trench warfare.
• Khaled Hosseini The kite runner
  Boyhood friendship amid the political turmoil of Afghanistan
• Angela Huth The land girls
  Lives of three very different girls in the West Country in war time.
• Frances Itani Deafening
  Sound, silence and language
• SebastienJapriso A very long engagement
  Cowardice, execution and the search for truth
• M Mayhew Bluebirds
  The emotional tale of how four of the first WAAFs spent World War 2
• DeborahMoggach In the dark
  Passion, humour and humanity on the Home Front
• Michael Morpurgo Private Peaceful
  One night, one lifetime, one war
• Irene Nemirovsky Suite francaise
  A compelling account of occupied France.
• Mollie Panter-Downes Good evening Mrs Craven
  War-time stories of British domestic life.
• Anne Perry Angels in the gloom
  Great War, spies, betrayal and investigation
• Douglas Reeman Killing ground
  Story set during World War 2 "Battle of the Atlantic".
• E M Remarque All quiet on the Western Front
  Classic anti-war novel exposing the futility and horror of war.  
• Gerald Seymour Heart of danger
  A thriller which delves into war-crimes in Croatia
• Owen Sheers Resistance
  An alternative history.  Nazi occupied Wales, post 1944.
• AnitaShreve Resistance
  Sensitive description of Belgium war-time resistance
• A SpiegelmanThe complete Maus
  Graphic novel giving an in-depth and unique perspective of the Holocaust
• Jan Struther Mrs Miniver
  The Times column capturing everyday life during war-time Britain.
• Willian Styron Sophie's choice
  The legacy of destructive choice
• Kurt Vonnegut Slaughterhouse five
  Classic, controversial examination of war.
• Laura Wilson Little death
  Complex crime story arching through time, including the Great War
• Marcus ZusakThe book thief
  A stealer of books, a Jewish man and Nazi Germany - a heartbreaking combination - Death is the narrator.

Historical action,adventure and crime

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  Rory Clements "Traitor"

  Moving from the Catholic heartlands of Lancashire to a vagabond camp in the heart of England, and from the deck of Admiral Frobisher's flagship off the Brittany coast to the secret meetings of Elizabeth's closest associates, 'Traitor' is award-winning writer Rory Clements' most intriguing and compelling novel to date.

   

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  Jude Morgan "The Secret life of William Shakespeare"

  The story of how a glove-maker from Warwickshire became the greatest writer of them all. He is an ordinary man: unwilling craftsman, ambitious actor, resentful son, almost good-enough husband…and he is also a genius.

   

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  Regina O’Melveny "The Book of madness and cures"

  Gabriella Mondini is a rarity in 16th century Venice: a woman who practises medicine. When her father, also a doctor, disappears on a mysterious journey she is no longer permitted to treat her patients and is forced to defy all convention to cross Renaissance Europe and find where and why he has gone.

   

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  Giles Kristian "The Bleeding land"

  England 1642 and the rift between King and Parliament has widened. Armies muster, ready to fight for their religious and political ideals. Nothing is so destructive as civil war and for the Rivers family the raising of the Royal Standard heralds a conflict that threatens to tear them apart.

   

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  Jack Whyte "Rebel"

  In the pre-dawn hours of August 24 1305 the outlaw William Wallace waits to be executed. He is visited by a priest who has come to hear his last confession. Packed with action, heroism, and vibrant historical detail, this is the Braveheart story as never told before.

   

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  Robin Oliveira "My name is Mary Sutter"

  On the eve of the American Civil War Mary Sutter, a brilliant and headstrong midwife from New York, is dreaming of becoming a surgeon. Eager to escape the pains of a broken heart and a life in the shadow of her more beautiful twin sister, she travels to Washington to help tend the legions of Civil War wounded.

   

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  Cynthia Ozick "Foreign bodies"

  The collapse of her brief marriage has stalled Bea Nightingale's life. Leaving her impoverished borough in 1950s New York, Bea escapes from the stigma of her divorce when she answers a plea from her estranged brother. Now she has left for Paris, to retrieve a nephew she barely knew.

   

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  Sangeeta Bhargava "The World beyond"

  1855 Lucknow. As tensions simmer in the heat of colonial Lucknow, an English woman and an Indian prince defy their societies' prejudices to fall in love. But Rachel and Salim's world is about to be ripped apart; trouble begins when the British banish the king of Avadh and Salim is determined to recover what is rightfully his.

   

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  S J Parris "Sacrilege"

  Summer, 1584. The Protestant Prince William of Orange has been assassinated by a fanatical Catholic and there are whispers that Queen Elizabeth will be next. Fear haunts the streets of London and plague is driving citizens away. Giordano Bruno, philosopher and spy, chooses to remain and finds that someone is following him.

   

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  Imogen Robertson "Circle of shadows"

  Germany, 1784. Daniel Clode cannot say whether or not he killed the woman but what of the madness he feels, and how did she drown on dry land? Harriet Westerman knows Daniel is not a murderer; her sister would not have married such a man. She and the reclusive Gabriel Crowther must travel to save him from the axeman's steel.