Historical fiction helps us to make connections between the past and present. It gives us insight into the minds of people from the past and instigates a live, emotional connection that captivates us for hours. No matter what period they’re set in, we’re traveling through time.
Historical Fiction books don’t read like the rest. It’s a gripping account of the world through another person’s eyes; events we already learned about through the perspective of someone long gone.
There are hundreds of thousands of historical fiction books, but for the sake of making a feasible list, we shortened it to ten of the best historical fiction books you need to read.
What is Historical Fiction?
Before we get to our favorite reads, let’s dive into what historical fiction is all about.
So, what is the definition of historical fiction? You guessed it: a book that takes place in the past. To be more specific, historical fiction books tend to take place at least 30 years in the past.
On the more recent side, it’s likely that the author has lived through the event and is truly giving you a firsthand experience. For books that are set hundreds of years back, the concept evolves from a lot of research.
When people see the phrase “historical book,” flashbacks of textbooks run through their minds. The truth is, there’s a lot of romance, fantasy, mystery, and thrill in historical fiction.
For the list ahead, there is no particular order (we love them all). Each book description is from Amazon.
10 of the Best Historical Fiction Books
- The Stolen Letter by Clara Benson
Time Period and Setting: 1938, (World War II) Italy.
Description: The longer her imprisonment went on, the more she cast her mind back to the stolen hours they had spent together. His love had blown in like an unexpected breath of warm summer air, giving her the promise of life and joy. But now they had been torn apart and she was tormented by the thought that they might never be reunited. When Stella arrives in Florence, it’s love at first sight. She is wowed by the rolling hills dotted with olive trees, the buttermilk villas with shuttered windows, and terracotta roofs that glow gloriously in the sunlight. Even the breeze holds the scent of freedom – freedom from England, where the shadow of her past haunted her.
- The Dressmaker’s Gift by Fiona Valpy
Time Period and Setting: 1940, France.
Description: Paris, 1940. With the city occupied by the Nazis, three young seamstresses go about their normal lives as best they can. But all three are hiding secrets. War-scarred Mireille is fighting with the Resistance, Claire has been seduced by a German officer, and Vivienne’s involvement is something she can’t reveal to either of them.
- The Tuscan Child by Rhys Bowen
Time Period and Setting: 1944, Tuscany.
Description: In 1944, British bomber pilot Hugo Langley parachuted from his stricken plane into the verdant fields of German-occupied Tuscany. Badly wounded, he found refuge in a ruined monastery and in the arms of Sofia Bartoli. But the love that kindled between them was shaken by an irreversible betrayal.
- Bloodlines: A Dying Truth Exposed, Book One by Marcus Abston
Time Period and Setting: 1800s, Mississippi.
Description: Annabelle was a slave born on a cotton plantation in Mississippi and raised as a house servant thanks to the plantation master’s daughters having a fondness for her. The youngest daughter protects her as best she can from the wrath of the cruel master and his wife, but then marries and leaves the plantation. Unable to bear the master’s heinous acts against her any longer, the teenage slave girl escapes north to be free. But is anywhere really safe for a runaway slave girl in the 1800s? Her journey is only the beginning of a legacy.
- Where the Crawdads Sing by Julia Owens
Time Period and Setting: North Carolina, 1969.
Description: Where the Crawdads Sing is at once an exquisite ode to the natural world, a heartbreaking coming-of-age story, and a surprising tale of possible murder. Owens reminds us that we are forever shaped by the children we once were and that we are all subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps.
- The Far Journey: A Timeslip Novel of Survival on the Oregon Trail by Tom Reppert
Time Period and Setting: Oregon, 1848.
Description: Young, sharp-tongued Paula Masters, used to her cell phones, cherry lattes, and designer jeans, suddenly find herself thrust back in time to 1848 and the Oregon Trail. In modern life, she rebels against the curfews and restrictions of her day, seeing them as unfair hardships. But now in this alien world with its buffalo stampedes, wild Indians, and deadly pestilence, she is about to find out what real hardships are. To get home, she must set aside her Rude Girl persona and learn how to survive.
- The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
Time Period and Setting: Ancient Greece, 1200 B.C.
Description: A tale of gods, kings, immortal fame, and the human heart, The Song of Achilles is a dazzling literary feat that brilliantly reimagines Homer’s enduring masterwork, The Iliad. An action-packed adventure, an epic love story, a marvelously conceived and executed page-turner.
- The Star and the Shamrock by Jean Grainger
Time Period and Setting: Berlin, 1939.
Description: When her husband doesn’t come home one day, Ariella realizes that the only way she can ensure her Jewish children’s safety is to avail of the Kindertransport, but can she bear to let them go? A thousand miles away, Elizabeth Klein has closed herself off from the world. Losing her husband on the last day of the Great War, and her child months later, she cannot, will not, love again. It hurts too much.
But she is all Liesl and Erich Bannon has. Thrown together in the wild countryside of Northern Ireland, Elizabeth and the Bannon children discover that life in the country is anything but tranquil. Danger and intrigue lurk everywhere, and some people are not what they seem.
- West with Giraffes: A Novel by Lynda Rutledge
Time Period and Setting: Southern California, 1938.
Description: It’s 1938. The Great Depression lingers. Hitler is threatening Europe, and world-weary Americans long for wonder. They find it in two giraffes who miraculously survive a hurricane while crossing the Atlantic. What follows is a twelve-day road trip in a custom truck to deliver Southern California’s first giraffes to the San Diego Zoo. Behind the wheel is the young Dust Bowl rowdy Woodrow. Inspired by true events, the tale weaves real-life figures with fictional ones, including the world’s first female zoo director, a crusty old man with a past, a young female photographer with a secret, and assorted reprobates as spotty as the giraffes.
- The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
Time Period and Setting: Georgia, 1619.
Description: As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the terrors of the antebellum era, he weaves in the saga of our nation, from the brutal abduction of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is both the gripping tale of one woman’s will to escape the horrors of bondage—and a powerful meditation on the history we all share.
