5th Century Historic Fiction
Explore the best 5th century historic fiction books! Dive into captivating tales of ancient worlds, legendary battles, and forgotten empires in this curated list of top historical novels.
Book
Gudrun's Tapestry
by Joan Schweighardt
Gudrun?s Tapestry is a powerful, enchanting and vivid tale of one woman?s quest to eliminate Fifth Century Europe?s greatest threat: Attila and his Huns. Along the way Gudrun unexpectedly discovers the capacity to love a man who may be a mortal enemy. In finally confronting her true self, she finds that she must embark on an inner journey to cope with adversity in the outer world. Grounded in history and loosely based on the Poetic Edda, Gudrun?s Tapestry takes the reader on a quest of self-discovery in a tale of magic and courage that resonates through the centuries to touch the reader?s heart and soul.
Book
Threshold of Fire
by Hella S. Haasse
In this vivid, dynamic novel, Hella Haasse has once more brought the past to life. This time she has chosen to illuminate a crucial, yet relatively obscure period of history: it is 414 A.D. and the once-powerful Roman Empire is in its death throes—split between East and West, menaced by barbarian hordes almost literally at its gates. The Emperor Honorius, an incompetent weakling, cowers in the marsh-bound city of Ravenna, where he has moved the government; he rarely "makes entry" into Rome. This is the brilliant canvas against which the characters in this drama interact. There is the Prefect Hadrian, a powerful official and fanatical Christian convert; there is Marcus Anicius, the pagan aristocrat who is clinging to a dying past, and there is the Jew Eliezar be Elijah, hemmed in by his own traditions and burdened by his dark vision of the future. There is the intrigue and uncertainty of life at Honorius's court, and there are the streets and tenements of Rome, pulsating with life and with corruption.
Book
The Winter King
by Bernard Cornwell
It takes a remarkable writer to make an old story as fresh and compelling as the first time we heard it. With The Winter King, the first volume of his magnificent Warlord Chronicles, Bernard Cornwell finally turns to the story he was born to write: the mythic saga of King Arthur. The tale begins in Dark Age Britain, a land where Arthur has been banished and Merlin has disappeared, where a child-king sits unprotected on the throne, where religion vies with magic for the souls of the people. It is to this desperate land that Arthur returns, a man at once utterly human and truly heroic: a man of honor, loyalty, and amazing valor; a man who loves Guinevere more passionately than he should; a man whose life is at once tragic and triumphant. As Arthur fights to keep a flicker of civilization alive in a barbaric world, Bernard Cornwell makes a familiar tale into a legend all over again.
Book
Enemy of God
by Bernard Cornwell
Having achieved a fragile peace with the Saxons, Arthur turns his attention to more dangerous enemies, those who pose as friends.