Extraordinary Historical Fiction
Discover the best extraordinary historical fiction books that transport you to the past. Explore captivating tales of love, war, and adventure in our curated list of must-read novels.
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The Birth of Venus
by Sarah Dunant
Turning fifteen in Renaissance Florence, Alessandra Cecchi becomes intoxicated with the works of a young painter whom her father has brought to the city to …
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Poisonwood Bible
by Barbara Kingsolver
In 1959, Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist, takes his four young daughters, his wife, and his mission to the Belgian Congo -- a place, …
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The Twentieth Wife
by Indu Sundaresan
The story of Mehrunnisa, the daughter of servents who became the an empresses of the Mughal empire.
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The Love-artist
by Jane Alison
A darkly brilliant first novel that imagines a missing chapter in the life of Ovid, the most popular author of his day. Between the known …
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The Floating Book
by Michelle Lovric
Venice, 1468. Wendelin von Speyer has just arrived from Germany with the foundations of a cultural revolution: Gutenberg's movable type. Together with the young editor …
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The Egyptologist
by Arthur Phillips
From the bestselling author of Prague comes a witty, inventive, brilliantly constructed novel about an Egyptologist obsessed with finding the tomb of an apocryphal king. …
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Sarah
by Marek Halter
Sarah’s story begins in the cradle of civilization: the Sumerian city-state of Ur, a land of desert heat, towering gardens, and immense wealth. The daughter …
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Sappho's Leap
by Erica Jong
A novel of ancient Greece tells the story of the epic poet's journeys, loves, and losses.
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The Lady and the Unicorn
by Tracy Chevalier
Interweaves historical fact with fiction to explore the mystery behind the creation of the remarkable Lady and the Unicorn tapestries, woven at the end of …
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The Illuminator
by Brenda Rickman Vantrease
A richly detailed, irresistibly compelling, glorious story of love, art, religion, and treachery at an extraordinary turning point in history
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Year of Wonders
by Geraldine Brooks
"When an infected bolt of cloth carries plague from London to an isolated mountain village, a housemaid named Anna Frith emerges as an unlikely heroine …
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The Egyptian
by Mika Waltari
Set in Egypt, more than a thousand years before Christ, it encompasses all of the then-known world. It is told by Sinhue, physician to the …
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The Plague Tales
by Ann Benson
“Part historical novel, part futuristic adventure . . . chock full of curious lore and considerable suspense.”—Entertainment Weekly It is history's most feared disease. It …
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Doomsday Book
by Connie Willis
Connie Willis draws upon her understanding of the universalities of human nature to explore the ageless issues of evil, suffering, and the indomitable will of …
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I, Claudius
by Robert Graves
Considered an idiot because of his physical infirmities, Claudius survived the intrigues and poisonings of the reigns of Augustus, Tiberius, and the Mad Caligula to …
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The Physician
by Noah Gordon
Eleventh-century England and Persia are the backgrounds of this story of an orphan named Rob Cole, who is apprenticed to a travelling barber-surgeon and, discovering …