Favorite Historical Fiction
Explore our curated list of favorite historical fiction books that transport you to different eras. Discover timeless classics and hidden gems for your next captivating read.
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Island of Ghosts
by Gillian Bradshaw
Ariantes is a Sarmatian, a barbarian warrior-prince, uprooted from his home and customs and thrust into the honorless lands of the Romans. The victims of a wartime pact struck with the emperor Marcus Aurelius to ensure the future of Sarmatia, Ariantes and his troop of accomplished horsemen are sent to Hadrian's Wall. Unsurprisingly, the Sarmatians hate Britain--an Island of Ghosts, filled with pale faces, stone walls, and an uneasy past. Struggling to command his own people to defend a land they despise, Ariantes is accepted by all, but trusted by none. The Romans fear his barbarian background, and his own men fear his gradual Roman assimilation. When Ariantes uncovers a conspiracy sure to damage both his Roman benefactors and his beloved countrymen, as well as put him and the woman he loves in grave danger, he must make a difficult decision--one that will change his own life forever.
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Dark North
by Gillian Bradshaw
Roman Britain, 208 AD - Emperor Septimius Severus has arrived in Britain to conquer the barbarians in the north of the island. Memnon, an African scout, comes to Britain with his cavalry unit. When he saves the life of a beautiful young attendant of the Empress, he becomes aware of tensions within the imperial house. The bitter war tests them all to the limit, and if any of them are to survive, it can only be through their friendship.
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The Sun's Bride
by Gillian Bradshaw
When Isokrates encounters a pirate vessel off the Lycian coast, he finds himself caught up in deadly affairs of state. Among the pirates' victims is a beautiful woman who is fleeing to her lover's enemy with news that will start a war to engulf the whole of the east.
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Guinevere
by Persia Woolley
Surrounded by traitors, trapped by destiny, Britain's spirited Queen Guinevere recounts the last, dramatic years of Camelot.
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Child of the Northern Spring
by Persia Woolley
First of a trilogy : The arthurian legend told by Guinevere.
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The Eagle
by Jack Whyte
Arthur, his queen Guinevere, and Lancelot share a vision of uniting all the peoples of Britain, but the dark forces that oppose them and the growing love between Lancelot and Guinevere could destroy everything that they have been working toward.
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The Singing Sword
by Jack Whyte
A fictional portrait of King Arthur's great-grandfather, Publius Varius, and his wife, Luceiia, follows their desperate struggle to protect their land from the barbarian hordes threatening to overrun the last remnants of Roman civilization in Britain.
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The Sorcerer: Metamorphosis
by Jack Whyte
Merlyn finally realizes his quest and, after Arthur successfully withdraws the Sword of Kingship from the stone, presents him as the rightful High King of Britain.
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The Fort at River's Bend
by Jack Whyte
Young Arthur trains with a wooden sword in preparation for the day when with the help of the magic sword, Excalibur, he will rule over a united Britain. The trainer is his uncle, Merlyn Britannicus, and he also teaches him justice, honor and the responsibility of leadership.
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The Skystone
by Jack Whyte
Everyone knows the story-how Arthur pulled the sword from the stone, how Camelot came to be, and about the power struggles that ultimately destroyed Arthur's dreams. But what of the time before Arthur and the forces that created him? How did the legend really come to pass? Before the time of Arthur and his Camelot, Britain was a dark and deadly place, savaged by warring factions of Picts, Celts, and invading Saxons. The Roman citizens who had lived there for generations were suddenly faced with a deadly choice: Should they leave and take up residence in a corrupt Roman world that was utterly foreign, or should they stay and face the madness that would ensue when Britain's last bastion of safety for the civilized, the Roman legions, left? For two Romans, Publius Varrus and his friend Caius Britannicus, there can be only one answer. They will stay, to preserve what is best of Roman life, and will create a new culture out of the wreckage. In doing so, they will unknowingly plant the seeds of legend-for these two men are Arthur's great-grandfathers, and their actions will shape a nation . . . and forge a sword known as Excalibur.
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The Eagles' Brood
by Jack Whyte
Caius Merlyn Britannicus, an heir of Roman colonists, has the responsibility of protecting Camulod and spreading Roman Civilization, and at first, his cousin Uther Pendragon helps him.
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Cleopatra's Heir
by Gillian Bradshaw
Caesar and Cleopatra--together they could have forged an empire the likes of which had never been seen before. Tragically, it was not meant to be ... but what of the son that came of their passion? Bradshaw gives readers an answer in "Cleopatra's Heir." The power and might of Rome in all her glory meets the splendor of ancient Egypt with the story of Caesarion, the son of Julius Caesar and Cleopatra.
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The Sand-Reckoner
by Gillian Bradshaw
The young scholar Archimedes has just had the best three years of his life at Ptolemy's Museum at Alexandria. To be able to talk and think all day, every day, sharing ideas and information with the world's greatest minds, is heaven to Archimedes. But heaven must be forsaken when he learns that his father is ailing, and his home city of Syracuse is at war with the Romans. Reluctant but resigned, Archimedes takes himself home to find a job building catapults as a royal engineer. Though Syracuse is no Alexandria, Archimedes also finds that life at home isn't as boring or confining as he originally thought. He finds fame and loss, love and war, wealth and betrayal-none of which affects him nearly as much as the divine beauty of mathematics.
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The Wolf Hunt
by Gillian Bradshaw
When Marie Penthieve of Chalendrey is abducted from her Norman priory and taken to Brittany's court, she vows never to dishonor her family's ties by marrying a Breton brute. There is only one who might change her mind - noble Tiarnan of Talensac.
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The Beacon at Alexandria
by Gillian Bradshaw
In the Fourth Century A.D., independent and determined young Charis is forbidden to become a doctor because she is a woman. Disguising herself as a eunuch she flees Ephesus for Alexandria, then the center of learning. There she apprentices to a Jewish doctor but eventually becomes drawn into Church politics and is forced once again to flee. She serves as an army doctor at a Roman outpost in Thrace until, kidnapped by barbarian Visigoths, she finds her destiny to heal and also to be a woman and a wife.
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Render Unto Caesar
by Gillian Bradshaw
Hermogenes is a young Greek from Alexandria, heir to a noble and vibrant society. This is his story--a tale of blood, madness, and how one man will brave the might of Rome to satisfy a debt of honor.
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Alchemy of Fire
by Gillian Bradshaw
Constantinople, 672 ad. Ex-concubine Anna is attempting to raise her daughter well, but as an Arab invasion threatens and Kallinikos an alchemist working on a secret weapon to use in the seige comes into their lives, a secret about her daughter is forced into the open. Anna must accept huge upheaval, and recognize her feelings for Kallinikos . . .
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The Da Vinci Code
by Dan Brown
Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon and French cryptologist Sophie Neveu work to solve the murder of an elderly curator of the Louvre, a case which leads to clues hidden in the works of Da Vinci and a centuries-old secret society.
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Angels & Demons
by Dan Brown
The explosive Robert Langdon thriller from Dan Brown, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Da Vinci Code and Inferno—now a major film directed by Ron Howard and starring Tom Hanks and Felicity Jones. Angels & Demons careens from enlightening epiphanies to dark truths as the battle between science and religion turns to war. This is the book that started it all: we meet Robert Langdon for the first time, caught up in a race against time to find an apocalyptic time-bomb, planted by an ancient secret society that has surfaced to carry out its ultimate threat: to destroy the Vatican.
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The Merlin Trilogy
by Mary Stewart
The Arthurian legend is one of the most enduring and powerful of myths, and Mary Stewart's classic The Merlin Trilogy is one of its most beloved and acclaimed retellings. In prose that is as vividly, achingly real as it is poetic, New York Times bestselling author Mary Stewart brings to life the man behind the myth: Myrddin Emrys ... Merlinus Ambrosius ... Merlin. The Crystal Cave The Hollow Hills The Last Enchantment Born the bastard son of a Welsh princess, Myrddin Emrys -- or, as he would later be known, Merlin -- leads a perilous childhood in The Crystal Cave, haunted by portents and visions. But destiny has great plans for this no-man's-son, taking him from prophesying before the High King Vortigern to the crowning of UtherPendragon ... and the conception of Arthur -- king for once and always. Keeping watch over the young Arthur Pendragon in The Hollow Hills, the prince and prophet Merlin Ambrosius is haunted by dreams of the magical sword Caliburn, hidden for centuries. When Uther Pendragon is killed in battle, the time of destiny is at hand, and Arthur must claim the fabled sword to become the true High King of Britain. In The Last Enchantment, Arthur Pendragon is king at last. Unchallenged on the battlefield, he melds the country together in a time of promise as Merlin works to keep safe the once and future king. But sinister powers plot to destroy Camelot, and when the witch-queen Morgause -- Arthur's own half sister -- ensnares him in an incestuous liaison, a fatal web of love, betrayal, and bloody vengeance is woven. Extensively researched and beautifully written, The Merlin Trilogy is the epic culmination of an acclaimed career, a legend in and of itself.