Historical Fiction by Black or Indigenous Authors

Participating in Books & Bites Bingo? Here are some suggestions for the prompt, historical fiction by a Black or Indigenous author.

Updated August 19, 2024
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Can't we be friends : a novel of Ella Fitzgerald and Marilyn Monroe
Bryce, Denny S.
Paper Book
Award-winning author Denny S. Bryce and USA Today bestselling author Eliza Knight collaborate on a brilliant novel that uncovers the boundary-breaking, genuine friendship between Ella Fitzgerald, the Queen of Jazz, and iconic movie star Marilyn Monroe.  One woman was...
Even as we breathe : a novel
Clapsaddle, Annette Saunooke
Paper Book
Nineteen-year-old Cowney Sequoyah yearns to escape his hometown of Cherokee, North Carolina, in the heart of the Smoky Mountains. When a summer job at Asheville's luxurious Grove Park Inn and Resort brings him one step closer to escaping the hills that both cradle and suffocate him, he sees it as...
The mayor of Maxwell Street
Cunningham, Avery
Paper Book
'The year is 1921, and America is burning. A fire of vice and virtue rages on every shore with Chicago at its beating heart.' Twenty-year-old Nelly Sawyer is the daughter of the alleged 'wealthiest Negro in America,' whose wealth catapulted his family to the heights of Black society. After the...
Into the bright open : a Secret garden remix
Dimaline, Cherie
Paper Book
In the Remixed Classics series, authors from marginalized backgrounds reinterpret classic works through their own cultural lens to subvert the overwhelming cishet, white, and male canon. This queer YA reimagining of The Secret Garden subverts the cishet and white status quo of the...
The night watchman : a novel
Erdrich, Louise
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE 2021 PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER WASHINGTON POST, NPR, CBS SUNDAY MORNING, KIRKUS, CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY, AND GOOD HOUSEKEEPING BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR Based on the extraordinary life of National Book Award-winning author Louise Erdrich's...
James : a novel
Everett, Percival
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER * ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR * SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE * KIRKUS PRIZE WINNER * A brilliant, action-packed reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both...
Coleman Hill : a novel
Foote, Kim Coleman
Paper Book
Longlisted for the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction * Longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize * Shortlisted for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Debut Author A Washington Post Noteworthy Book for September * A Good Morning America...
Life and other love songs
Gray, Anissa
Paper Book
"Musical in structure--the octaves rise when the music calls for it; truths are revealed by the invisible beats of this gorgeous, rich story" -Ann Napolitano, New York Times bestselling author of Hello Beautiful (Oprah's Book Club Pick) "Riveting, rhythmic, transcendent...
The house of Eve : a novel
Johnson, Sadeqa
Paper Book
"Amazing...I was completely surprised by the ending of this beautifully told and written book." --Reese Witherspoon "A triumph of historical fiction" (The Washington Post), an instant New York Times bestseller, and a Reese's Book Club pick, set in 1950s...
Flipping boxcars : a novel
Kyles, Cedric
Paper Book
The first novel from one of the original Kings of Comedy, Cedric "The Entertainer," an engaging and entertaining crime caper that is a valentine to close-knit black families and tightly woven communities struggling to get by during the Depression and World War II. Babe is a charismatic and...
All we were promised : a novel
Lattimore, Ashton
Paper Book
A housemaid with a dangerous family secret conspires with a wealthy young abolitionist to help an enslaved girl escape, in volatile pre-Civil War Philadelphia--"a gripping novel about standing up to impossible odds" (People, Best New Books) The rebel . . . the...
Lone women : a novel
LaValle, Victor
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * Blue skies, empty land--and enough wide-open space to hide a horrifying secret. A woman with a past, a mysterious trunk, a town on the edge of nowhere, and an "absorbing, powerful" (BuzzFeed) new vision of the American West, from the award-winning author of...
The unsettled
Mathis, Ayana
Paper Book
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK * A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR *  From the best-selling author of The Twelve Tribes of Hattie, a searing multi-generational novel--set in the 1980s in racially and politically turbulent Philadelphia and in the tiny town of Bonaparte, Alabama--about...
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
McBride, James
Paper Book
In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the...
Moonrise over New Jessup : a novel
Minnicks, Jamila
Paper Book
Winner of the 2021 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction, an enchanting and thought-provoking debut about a Black woman doing whatever it takes to protect all she loves on Alabama soil. It's 1957, and after leaving the only home she has ever known, Alice Young steps off the bus into all...
Double lives
Monroe, Mary
Paper Book
Since childhood, identical twins Leona and Fiona Dunbar have been getting in - and out - of trouble by pretending to be each other. Yet underneath, they couldn't be more different. Outspoken Leona lives to break rules, have a good time, and scandalize their respectable hometown of Lexington. Fiona...
Wandering stars
Orange, Tommy
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE * A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK * A TIME MUST-READ BOOK OF THE YEAR * The Pulitzer Prize-finalist and author of the breakout bestseller There There ("Pure soaring beauty."The New York...
Ella : a novel
Richards, Diane
Paper Book
In the vein of The Paris Wife and The Personal Librarian comes this debut novel, a magnificent work of "biographical fiction" that reimagines the turbulent and triumphant early years of Ella Fitzgerald, arguably the greatest singer of the twentieth century. When fifteen-year...
The American daughters : a novel
Ruffin, Maurice Carlos
Paper Book
"An enthralling tale of a secret resistance movement run by Black women in pre-Civil War New Orleans."--Time "Stirring . . . In telling this important, neglected history with imagination-fueled research, The American Daughters offers an inspiring story of people...
Women of the post
Sanders, Joshunda
Paper Book
  "What a beautifully imagined and important narrative. Sanders' clear-eyed and powerful writing made this a hard one to stop reading!" --Jacqueline Woodson, National Book Award-Winning Author "This is a novel to cherish and share. And this is a...
The queen of Sugar Hill : a novel of Hattie McDaniel
Tate, ReShonda
Paper Book
As seen on The TODAY Show! Bestselling author ReShonda Tate presents a fascinating fictional portrait of Hattie McDaniel, one of Hollywood's most prolific but woefully underappreciated stars--and the first Black person ever to win an Oscar for her role as Mammy in the...
Cherokee America
Verble, Margaret
Paper Book
It's the early spring of 1875 in the Cherokee Nation West. A baby, a black hired hand, a bay horse, a gun, a gold stash, and a preacher have all gone missing. Cherokee America Singer, known as "Check" -- a wealthy farmer, mother of five boys, and soon-to-be widow -- is not amused. The tension mounts...
When Two Feathers fell from the sky
Verble, Margaret
Paper Book
Louise Erdrich meets Karen Russell in this deliciously strange and daringly original novel from Pulitzer Prize finalist Margaret Verble: set in 1926 Nashville, it follows a death-defying young Cherokee horse-diver who, with her companions from the Glendale Park Zoo, must get to the bottom of a...
Let us descend : a novel
Ward, Jesmyn
Paper Book
OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK * Instant New York Times Bestseller * Named one of the best books of 2023 by The Washington Post, Vanity Fair, The Boston Globe, Time, The New Yorker, and more. "Nothing short of epic,...
Ours
Williams, Phillip B.
Paper Book
Chosen as a Most Anticipated Book of 2024 by Oprah's Book Club, Elle, Reader's Digest, The Rumpus, Kirkus Reviews, The Millions, Lit Hub, and more "An inventive ode to self-determination and also a surrealistic vision of Black life as...

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