Historical Fiction About a Scientific Discovery

Updated April 27, 2026
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The signature of all things
Gilbert, Elizabeth
Paper Book
Elizabeth Gilbert's first novel in twelve years is an extraordinary story of botany, exploration and desire, spanning across 19th century. Set in the 19th century, The Signature of All Things follows the fortunes of the brilliant Alma Whittaker as she comes into her own within the world of plants...
Euphoria : a novel
King, Lily
Paper Book
A New York Times Bestseller Winner of the 2014 Kirkus Prize Winner of the 2014 New England Book Award for Fiction A Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award One of Kirkus Reviews's Best Books of the 21st Century (So Far) ...
The daughter of Doctor Moreau : a novel
Moreno-Garcia, Silvia
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * From the bestselling author of Mexican Gothic and Velvet Was the Night comes a lavish historical drama reimagining of The Island of Doctor Moreau set against the backdrop of nineteenth-century Mexico. "This is...
The fossil hunter
Cooper, Tea
Paper Book
A fossil discovered at London's Natural History Museum leads one woman back in time to nineteenth century Australia and a world of scientific discovery and dark secrets in this compelling historical mystery. The Hunter Valley 1847 The last thing Mellie Vale remembers before the fever takes her is...
When we cease to understand the world
Labatut, Benjamín
Paper Book
A Guardian and New Statesman book of the year, now in paperback - the fast-paced,mind-expanding literary work about scientific discovery and the unsettled distinctionbetween genius and madness. Shortlisted for the 2021 International Booker Prize.
The circus train
Parikh, Amita
Paper Book
When the nightingale sings
Kelman, Suzanne
Paper Book
1937, Europe and America. Based on a powerful true story, this extraordinary novel about wartime courage and extraordinary friendship, tells how two women changed the fate of the Second World War and the course of history. When an impossibly shy young woman named Judy Morgan finishes her...
The English chemist : the story of Rosalind Franklin: a novel
Mills, Jessica
Paper Book
The controversial story of one of the twentieth century's most famed scientists, Rosalind Franklin, who discovered the two-chain helical structure of DNA in 1952--but was then cheated out of the Nobel Prize. Rosalind Franklin knows that to be a woman in a man's world is to be...
An hour unspent
White, Roseanna M.
Paper Book
Once London's top thief, Barclay Pearce has turned his back on his life of crime and now uses his skills for a nation at war. But not until he rescues a clockmaker's daughter from a mugging does he begin to wonder what his future might hold. Evelina Manning has constantly fought for...
Vanished in the Crowd: A Molly Murphy Mystery
Bowen, Rhys
Paper Book
In the latest in the New York Times bestselling series from Rhys Bowen and Clare Broyles, retired detective Molly Murphy Sullivan investigates the disappearance of a female scientist New York is busier than ever as two million visitors come to the city to witness the...
Picks & shovels
Doctorow, Cory
Paper Book
THE YEAR IS 1986. THE CITY IS SAN FRANCISCO. Here, Martin Hench will reinvent the forensic accountant for the digital age - what a bounty hunter is to people, he will be to tech money - but for now he's an MIT dropout odd-jobbing his way around a city still reeling from the...
Outside looking in : a novel
Boyle, T. Coraghessan
Paper Book
One family's adventures in LSD: the brilliantly strange new novel from the mind of 'one of the most inventive, adventurous and accomplished fiction writers in the US today' (Lionel Shriver)Chosen as a Book of the Year 2019 by the HeraldIt is Harvard in the early 1960s. Just off...
Us conductors : in which I seek the heart of Clara Rockmore, my one true love, finest theremin player the world will ever know
Michaels, Sean
Paper Book
Locked in a cabin aboard a ship bearing him back to Russia and away from the love of his life, Lev Sergeyvich Termen begins to type his story: a tale of electricity, romance and the invention of the world's strangest instrument, the theremin. He recollects his early years as a scientist forging...
The last days of night
Moore, Graham
Paper Book
New York, 1888. The miracle of electric light is in its infancy, and a young untested lawyer named Paul Cravath, fresh out of Columbia Law School, takes a case that seems impossible to win. Paul’s client, George Westinghouse, has been sued by Thomas Edison over a billion-dollar question: Who...
Pushkin's button
Vitale, Serena.
Paper Book
From the author of A Place of Greater Safety, winner of the 1992 Sunday Express Book of The Year Award, this new title is based on the true story of the 18th Century Irish giant, Charles O'Brien, who was exhibited in London and eventually dissected by the surgeon John Hunter. O'Brien's...
A bend in the stars
Barenbaum, Rachel
Paper Book
All the Light We Cannot See meets The Nightingale in this literary WWI-era novel and epic love story of a brilliant young doctor who races against Einstein to solve one of the universe's great mysteries. In Russia, in the summer of 1914,...
Everyone knows your mother is a witch
Galchen, Rivka
Paper Book
'Riveting' Margaret Atwood 'I loved this book intensely' Lauren Groff Guardian The startling, witty, highly anticipated second novel from the critically acclaimed author of Atmospheric Disturbances. The plague is spreading. The Thirty Years' War...
The confessions of Frannie Langton
Collins, Sara
Paper Book
All of London is abuzz with the scandalous case of Frannie Langton, accused of the brutal double murder of her employers, renowned scientist George Benham and his eccentric French wife, Marguerite. Crowds pack the courtroom, eagerly following every twist, while the newspapers print lurid theories...
Poor things : episodes from the early life of Archibald McCandless M.D., Scottish public health officer
Gray, Alasdair
Paper Book
WINNER OF FOUR ACADEMY AWARDS, FIVE BAFTAS, and TWO GOLDEN GLOBES. STARRING EMMA STONE, FROM THE DIRECTOR OF THE FAVOURITE Winner of the Whitbread Novel Award and the Guardian Fiction Prize A life without freedom to choose is...
Follow me to Africa : a novel
Haw, Penny
Paper Book
Historical fiction inspired by the story of Mary Leakey, who carved her own path to become one of the world's most distinguished paleoanthropologists. It's 1983 and seventeen-year-old Grace Clark has just lost her mother when she begrudgingly accompanies her estranged father to an...
West with giraffes : a novel
Rutledge, Lynda
Paper Book
An emotional, rousing novel inspired by the incredible true story of two giraffes who made headlines and won the hearts of Depression-era America. "Few true friends have I known and two were giraffes..." Woodrow Wilson Nickel, age 105, feels his life ebbing away. But...
Butcher : father of modern gyno-psychiatry
Oates, Joyce Carol
Paper Book
From one of our most accomplished storytellers, an extraordinary and arresting novel about a women's asylum in the nineteenth century, and a terrifying doctor who wants to change the world In this harrowing story based on authentic historical documents, we follow the career of Dr...
Her hidden genius : a novel
Benedict, Marie
Paper Book
"Brings to life Franklin's grit and spirit...an important contribution to the historical record." --The Washington Post The new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Mystery of Mrs. Christie! She changed the world with her discovery. Three men took the credit. ...
A grave robbery
Raybourn, Deanna
Paper Book
Lord Rosemorran has purchased a wax figure of a beautiful reclining woman and asks Stoker to incorporate a clockwork mechanism to give the Rosemorran Collection its own Sleeping Beauty in the style of Madame Tussaud's. But when Stoker goes to cut the mannequin open to insert the mechanism, he makes...
Flight of dreams : a novel
Lawhon, Ariel.
Paper Book
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Frozen River, this "enthralling nail-biter" (People) of a novel brings the fateful voyage of the Hindenburg to life. "At every page a guilty secret bobs up; at every page Lawhon keeps us guessing....
The alienist
Carr, Caleb
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NOW A TNT ORIGINAL SERIES * "A first-rate tale of crime and punishment that will keep readers guessing until the final pages."--Entertainment Weekly "Caleb Carr's rich period thriller takes us back to the moment in history...
All the light we cannot see : a novel
Doerr, Anthony
Paper Book
NOW A MAJOR NETFLIX SERIES WINNER OF THE 2015 PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR FICTION A beautiful, stunningly ambitious novel about a blind French girl and a...
The fair botanists
Sheridan, Sara
Paper Book
'Compelling, fascinating . . . A cracking good read' - Val McDermid An evocative, enjoyable portrait of 1820s Edinburgh' - Sunday Times 'Lush, seductive' - Daily Mail 'Completely enchanting' - Scotsman 'A...
Never Closer : A Novel About a Diary That Opens a Door On the Past
Shepherd, Margot.
Paper Book
When your life changes in a moment, how do you rewrite your story? In 1940s Britain, with the Second World War raging, Alice is working in a laboratory developing a new miracle medicine. Made to leave school at sixteen and abandon her aspiration to be a teacher, she...
The German wife
Rimmer, Kelly
Paper Book
Fatal code
Walters, Natalie
Paper Book
In 1964, a group of scientists called the Los Alamos Five came close to finishing a nuclear energy project for the United States government when they were abruptly disbanded. Now the granddaughter of one of those five scientists, aerospace engineer Elinor Mitchell, discovers that she has highly...
The only woman in the room
Benedict, Marie
Paper Book
The New York Times and USA Today Bestseller! She possessed a stunning beauty. She also possessed a stunning mind. Could the world handle both? Her beauty almost certainly saved her from the rising Nazi party and led to marriage with an Austrian arms dealer. Underestimated in...
The other Einstein : a novel
Benedict, Marie
Paper Book
From beloved New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Marie Benedict comes the story of a not-so-famous scientist who not only loved Albert Einstein, but also shaped the theories that brought him lasting renown. In the tradition of Beatriz Williams and Paula McClain, Marie...
The women of Oak Ridge
Shocklee, Michelle
Paper Book
In the hills of Tennessee, two women work at a Manhattan Project site during World War II and uncover truths that irrevocably change their lives in this captivating new story from award-winning Southern fiction author Michelle Shocklee. 1944.Maebelle Willett arrives in Oak...
Skylark : a novel
McLain, Paula
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER A GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK! The New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Wife weaves a mesmerizing tale of Paris above and below--where a woman's quest for artistic freedom in 1664 intertwines with a doctor...
A bend in the stars : a novel
Barenbaum, Rachel.
Paper Book
All the Light We Cannot See meets The Nightingale in this literary WWI-era novel and epic love story of a brilliant young doctor who races against Einstein to solve one of the universe's great mysteries. In Russia, in the summer of 1914,...
The last animal : a novel
Ausubel, Ramona.
Paper Book
Teenage sisters Eve and Vera never imagined their summer vacation would be spent in the Arctic, tagging along on their mother's scientific expedition. But there's a lot about their lives lately that hasn't been going as planned, and truth be told, their single mother might not be so happy either....

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