Historical Fiction

Recent historical fiction releases.
Updated April 4, 2025
Drag items up and down to your preferred order then select the "Save Order" button.
The Queens of Crime
Marie Benedict
Paper Book
INSTANT USA TODAY BESTSELLER AND INDIE BESTSELLER! From the New York Times bestselling author of The Mystery of Mrs. Christie--a thrilling story of the five greatest women writers of the Golden Age of Mystery and their bid to solve a real-life murder.<...
The Stolen Queen
Fiona Davis
Paper Book
*A New York Times Bestseller* From New York Times bestselling author Fiona Davis, an utterly addictive new novel that will transport you from New York City's most glamorous party to the labyrinth streets of Cairo and back. Egypt, 1936- When anthropology...
The Briar Club
Kate Quinn
Paper Book
"Quinn evocatively balances the outward cheerfulness of the 1950s with historical observations exploring racism, misogyny, homophobia and political persecution in this sharply drawn, gripping novel." - People Magazine The New York Times bestselling author of The Diamond...
The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club
Helen Simonson
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * "Historical fiction of the highest order . . . an absolute joy of a book, warm and romantic, and with so much to say about the lives of women in the years following World War I."--Ann Napolitano, bestselling author of Hello Beautiful A timeless...
Isola
Allegra Goodman
Paper Book
REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK * NATIONAL BESTSELLER * "A shocking story, made all the more stunning by the fact that it has its roots in true history."--Jodi Picoult, author of By Any Other Name "A new generation of survival story . . . an extraordinary book that reads like a...
The Pretender: A Novel
Jo Harkin
Paper Book
Set in the tumultuous period of the Tudors' ascent, The Pretender brings to life the little-known story of Lambert Simnel. From humble beginnings as a peasant boy, Lambert's life takes an astonishing turn when, at just ten years old, he becomes a claimant to the English throne as one of...
Polostan
Neal Stephenson
Paper Book
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Termination Shock and Cryptonomicon, the first installment in a monumental new series--an expansive historical epic of intrigue and international espionage, presaging the dawn of the Atomic Age. The first installment in Neal...
The Glassmaker
Tracy Chevalier
Paper Book
Named a Best Historical Novel of 2024 by The Sunday Times, The Independent, and BookPage A Parade and Christian Science Monitor Best Book of June "This charming fable is at once a love story that skips through six centuries, and also a...
The Paris Express: A Novel
Emma Donoghue
Paper Book
Emma Donoghue, the "soul-stirring" (Oprah Daily) nationally bestselling author of Room, returns with a sweeping historical novel about an infamous 1895 disaster at the Paris Montparnasse train station. Based on an 1895 disaster that went down in history when it was...
The Jackal's Mistress: A Novel
Chris Bohjalian
Paper Book
INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER * #1 BOSTON GLOBE BESTSELLER * USA TODAY BESTSELLER * In this Civil War love story, inspired by a real-life friendship across enemy lines, the wife of a missing Confederate soldier discovers a wounded Yankee officer and must decide what she's willing to risk...
Tough Luck: A Novel
Sandra Dallas
Paper Book
In this homage to True Grit, a young woman makes a perilous journey west in 1863 in search of her gold-mining father. After their mother dies, Haidie Richards and her younger brother, Boots, are put to work in an orphanage. Their father left four years earlier to find a...
The Antidote
Karen Russell
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE * From Pulitzer finalist, MacArthur Fellowship recipient, and bestselling author of Swamplandia! and Vampires in the Lemon Grove Karen Russell: a gripping dust bowl epic about five...
Harlem Rhapsody
Victoria Christopher Murray
Paper Book
"A gripping narrative, don't miss this historical fiction about the woman who kicked off the Harlem Renaissance."-People Magazine "A page turner and history lesson at once, Harlem Rhapsody reminds us that our stories are our generational wealth."-Tayari Jones,...
The Story She Left Behind: A Novel
Patti Callahan Henry
Paper Book
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Indie Next April 2025 Pick * LibraryReads March 2025 Pick "Brilliant, riveting, so beautifully written, impossible to put down." --Louise Penny, #1 New York Times bestselling author Inspired by a true...
The Wildes: A Novel in Five Acts
Louis Bayard
Paper Book
In this singularly powerful novel, bestselling author Louis Bayard brings Oscar Wilde's wife Constance and two sons out from the shadows of history and creates a vivid and poignant story of secrets, loss, and love. "Wonderfully researched, beautifully crafted, movingly...
A Map to Paradise
Susan Meissner
Paper Book
1956, Malibu, California- Something is not right on Paradise Circle. With her name on the Hollywood blacklist and her life on hold, starlet Melanie Cole has little choice in company. There is her next-door neighbor, Elwood, but the screenwriter's agoraphobia allows for...
Christmas with the Queen
Hazel Gaynor
Paper Book
'Tis the season! The Crown meets When Harry Met Sally in the latest heartwarming historical novel from Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb, bestselling authors of Last Christmas in Paris, Meet Me in Monaco, and Three Words for Goodbye. December 1952. While the young Queen...
The Boxcar Librarian: A Novel
Brianna Labuskes
Inspired by true events, a thrilling Depression-era novel from the author of The Librarian of Burned Books about a woman's quest to uncover a mystery surrounding a local librarian and the Boxcar Library--a converted mining train that brought books to isolated rural towns in Montana. ...
The God of the Woods
Liz Moore
Paper Book
ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES'S NOTABLE BOOKS OF 2024 A NEW YORK TIMES BEST THRILLER OF 2024 A NEW YORK TIMES BEST CRIME NOVEL OF 2024 PEOPLE MAGAZINE'S #1 BOOK OF THE YEAR ONE OF NPR'S "BOOKS WE LOVE" 2024
Miss Morgan's Book Brigade
Janet Skeslien Charles
Paper Book
From the New York Times bestselling author Janet Skeslien Charles and based on the true story of Jessie Carson--the American librarian who changed the literary landscape of France--this is "a moving tale of sacrifice, heroism, and inspired storytelling immersed in the power of books to...
My Name Is Emilia del Valle
Isabel Allende
Paper Book
In this spellbinding historical novel from the New York Times bestselling author of A Long Petal of the Sea and The Wind Knows My Name, a young writer journeys to South America to uncover the truth about her father--and herself. In San Francisco in 1866, an...
The Seventh Veil of Salome
Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Paper Book
GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK * A young woman wins the role of a lifetime in a film about a legendary heroine--but the real drama is behind the scenes in this sumptuous historical epic from the New York Times bestselling author of Mexican Gothic. "Whenever...
The Queen of Fives: A Novel
Alex Hay
Paper Book
Nothing is quite as it seems in this clever novel set against London society's wedding of the season, as a con woman masquerading as an heiress sets her sights on an illustrious family, from the bestselling author of The Housekeepers "A thrilling and multi...
Last Twilight in Paris
Pam Jenoff
Paper Book
THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! "A fast-paced and vibrant wartime tale of holding on to love against the odds and learning to fight for the truth." ­­-Kristin Harmel, New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Daughter ...
Let's Call Her Barbie
Renée Rosen
Paper Book
When Ruth Handler walks into the boardroom of the toy company she co-founded and pitches her idea for a doll unlike any other, she knows what she's setting in motion. It might just take the world a moment to catch up. In 1956, the only dolls on the market for little girls let them pretend to be...
The Eights
Joanna Miller
Paper Book
They knew they were changing history. They didn't know they would change each other. Following the unlikely friendship of four women in the first female class at Oxford, their unshakeable bond in the face of male contempt, and their coming of age in a world...
What Time the Sexton's Spade Doth Rust
Alan Bradley
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * Amateur sleuth Flavia de Luce, along with her pestilent younger cousin, investigates the murder of a former public hangman and uncovers a secret that brings the greatest shock of her life. "I love the Flavia de Luce novels! Flavia is the best...
The Lion Women of Tehran
Marjan Kamali
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER An "evocative read and a powerful portrait of friendship, feminism, and political activism" (People) set against three transformative decades in Tehran, Iran--from nationally bestselling author Marjan Kamali. In 1950s Tehran,...
Hold Strong: A Novel
Robert Dugoni
Paper Book
From Robert Dugoni, Jeff Langholz, and Chris Crabtree comes an epic and inspiring novel--based on true events--about love, heroism, and resilience during the darkest chapters of World War II. Sam Carlson is a projectionist in small-town Minnesota, where fantasies unspool in glorious...
Austen at Sea
Natalie Jenner
Paper Book
Two pairs of siblings, devotees of Jane Austen, find their lives transformed by a visit to England and Sir Francis Austen, her last surviving brother and keeper of a long-suppressed, secret legacy. In Boston, 1865, Charlotte and Henrietta Stevenson, daughters of a Massachusetts...
The Booklover's Library
Madeline Martin
Paper Book
"A must-read for booklovers." --Chanel Cleeton, New York Times bestselling author of Next Year in Havana A heartwarming story about a mother and daughter in wartime England and the power of books that bring them together, by the bestselling author of The...
Nicked
M. T. Anderson
Paper Book
AN NPR NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR * From the award-winning and bestselling author of Feed comes a raucous, slyly funny, and delightfully queer work of historical fantasy, based on a bizarre but true quest to steal the mystical corpse of a long-dead saint "[An] ...
Mutual Interest
Olivia Wolfgang-Smith
Paper Book
An enthralling, dishy novel about ambition, sexuality, and the rise of a capitalist empire in post-Gilded Age New York. "Hernan Diaz's Trust but make it gay? Narrated in the sly-eyed style of Plain Bad Heroines? I am absolutely...
The Resurrectionist
A. Rae Dunlap
Paper Book
In the tradition of The Alienist and Anatomy: A Love Story, a decadently macabre, dark and twisty gothic debut set in 19th century Scotland - when real-life serial killers Burke and Hare terrorized the streets of Edinburgh - as a young medical student is lured into the illicit...
Strangers in Time
David Baldacci
Paper Book
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Calamity of Souls comes David Baldacci's newest novel, set in London in 1944, about a bereaved book shop owner and two teenagers scarred by the Second World War, and the healing and hope they find in one...
The New Internationals
David Wright Faladé
Paper Book
A stunning novel of post-war Paris that interweaves a coming-of-age story, a cross-cultural romance, and a portrait of the international youth at a definitive moment in contemporary history Paris, 1947. The city, recovering from the Nazi occupation, suffers from an economy in...
Eleanore of Avignon
Elizabeth DeLozier
Paper Book
A Library Reads Pick!  An Amazon Best Book of the Month! An Aardvark Book Club Pick!  Rich with unforgettable characters, gorgeously drawn, and full of captivating historical drama, Eleanore of Avignon is the story of a healer who risks her...
Where the Rivers Merge: A Novel
Mary Alice Monroe
Paper Book
"This is book club fiction at its finest!" --Lisa Wingate, #1 New York Times bestselling author From New York Times bestselling author Mary Alice Monroe comes her highly anticipated Where the Rivers Merge, the first of two epic and triumphant novels celebrating one intrepid woman...
The Life of Herod the Great
Zora Neale Hurston
Paper Book
A never before published novel from beloved author Zora Neale Hurston, revealing the historical Herod the Great--not the villain the Bible makes him out to be but a religious and philosophical man who lived a life of valor and vision. In the 1950s, as a continuation of Moses, Man of...
All the Colors of the Dark
Chris Whitaker
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * From the author of We Begin at the End comes a soaring thriller and an epic love story that "hits like a sledgehammer . . . an absolutely must-read novel" (Gillian Flynn, author of Gone Girl). Read with Jenna Book Club Pick as...
The Kennedy Girl: A Novel
Julia Bryan Thomas
Paper Book
"Espionage fans, Francophiles, and devotees of Netflix's Emily in Paris will enjoy this compelling expatriate story." - Booklist From esteemed author Julia Bryan Thomas comes a novel for readers who loved the fashion and glamour of The Secret Life of Mirielle...
The Bright Sword
Lev Grossman
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A New York Times Editors' Choice * The #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Magicians Trilogy returns with a triumphant reimagining of the King Arthur legend for the new millennium Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist ...
Lady Macbeth: A Novel
Ava Reid
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * From #1 New York Times bestselling author Ava Reid comes a "masterful reimagining" (Publishers Weekly) of Lady Macbeth, Shakespeare's most famous villainess, giving her a voice, a past, and a power that transforms the story men have written for her...
Similar Lists

Library staff! You can create and contribute to lists. Contact your catalog administrator or log in here.