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...
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 lost journals of Sacajewea : a novel
Earling, Debra Magpie
Paper Book
Winner of the Montana Book Award From the award-winning author of Perma Red comes a devastatingly beautiful novel that challenges prevailing historical narratives of Sacajewea. "In my seventh winter,...
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...
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 ballad of Black Tom
LaValle, Victor D.
Paper Book
One of NPR's Best Books of 2016, winner of the Shirley Jackson Award, the British Fantasy Award, the This is Horror Award for Novella of the Year, and a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, World Fantasy, and Bram Stoker Awards People move to New York looking for magic...
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
"With compelling characters and a heart-pounding plot, Jamila Minnicks pulled me into pages of history I'd never turned before."―Barbara Kingsolver, New York Times bestselling author of Demon Copperhead Winner of the PEN...
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
Inspired by true events, Women of the Post brings to life the heroines who proudly served in the all-Black battalion of the Women's Army Corps in WWII, finding purpose in their mission and lifelong friendship. 1944, New York City. Judy Washington...
The queen of Sugar Hill : a novel of Hattie McDaniel
Tate, ReShonda
Paper Book
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 critically acclaimed film classic Gone...
Cherokee America
Verble, Margaret
Paper Book
From Pulitzer Prize finalist Margaret Verble, a multilayered, wholly original epic of the American frontier   A baby, a black hired hand, a bay horse, a gun, and a neighbor have all gone missing in the same corner of the Cherokee Nation West. Cherokee America Singer,...
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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