Genre
The best Historical Fiction books
Other eras rendered concrete. Battlefield details, court politics, kitchen smells. The best of it teaches you something true while doing the job of fiction.
21 reviews in this genre.
Editor's picks
Highest-rated historical fiction on the shelf
11/22/63
by Stephen King
11/22/63 by Stephen King 2011 review. An English teacher discovers a portal to 1958 and decides to stop the Kennedy assassination. The single best late-King novel and the rare time-travel book that earns its 849 pages.
Beloved
by Toni Morrison
Beloved by Toni Morrison 1987 review. Sethe, a former slave living in Reconstruction-era Ohio, is haunted by the daughter she killed to save from slavery. Pulitzer Prize 1988 and one of the canonical American novels of the late twentieth century.
Blood Meridian
by Cormac McCarthy
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy 1985 review. A nameless teenager joins a band of Indian-hunters along the Texas-Mexico border in 1849. The most violent American novel of the late twentieth century and the rare McCarthy book that demands the prose attention it requires.
Bring Up the Bodies
by Hilary Mantel
Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel 2012 review. Thomas Cromwell engineers the fall of Anne Boleyn and the rise of Jane Seymour. Booker Prize 2012, the second volume of the Cromwell trilogy, and the rare novel that exceeds an already-canonical predecessor.
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
by James McBride
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride 2023 review. A 1972 skeleton found at the bottom of a Pottstown, Pennsylvania well sends the novel back to a 1930s neighborhood where Black, Jewish, and immigrant families lived alongside each other. The most important American novel of 2023.
The Underground Railroad
by Colson Whitehead
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead 2016 review. Cora, a slave on a Georgia plantation, escapes north via an actual underground railroad, a literalized version of the metaphor. Pulitzer Prize 2017 and the National Book Award winner that defined the contemporary Black literary moment.
Wolf Hall
by Hilary Mantel
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel 2009 review. Thomas Cromwell, the blacksmith's son who rose to serve Henry VIII, reorganizes the English state at the cost of his own soul. Booker Prize 2009 and the most important historical novel of the twenty-first century.
A Brief History of Seven Killings
by Marlon James
A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James 2014 review. The 1976 attempt on Bob Marley's life and its aftermath across Jamaica, Miami, and New York. Booker Prize 2015 and the most structurally ambitious novel from the Caribbean in a generation.
Atonement
by Ian McEwan
Atonement by Ian McEwan 2001 review. On a hot summer day in 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis witnesses something she does not understand and tells a lie that destroys her sister's life. Booker shortlist 2001 and one of the canonical novels of the twenty-first century.
Pachinko
by Min Jin Lee
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee 2017 review. Four generations of a Korean family in twentieth-century Japan, beginning with Sunja's pregnancy by a married Korean gangster in 1933 Busan. The Apple TV+ adaptation source and one of the canonical contemporary Korean-American literary novels.
Sharpe's Rifles
by Bernard Cornwell
Sharpe's Rifles by Bernard Cornwell 1988 review. Richard Sharpe, a hard-drinking officer of the 95th Rifles, leads a desperate retreat through Galicia in 1809. The entry point to the Sharpe series and one of the strongest military-historical novels of its decade.
The Mirror & the Light
by Hilary Mantel
The Mirror & the Light by Hilary Mantel 2020 review. The final volume of the Cromwell trilogy, covering Thomas Cromwell from the execution of Anne Boleyn to his own arrest and execution four years later. The eight-year-awaited closure of the most important historical-fiction project of the twenty-first century.
The Nickel Boys
by Colson Whitehead
The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead 2019 review. Two boys at the segregated Nickel Academy reform school in 1960s Florida, based on the real Dozier School. Pulitzer Prize 2020 and the canonical contemporary American novel on institutional violence against Black children.
The Pillars of the Earth
by Ken Follett
The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett 1989 review. The building of a twelfth-century English cathedral against the backdrop of civil war. The 1,024-page novel that defined the modern epic historical fiction.
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
by Taylor Jenkins Reid
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid 2017 review. An aging Hollywood icon agrees to tell the true story of her career and her seven marriages, but only to an unknown journalist. The TikTok-era literary fiction novel that defined contemporary Hollywood-memoir-fiction.
The Blind Assassin
by Margaret Atwood
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood 2000 review. An elderly woman reconstructs the suspicious death of her sister, decades after the publication of the controversial novel-within-a-novel that bears the title The Blind Assassin. Booker Prize 2000.
The Nightingale
by Kristin Hannah
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah 2015 review. Two French sisters in occupied France during World War II. One joins the Resistance; one harbors a Nazi officer in her home. The historical-fiction bestseller that established Hannah as the contemporary master of women's WWII fiction.
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