[herocious]

I always likes "How the Irish Save Civilization"

Put it on your TBR if you haven't read it already.

Trust me.

 

[Collin Moshman]

Anything by Davis Liss, particularly:

​

 

[Austin_Briggs]

I love historical fiction; I can't get enough of it.

These are my favorites.

Mario Vargas Llosa - he just won the Nobel Prize. My two favorites are "Who Killed Palomino Molero?" by Mario Vargas Llosa - a noirish mystery set in 40s rural Peru, and "The Feast of The Goat" by Mario Vargas Llosa - tense, lyrical, vivid novel set during the dictatorship of Batista in the Dominican Republic

Jorge Amado - his books aren't historicals in the strictest sense. They were written in the 40s/50s depicting the 20s, but they read like historicals, so I am going to include them. They are set in North-eastern Brazil. "Gabriella, Clove & Cinnamon" is amazing and I loved "Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands"

Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Anything by him. He is a master. Especially recommended are "100 Years of Solitude", "Love In The Time of Cholera", and "Chronicle of a Death Foretold."

Louis de Bernieres - he wrote a South American trilogy which was a homage to Garcia Marquez in many ways, and very, very good. Even better are "Corelli's Mandolin" set on a Greek island during WW2, and his masterpiece "Birds Without Wings" set in Western Turkey during WW1 and its aftermath.

Hmm. I appear to have a Latin American thing going on.

This is an outstanding list. I just re-read "100 years of Solitude", still walking around under its spell.

Never read Louis de Bernieres, will look him up.

 

[Austin_Briggs]

I enjoyed Austin Brigg's book about a character during the Aztec's reign

Man, I just fell out of my chair. I didn't notice your post until scrolling up.

Thanks!

Hope my reaction doesn't violate the decorum...

 

[GerrieFerrisFinger]

I'm not much a historical fiction guy, but I loved this book. It's set in Boston in 1918/1919.

Yes! The Given Day is a wonderful book by a favorite author.

 

[BRONZEAGE]

Yes! The Given Day is a wonderful book by a favorite author.

Deja vu all over again -- I mentioned this on page one above!

 

[Carly Carson]

"Enemy Women" by Paulette Jiles - the border state of Missouri during the Civil War

"The Dante Club" by Matthew Pearl (mentioned above) - the book is about the Cambridge (Harvard, not England) men who first translated "The Inferno" into English around the mid-19th century.

"Shadow of the Moon" by M. M. Kaye - a romance taking place during the British Raj and The Sepoy Rebellion of 1857 in India. The author was born and raised in India. The history is the part that will stick with you.

 

[deckard]

The Sand Pebbles by Richard McKenna.

Takes place on a US gunboat on the Yangtze River in the early 1900s.

 

[Guest]

There are a few historical murder-mysteries I read. Michael Jecks templar mysteries (e.g.The Leper's Return (Knights Templar Mystery)) are very well-researched and take place around the period of the English Tyranny (Edward II). For Irish history Peter Tremayne's Sister Fidelma's series is extremely detailed about the history and culture of the time as he's a scholar of the period in his day-job, although I always prefered his short story collections (e.g. An Ensuing Evil and Others: Fourteen Historical Mysteries).

 

[LaRita]

"Shadow of the Moon" by M. M. Kaye - a romance taking place during the British Raj and The Sepoy Rebellion of 1857 in India. The author was born and raised in India. The history is the part that will stick with you.

Also "The Far Pavilions" by the same author. Takes place after the rebellion in India and concerns the British attempts to establish a mission in Afghanistan in the late 19th century. Also a great romance.

 

[purplepen79]

Susan Howatch is my favorite author. Her writing is excellent and she does her research. She uses the historical stories and sets them in the late in different time periods and settings.

My mother loved Susan Howatch, and I do too, especially the historical novels (Cashelmara is a particular favorite of mine). I love how she switches POVs to give the reader multiple characters' perspectives.

I also second all the recs for I, Claudius. What a great story about political intrigue and skullduggery.

Right now, I'm reading Tracy Chevalier's The Lady and the Unicorn and Judith Merkle Riley's In Pursuit of the Green Lion. If you're interested in artists during the Renaissance, The Lady and the Unicorn has been very interesting so far -- a nice mixture of family drama, tapestry making, and the wild life of an artist in 15th century Paris. In Pursuit of the Green Lion is more of a medieval romance--I love the main character's voice--she's a bit of a witch and very charming and funny, a woman with nine lives who seems to land on her feet wherever she goes.

 

[Lisa J. Yarde]

I finished Sarah Poole's The Borgia Betrayal yesterday and can't stop recommending it. The protag is a female poisoner in the time of the Borgia pope Alexander VI. Lots of action and mystery. It's a follow-up to Poole's Poison, which is next on my TBR list.

 

[Mandy]

The title pretty much speaks for itself.    I just need some new suggestions! Sharing your own titles are fine too, if it's permitted in this forum. Thanks!

 

[Ann in Arlington]

I refer you to this thread: http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,80510.0.html

And, in fact, I'm going to merge this request with it to bring it back to life. . . .

There's also this thread: http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,63555.0.html

(authors please do NOT suggest your own work here in the Book Corner, thanks. but note there is also this thread in the Book Bazaar where member authors have listed their own work: http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,66131.0.html)

 

[history_lover]

The title pretty much speaks for itself. I just need some new suggestions! Sharing your own titles are fine too, if it's permitted in this forum. Thanks!

Well, if you're enjoying The Heretic's Daughter, be aware that there's a prequel to it called The Traitor's Wife: A Novel. The author also has a new novel coming out soon: The Outcasts: A Novel

If you're interested in another novel on witch trials, check out Daughters of the Witching Hill

 

[lmroth12]

If you are looking for historical fiction with actual historical figures, then any Jean Plaidy book from her history series is good. She did almost all of the British monarchs and a few of the French. My particular favorites are the ones on Catherine DeMedici of France and the Plantagenet series in England which range from Henry II to bad King John.

If you just want fiction in an historical era, Taylor Caldwell is good and manages to capture the feel of an era. My favorite is Captains and the Kings, which was a mini-series but it bore no relationship to the book except superficially, changing even the story lines of some of the characters. The book is much less of a bodice ripper than the mini-series was and is darker in tone, being almost brooding at times as it traces a family loosely based on the Kennedys with a hint of an ancestral curse bringing tragedy at every turn.

 

[MrKnucklehead]

for historical fiction it's hard to beat Gore Vidal's 7 book American Chronicals, starting from the Revolutionary War with Burr and ending with the Cold War Era with Golden Age...

he hinted in an interview a few years ago that an 8th book bringing the series up-to-date would be published after his death...he died about a year ago...

 

[EmilyG]

Some of my favorite HF:

Dreamers of the Day: A Novel by Mary Doria Russell - the creation of the modern Middle East at the 1921 Cairo Peace Conference

The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka - the story of a group of young women brought from Japan to San Francisco as "picture brides" nearly a century ago.

Water for Elephants: A Novel by Sara Gruen - a traveling circus during the Great Depression

 

[67499]

 

[Roman_writer]

I recently read The Handfasted Wife by Carol McGrath. It's set in the time just before the Norman Conquest and tells the story of Edith Swan-Neck, King Harold's wife. Well-researched, good period detail and a narrative that moves along nicely.