Historical Fiction

Last Updated: April 26, 2024

The Garden by Clare Beams

The Garden
by Clare Beams

In 1948, Irene Willard, who’s had five previous miscarriages in a quest to give her beloved husband the child he desperately desires and is now pregnant again, comes to an isolated house-cum-hospital in the Berkshires, run by a husband-and-wife team of doctors who are pioneering a cure for her condition. Warily, she enlists herself in the efforts of the Doctors Hall to “rectify the maternal environment,” both physical and psychological.

The Great Divide by Cristina Henriquez

The Great Divide
by Cristina Henriquez

A novel about the construction of the Panama Canal, following the intersecting lives of the local families fighting to protect their homeland, the West Indian laborers recruited to dig the waterway, and the white Americans who gained profit and glory for themselves.

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

Small Things Like These
by Claire Keegan

It is 1985 in a small Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man faces into his busiest season. Early one morning, while delivering an order to the local convent, Bill makes a discovery which forces him to confront both his past and the complicit silences of a town controlled by the church.

The Painter's Daughters by Emily Howes

The Painter’s Daughters
by Emily Howes

The daughters of one of England’s most famous portrait artists of the 1700s, Peggy and Molly Gainsborough are inseparable due to Molly’s bouts of mental confusion, and as Peggy goes to great lengths to protect her sister’s secret, she falls in love with a charming composer, which sparks the bitterest of betrayals.

All We Were Promised by Ashton Lattimore

All We Were Promised
by Ashton Lattimore

The paths of three young Black women in pre-Civil War Philadelphia unexpectedly–and dangerously–collide in this dramatic debut novel inspired by the explosive history of a city at war with itself.

Wild and Distant Seas by Tara Karr Roberts

Wild and Distant Seas
by Tara Karr Roberts

Evangeline Hussey has made a home for herself on Nantucket, though she knows she is still an outsider to the island’s small, close-knit community, one that by 1849 has started to feel the decline of a once-thriving whaling industry. Her husband, Hosea, and the life they built together, was once all she needed–but now Hosea is gone, lost at sea.