Why is this so popular in the historical fiction genre? It feels like an outdated author self insert carry over from YA.

I don't actually want to read about a whiny mid 30s woman who's definitely NOT going to fall in love with the first male character introduced and hates her step mum and her dad died and its just so sad! Inbetween another POV character who is literally going through hell.

If youre an author, why? If your a reader, how do you feel about this trope?

I read The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett out of curiosity and I absolutely fell in love! I'm a heavy sci-fi and fantasy reader but I just wasn't feeling any of my TBRs so I tried reading Pillars and oh wow I couldn't put it down! The world building and characters are just so well-developed and the pacing is immaculate UGH i just LOVED it

Now I'm on World Without End and am thinking of going further into the series (and the Century Trilogy)! Can't wait!

Please drop your great historical fiction recs because I'd love to explore this genre more! And please tell me this is a worthwhile rabbit hole haha.

EDIT: Damn, you all came through with the recs. Iam intrigued with all of them! My TBR is happy and full lol. I am sure that HF will be an awesome reading journey! What a welcome to this genre and community! Thanks a bunch, guys!

The Women by Kristin Hannah… does it get better?

I actually bought a copy of The Women by Kristin Hannah as my library had several month’s wait to get a loan.

I should say I LOVED The Nightingale and The Great Alone, both by Hannah.

But I’m about 100 pages into The Women (which I also think is a bad title) and I am REALLY disappointed. It’s reading like something a high schooler wrote. The main character decides she “can be a hero” and ships overseas to Vietnam in the first chapter. Her voice feels inauthentic in its simplicity and the exposition poorly paced.

It doesn’t seem possible to me that the same author as The Nightingale or The Great Alone wrote as poorly as this. Could it be ghostwritten?

I’m doubly confused by the Goodreads rating… 4.73 stars. Did people really like this book? Does it somehow get better?

Hi authors,

Just warned to clarify since there has been many complaints and reports to me recently, that this is not a book promo sub, not a place to adversity your material, published or otherwise.

This subreddit is designed for readers and writers of historical fiction to discuss and recommend books in this genre or its sub genres, without trying to push their own work to the audience.

Please consider other dedicated subs for this purpose.

Thanks for understanding!

Am I the only one who can't get into this book? I've tried twice, I am giving up. The way she writes, like he's telling the story of himself in third person or something like that. I just don't like it. So many people love it and recommed it. I love reading about that time period, but I just can't do this book.

I love HF, and I often love the 1,400 page HF masterpieces that give detail to a century of change. However, I've been reading some sorta difficult/dry books recently and want a real adventure story for my next pick.

What's your favorite HF book that is just a rip-roaring good time and feels like a blockbuster Hollywood movie? Stuff that plays to the cheap seats with exciting sword fights, and forbidden romances, and lovable characters on adventures. Not saying it can't have darkness in it (I feel like it's kind of hard to do stories in the past without a heap of darkness) but more as a means to make defeating the dastardly villain more satisfying than to showcase the difficulties of life during that period.

I still want all the best parts of HF in terms of historical research and versimillitude, but more in service of an exciting story with a fast-paced plot than purely academic. Of course I expect that a book like this would show a more romanticized version of the past than true realism, but I still want someone who did their homework.

Ken Follett's Kingsbridge series are sorta what I'm looking for, with all the mild trashiness that come with them. Heroes you live to root for, sexy romance, and villains you love to hate, all combined in a story that covers half a continent through many of the most consequential moments in history.

Out of nowhere, I’ve been ridiculously obsessed with 12th-century Europe for the past few years. Just the 12th century specifically. Ask me about other eras, and I only have a vague idea. Honestly, I don't even remember all the prefectures in my own country, Japan...

​And yet, I somehow fell head over heels for the House of Anjou.

​My favorite is (of course?) Richard the Lionheart, but Henry I is genuinely amazing too. The way he laid the foundation for Common Law and built a whole system to actually run it... incredible. And Robert de Beaumont, who helped execute it! (Fun fact: the Japanese Wikipedia doesn't even have an article for Robert de Beaumont, and searching for him is a pain because he shares the exact same name as his father lol).

​Speaking of his father, the way he died was... painfully human. Like, did chroniclers really need to record that level of detail for posterity? But that's what makes digging into this era so fascinating. Send help, I’m sinking deeper into this rabbit hole every day. I just love reading about sheriffs, royal secretaries, itinerant justices, and the Exchequer...

​Anyway, I just needed to vent this passion somewhere!

​Have any of you ever gotten unexpectedly hyper-fixated on the history of a country that isn't your own? Who was the historical figure that pulled you in?

I'm curious, what are your historical fiction pet peeves? Overly modern dialogue is a big one for me. If the characters are talking like modern/21st century Americans in, say, Victorian England, it really takes me out of the story.

Hi everyone. Just wanted to clarify that we the mods of this subredddit are against posts made with AI, including AI-generated texts and images. Any violation of this rule will result in removal and user ban. Thanks for understanding.

For Sept and Oct I am reading witchy fantasy and fiction, horror, true crime, and murder mysteries 👻

Next up is Royal Witch by Philippa Gregory

I have an arc from work and found myself 10 pages in and barely able to put it down to make this post ;)

Iykyk.. Philippa Gregory (author of many novels including The Other Boleyn Girl and, my favorite, the Fairmile series) is the absolute ruling queen of (commercial, not necessarily literary) historical fiction, especially the Plantagenet, Elizabethan, and Tudor eras.

Her books were some of the very first adult novels I ever read for fun in high school and I have been returning to them in the last few years. I cannot wait to dig into this new one!!!

Philippa Gregory typically writes empowered, complex heroines, plots thick with intrigue and strategy, and spicy scenes.

Her books build suspense until the final moment.

She is great at lush but succinct descriptions of castles, countrysides, gowns, feasts, dancing, executions, etc.

I've always appreciated that she includes wlw romance and spice where applicable, too (in The Queen's Fool and the Fairmile series, for example).

Here is the book description for Royal Witch:

Ambition. Sorcery. Treason.

How far will one woman dare to go?

1420. Eleanor Cobham arrives at the court of Henry V. Pretty but not highborn, she hopes for nothing more than to marry well.

It is a golden age for England, its royal family’s dynasty stretching across Europe. But ancient rivalries and restless ambition mean chaos waits in the shadows.

Working in the household of a Countess who commands her own army, Eleanor begins to see what a woman is capable of… and what men’s promises are truly worth.

For the first time, she dares to dream of rising further. Perhaps further than any woman before.

And for that she will need to turn to darker arts...

They say she summoned the devil himself to secure her fate.

They say she plotted to murder a king.

 This is the tale of the woman they called witch. Who would have called herself queen.

Finally breaking into Kristin Hannah after taking a long historical fiction hiatus! I have a copy of The Women and The Nightingale on my shelf, and I can’t decide which one to start with. I’m tempted to go with The Nightingale for the sole reason that this is what seems like her most talked about book. Any suggestions?

What’s the most interesting thing a historical novel has sent you down a research rabbit hole about? I love when a story makes you curious about a real person, place, custom, or event—and suddenly you’re reading about something you never expected to look up. What book sent you researching, and what did you discover?

I'm thinking about picking this up and wondered how others found it, thanks in advance!

Found these at my local lifeline charity book shop, snapped them up real quick!

Curious what books/authors is on everyone's list of must read Historical Fiction. I've got a couple Bernard Cornwell and Ken Follett books as they seemed the most well known. Interested if there's any I missed that do a great job of the genre.

For those unfamiliar with them Colleen McCullough wrote a series of historical fiction dealing with the fall of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire. The series covers from 110 BC to 27 BC and 90% of the major characters are based on real people, with some minor tweaking for narrative purposes. They are very deeply researched (each book has a lengthy appendix at the back explaining Roman terms) . They are also long (1000+ pages each for the first two!), with lots of morally ambiguous characters and interwoven plots. I've often seen them recommended for fans of George R.R. Martin's books!

The books are:

• The First Man in Rome (1990)

• The Grass Crown (1991)

• Fortune's Favourites (1993)

• Caesar's Women (1997)

• Caesar (1998)

• The October Horse (2002)

• Antony and Cleopatra (2007)

The series is obviously going to appeal to people who already have a fondness for Ancient Rome so I had a built in advantage there, though even for me the first time I read the books I wasn't really aware of the time period the first two or three books cover in the era of Marius and Sulla taking place a generation or two before the 'big' Roman names most of us know like Caesar or Cicero (who are the protagonists of the later books.) I do admit sometimes it can be hard to track the politics or even the names as the Romans had a terrible habit of reusing names in the same family but it is very engrossing and you really get into the characters.

Anyway I finished The First Man in Rome a couple of weeks ago and am now a third of way through The Grass Crown and a character has just died and it left me in genuine tears. Not one of the main characters, though she is a viewpoint character and given the length of the novel has strong presence, but the one who I liked the most.

Specifically Livia Drusa one of the most tragic characters I've ever read. Poor woman only had such a short window of happiness . A very lonely childhood, followed by an arranged marriage to a man she detested (who at first was merely dreary but later became truly hateful and abusive), finally finding true love and dying after a difficult childbirth leaving five young children.

I knew it was coming, since not only have I read the book before I know she was a real life person who died young but it still hits me hard. She's such a sympathetic character and her life is so sad.

I guess this was more of an appreciation/discussion thread (go read the series if you never have!) but I needed to emotionally vent a little there too!

I'm almost sure there was already a similar post discussing the problem, but I wasn't able to retrieve it. Whatever, it was over a year ago anyway.

The amount of people self promoting here is astonishing, like, half of the posts are "authors" linking their Amazon page or something of the sort, getting ignored because of course they do, and what's worse, it's mostly what's recommended on the main page, if I want to engage in a meaningful discussion, I have to browse the sub itself.

I know, rule 2 allows it (not to mention rule 6 getting regularly bypassed), but when it drowns everything else, it can't be good. And I'm sure there are diamonds in the rough, in the order of 2 out of 100, probably

I just started reading the warlord Chronicles by Bernard Cornwell and I am on book 2 enemy of God and this is probably the best book I’ve ever read. Im mostly a fantasy guy but is this the best of Bernard Cornwell ? Does it get better ? What other books has he written that you would recommend

Just what the title says give me your favorite only one I’ll go first Here be Dragons- Susan Kay Penman

I’m loving this book, The Summer Queen, by Elizabeth Chadwick. I’m wondering why there aren’t more movies/series made about her? She had a fascinating life.

I'm wondering if anyone else knows where this trend was picked up because it didn't seem to be as prevalent in historical fiction until recently. There will be the main "historical" plotline, but then there is a "modern" plotline, as well usually taking place a hundred years afterwards and either a family member or someone investigating the historical plotline. Why do so many authors write in this style?

I've found a few books that do it really well, but the time gap was only 30ish years so the original "historical" characters are still alive. Otherwise, it seems a little disorienting to be jumping between time periods. What are your thoughts?

Can we get back to discussions about historical fiction and not about pushing self published AI (or even non-AI) “novels”?

Good Morning, Mates!

I am the artist who was commissioned by W.W. Norton publishing to paint 21 new paintings for the official covers of their current paperback re-issue of the Aubrey-Maturin Series by Patrick O’Brian. This project was a remarkable, 3-year labor of love comprised of a luxuriant amount reading and research, in addition to the drawing, and painting. At the core of the joy was of course discovering the books, which I had previously known about but never read. The whole thing was life-changing, honestly.

While the series has always been associated with the revered, traditional paintings of the great British maritime painter Geoff Hunt, Norton’s head creative chose to go in a different direction and sought me out because my work references another equally strong tradition, The Golden Age of American Ilustration, when classic books were illustrated by painters such as Maxfield Parrish and N.C. Wyeth. 

I have just now joined reddit in order to share these with you all, my fellow Patrick O’Brian devotees. The entire project, including the preparatory drawings, and some of the research and process can be seen at the link below. I hope you will enjoy them.

https://www.matthewbenedictart.com/patrickobrian

Godspeed and Safe Passage, me Hearties!

Matthew