Favorite Historical Novels page 2

selkn.asrai said:

Atonement (McEwan): another literary work with extraordinary historical integration. This book broke my heart in every way. I savored every word.

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It's my favorite book of all time. Plus, in the last section, there are mentions of the research involved to write a work that is historical.

My favorite historical writer is Elizabeth Chadwick: The Greatest Knight, The Scarlet Lion, To Defy a King are all amazing.

Susan Fraser King's Lady Macbeth.

Georgette Heyer, who some of you have mentioned. I really enjoyed An Infamous Army.

Hey Gothicangel, thanks for bumping this thread. I hadn't seen it before and was just wondering this.

I realized that since I teach historical fiction to kids, that I have read a lot of MG and YA historicals, but no adult HF for quite awhile. Since I want to write for adults, I need to remedy that, and was looking for suggestions. This thread is a gem.

So my contribution will be in the MG and YA department...but hey as an adult I love them. And we may have members who either want to write for this age or share their love of HF with someone in this age group.

Johnny Tremain by Ester Forbes-Revolutionary War...it truly is a classic. It was the favorite of the books from my class last year.

Devil's Arithmetic by Jane Yolen-Holocaust...was the favorite of my class this year.

Other favorites:

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor

Anna of Byzantium by Tracey Barrett

The Bronze Bow, The Sign of the Beaver, and Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare

Ties that Bind, Ties that Break by Lensey Namioka

I'd like to put in a good for Gillian Bradshaw and for Sharon Kay Penman (I loved The Sunne in Splendour).

I really liked A Place of Greater Safety and Wolf Hall even though the literary mode isn't my favorite. Can't wait to get my hands on Bring up the Bodies; I put in a hold request at the library (I'm not pecuniarily well-endowed...) and am number 60 of 90 in line or some such. Sigh.

Favorite Historical Novel: Aztec

Gary Jennings feverishly vivid journey into MesoAmerica. I found a used paperback in Acapulco, while on a sleepy vacation in Acapulco years ago. Reading that while resting under a cabana after doing the clubs until dawn made a very satisfying escape from the present, or at least 1992, or so.

I've re-read Aztec a couple of times since. Very florid material, but Jennings did a wonderful job of immersing the reader into a completely alien culture.

I loved Ian Pears An Instance of the Fingerpost. While not strictly hist fic, I would also like to mention AS Byatt's Possession.

As a teenager I loved Pauline Gedge's Egyptian books - Child of the Morning, The Twelfth Transformation etc. I thought they managed to create a completely alien world that felt completely genuine. I also like Dorothy Dunnett except I can't take her fawning over Lymond. I like him in the first book, but then his fabulousness and pigheadedness get a bit annoying.

There are a few really good Swedish writers that I'm not sure if they are translated into English, like Carina Burman and Moa Martinsson. Carina's first about poet Kjellgren is highly recommendec!

For...

modern stuff which made an impact there is Clio Gray and Shona MacLean and A.L. Berridge

All 3 create an atmosphere and sense of place which is stunning.

angeliz2k said:

I'd like to put in a good for Gillian Bradshaw .

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Yes, I was going to put in for Gillian Bradshaw, too. I think Island of Ghosts is my favorite of hers. I loved In Winter's Shadow, but the fantasy elements sort of didn't do it for me. Plus, I'm not a huge fan of Arthurian iterations. I just loved the character of Gwalchmai in that series.

I guess I'm the first to mention Cecelia Holland. I don't absolutely love everything she's written, but I am constantly impressed with her ability to master the period and character creation. I have to say that I wasn't super impressed with City of God when I finished it, but now that I've sat with it for a while, I really love it. A book that I'm still thinking about months and months later is a good book.

I grew up reading Daphne du Maurier, too. My Cousin Rachel and Jamaica Inn are my favorites. And to this day, Dumas's The Count of Monte Cristo is one of my favorite novels.

I think I'm just a bit weird in what I consider my favorite historical novels! I didn't grow up reading the classics.

A couple from me:

English Passengers by Matthew Kneale

The Blind Assassin and Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood

Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks

There's also this book based around an acting troupe in medieval England, that I think was Booker shortlisted whatever year it came out... with research I could probably find the title but I'm supposed to be writing right now. But, that one too!

I read Mary, Bloody Mary when I was in the sixth grade. If I were to go back and read it today, I might cringe, but back then I LOVED it. It acutally got me hooked into both historical fiction and history. I started a love affair with the Tudors right then and there and I never looked back. It's one of those books that changed my life as I almost exclusively write historical fiction and am a history major.

"The Red Queen" and "The Other Boleyn Girl" by Philippa Gregory

My favourites are A Place of Greater Safety, Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies by Hilary Mantel. I think she is amazing.

I also adore Georgette Heyer and MM Kaye!

Most of my favorites are from about 1900 on. I'm a more modern-day history girl. It's the period I write in too.

That being said, here's another vote for Caleb Carr's Kreizler stuff.

#1- The Given Day, Dennis Lehane. This was the 2nd Lehane I read, after Shutter Island. Right around the time of the Boston Police Strike, the Great Molasses Flood, and the 1918 Flu Epidemic. Utterly brilliant. It's now in my top 5.

#2- Hot Springs, Stephen Hunter. This was a total surprise to me. I was completely unfamiliar with Hunter's work, which has been turned into a couple movies. This is about a government group trying to break up organized crime in Hot Springs before Vegas took over as Sin City. The main character, Earl Swagger, is the father of Bob Lee Swagger, who appears in several of his later books. The period, the dialog, everything in here is so spot-on, my jaw dropped in a couple places.

#3- Loving Frank, Nancy Horan. This is the book that inspired me to begin writing fictionalized biographies. It is sheer perfection. The first author to whom I've written a fan letter, because I didn't want it to end. All about Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Borthwick Cheney, the woman for whom he left his wife .

#4- The Memory of Eva Ryker, Donald Stanwood. Titanic-related, and amazing plot twists. This is still one of the books that got me started writing. And now he's in my Facebook friends. How cool is that?

My favorite book of all time is The Lost Garden by Helen Humphreys. It's beautiful and utterly heartbreaking. It's set during WWI and deals with love and loss.

Ivanhoe and War and Peace, from the classical period.

From the current times, I'd rather choose:

- Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa
- Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett (semi-historical)
- A Bridge Too Far by Cornelius Ryan

Plus many many others that I've liked, but these ones definitely caught my attention.

A lot of good books in this thread - fascinating to see what people like!

Some of my personal favorites haven't been getting lots of love yet, so I'll speak up for the D's:

- Dorothy Dunnett -- esp. her Lymond of Crawford series - mid-16c Scotland, France & beyond, lots of adventure, a tortured hero (oh, yeah), and Grand Romance, all on a base of solid research & scintillating prose.

- Dumas pere -- the Three Musketeer series of course, but he also wrote a lot of other good books with different settings. For the 16c I rec. highly the pair of books featuring Chicot the Jester (La Dame de Monsoreau, sometimes called Chicot the Jester, and the Forty-Five) -- swashbuckling intrigue at the court of Henri III. There's also a good sequence set in the 18c, of which The Queen's Necklace is probably the best. Lots more, once you get started. Even his minor works are entertaining.

- Maurice Druon - the Accursed Kings series (starts with The Iron King). The schemes & misadventures of Philippe IV & his successors, from the destruction of the Templars to the Hundred Years War, lots of drama, adventure, tragedy, and compelling train-wrecks. (Highlights include the stage-managed election of Pope John XXII, when the cardinals were bricked into their church and voted in the oldest & sickest of them as a way to get out, only to find themselves stuck with him for another 20 hard years, and the overthrow & murder of Edward II by his wife & her lover. Ouch.) These have been OOP in English for a long time, but it's worth hunting them down. If you read French, they're all in print & available from Amazon.

Speaking of French, if anybody here does read French I've got a few more good recs, & wouldn't mind hearing more:

- Robert Merle, Fortune de France & its sequels -- a fascinating series set in the French Wars of Religion, written in 16c French. Yes, that's right. It's a bit challenging at first, but pretty quickly starts to sound natural. There were about 8 vols. at the time I was reading them, but he apparently picked the series up a few years later & continued with a bunch more into the 17c.

- Juliette Benzoni, Catherine et seq - romance & adventure in the 15c, with featured appearances by Jeanne d'Arc & Gilles de Rais (aka Bluebeard).

- Jean d'Aillon, The Investigations of Louis Fronsac - I've just discovered this series, which appears to be historical mysteries set mostly in the 1640s & 50s (aka one of my favorite periods). Unlike anybody else I've mentioned, he's still alive & actively writing. So yay!

I also would like to add Madeline Miller's The Song of Achillies, I sobbed my way through the last 30 pages.

Also in modern: And The Land Lay Still, by James Robertson. I wrote on this for mt Scottish Literature dissertation, and can lay claim to that I was the first literary academic to write on the book. I had absolutely no secondary sources to fall back on.

The name Dorothy Dunnet keeps cropping up at the moment. Anyone got any good rec's for a novice? Especially anything Scottish [up to King James VI]?

gothicangel said:

The name Dorothy Dunnet keeps cropping up at the moment. Anyone got any good rec's for a novice? Especially anything Scottish [up to King James VI]?

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Dunnett is mostly known for her Lymond-chronicles, and the prequel series House of Niccolò. Lymond is set in the mid 16th century and features a Scottish hero but most of the books actually take place outside of Scotland. I love the first one, and they all have good entertainment value, but I am a bit semi-allergic to her fawning over Lymond (he is such a drama-llama he sometimes gives me a headache and the last two books went totally down the drain, IMO). Niccolò is set about a hundred years before and there is some Scottishness, even if Niccolò is Dutch (and the books take place all over the world). I think the Niccolò-books may well be "better" than the Lymond Chronicles from a literay point of view, but not as fast-paced and hence, not as entertaining (to me).

She also wrote The King Hereafter, about Thorfinn, Earl of Orkney, whom she casts as "the real MacBeth". I haven't read it, but apparently she considered it her best work. It takes place in the 11th century, I think, right before the arrival of William the Conquerer. That might be something for you?

Otherwise, The Game of Kings - the first Lymond novel - is a good classic adventure romp, but don't expect it not to grate on your scholarly nerves - it's a highly subjective take on many historical personalities.

My favorite writer is Valter Skott.

Valter Skott - appears to be the Russian translation of Sir Walter Scott. Good choice! He was one of my favorites too. -- It drove my local librarians crazy when I was a kid, they had to keep getting these old books in from all sorts of strange places. -- I never liked Ivanhoe at all, though that's the one everybody points to, and I wasn't too keen on Quentin Durward or The Talisman either, which also seem to be top picks. But I couldn't get enough of his Scottish novels. Old Mortality, Rob Roy, Redgauntlet, Heart of Midlothian, Waverley -- magnificent stuff! He invented the genre. We're all standing on his shoulders.