New Historical Fiction To Read This Year

The daughter of an automotive magnate escapes to an artistic retreat that holds more secrets — and more intrigue — than she could have ever imagined, in this Prohibition-era novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Salt to the Sea.

A woman’s desperate flight from an Apache raid unfolds into a sweeping tale of the Mexico-U.S. border wars. Orchestrated with a stunningly imagined cast of characters, both historical and purely fictional, Now I Surrender radically recasts the story of how the West was “won.” Part epic, part alt-Western, Now I Surrender Is Álvaro Enrigue’s most expansive and impassioned novel yet.

With her country’s future and her own life at stake, an orphaned duchess must journey into a world of myth and there discover a power that may be her salvation — or her demise — in this enchanting historical fantasy from the New York Times bestselling author of The Bear and the Nightingale.

From the bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, a rousing novel that follows two young women fleeing a divided America: One running toward a dazzling future and the other running from a troubled past. Exuberant and riveting, a sly commentary on truth and beauty and fulfillment that resonates with our times, Lidie delivers a panoramic portrait of a volatile era and the headstrong women trying to live an honest life in it.

In this moving novel about the transformative power of storytelling, three women make life-changing decisions set in motion by the 1967 Summer of Love in San Francisco, shaping the legacy of their family’s Napa Valley winery forever, from the USA Today bestselling author of The Paris Bookseller.

A sweeping novel of siblings, steeped in love, heart-rending loss, and sacrifice, the story of twins who meet shockingly different fates, but whose bond will last forever. Stunningly and propulsively written, The Shock of the Light is a novel of bravery, the brutal human cost of war, a brother and sister bond that outlasts even death, and the redemptive love that grows in unexpected places.

We all know what happened to Henry VIII’s second wife, Anne Boleyn. But what if she woke up the day after her execution and took it upon herself to seek justice? A fantastical journey through the wilds of England and Tudor history, filled with danger and magic and steeped in Arthurian legend, The Beheading Game is a prescient reminder that “mouthy” women have always been punished. Now, thanks to debut novelist Rebecca Lehmann, nearly five hundred years after Anne Boleyn’s death, one of history’s most maligned women finally has the chance to tell her story.

A mother and daughter must break their family’s curse through trials of war and immigration, love, loss, and redemption in this riveting multi-generational saga with a shimmer of magic, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Forgery of Fate.

A gripping novel of two women fighting for survival on the edge of the wilderness, and the love that simultaneously sustains them and threatens their very existence, from the author of the Good Morning America Book Club pick River Sing Me Home.

A sweeping novel about a correspondent trapped behind enemy lines during the Korean War, and the women who help her find her way home, from the national bestselling author of Daughters of Shandong. Moving and triumphant, The Young Will Remember sheds light on a “Forgotten War,” the resilience of love within our darkest histories, and the indefatigable determination of mothers to protect their children.

From #1 New York Times bestselling author and two-time Pulitzer winner Colson Whitehead, an exuberantly entertaining novel that brings to life 1980s New York in the magnificent final volume of his Harlem Trilogy.

They were an unlikely pair — a blond bombshell and a photographer determined to be taken seriously — but Marilyn Monroe and Eve Arnold would make a deal that would change their lives in this dazzling new novel from the national bestselling author of Mrs. Poe and The Woman with the Cure.

You know my name, but you do not know me. Your historians call me seductress, but I was ever in love’s thrall. Your playwrights speak of witchcraft, but my talents came from the gods themselves. Your poets sing of my bloodlust, but I was always protecting my children. How willfully they refuse to concede that a woman could be powerful, strategic, and divinely blessed to rule. Death will silence me no longer. This is not the story of how I died. But how I lived … Cleopatra tells her own story in this evocative and sensuous historical epic from the bestselling and award-winning author of Faebound and The Final Strife.

A ragged fur peddler arrives at a remote outpost of the Hudson Bay Company in the winter of 1766 with a lump of gold, claiming that there is plenty more like it further north at a place called Ox Lake. The outpost’s chief factor, Magnus Norton, dreams of instant riches and launches a secret and perilous expedition to find the treasure and bring it back. A breathtaking and cinematic novel about the lust for gold and its bloody consequences, set in the unforgiving landscape of the sub-Arctic Canadian wilderness, from the acclaimed author of The North Water.

A richly drawn, captivating, and endlessly amusing novel of love and subterfuge between a lady’s maid and her clandestine lover, set in the country estates of nineteenth-century England. A deliciously funny, gorgeously detailed, utter enthralling novel, A Perfect Hand is a glorious novel of class, gender, and England on the cusp of enormous change.

The intimate, sweeping tale of one man’s restless search for home the world over, as the pendulum of fate swings between loss and life, grief and euphoria, regret and hope.

A debut novel by the critically acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of The Light of Days, following two very different Jewish women in Warsaw in the late 1930s as they unexpectedly come together in their search for love, meaning, and a sense of home, and as they grapple with the storm clouds gathering around them.

Inspired by Agatha Christie’s real-life Detection Club, a murder among a group of golden age mystery writers meets a second chance romance in this debut novel from author Jackie McMahon. With suspects galore and the danger rising, these two mystery writers must race to solve the crime — and fight their lingering feelings for each other — before the murderer strikes again.

From the award-winning author of Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line comes a stunning historical novel set in nineteenth-century Tibet that follows two outsiders — an Indian schoolteacher spying for the British Empire and an English “lady” explorer — as they venture into a forbidden kingdom.