Historical Fiction Books by Black Authors

She found the literary voices that would inspire the world … The extraordinary story of the woman who ignited the Harlem Renaissance, written by Victoria Christopher Murray, New York Times bestselling coauthor of The Personal Librarian.

A “captivating villain origin story” (People Book of the Week) reimagining one of the most iconic monsters in Greek mythology as a provocative and powerful young heroine. Exploding with rage, heartbreak, and love, I, Medusa portrays a young woman caught in the crosscurrents between her heart’s deepest desires and the cruel, careless games the Olympian gods play.

When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his death to escape his violent father. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and too-often-unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond. While many narrative set pieces of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn remain in place, Jim’s agency, intelligence, and compassion are shown in a radically new light.

You know my name, but you do not know me. 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 young girl must face a life-altering decision after awakening her sister’s ghost, navigating truths about love, friendship, and power as the Civil War looms. As she grapples with an increasingly unfamiliar world in which she has little control, she is forced to ask herself: When we choose love and liberation, what must we leave behind?

A gripping novel about two trailblazing women on opposite sides of the law — a prosecutor and a madam — who team up to bring down notorious Mob boss Lucky Luciano in 1930s New York, from the New York Times bestselling authors of the million-copy bestseller The Personal Librarian.

From the bestselling author of The Twelve Tribes of Hattie, a searing multi-generational novel — set in the 1980s in racially and politically turbulent Philadelphia and in the tiny town of Bonaparte, Alabama — about a mother fighting for her sanity and survival. In Mathis’s electrifying novel, Bonaparte is both a mythic landscape and spiritual inheritance and 1980s Philadelphia is its raw, darkly glittering counterpoint. The Unsettled is a spellbinding portrait of two fierce women reckoning with the steep cost of resistance: What legacy will we leave our children? Where can we be free?

The follow-up to The Underground Railroad brilliantly dramatizes another strand of American history through the story of two boys unjustly sentenced to a hellish reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida. Based on the real story of a reform school that operated for 111 years and warped the lives of thousands of children, The Nickel Boys is a devastating, driven narrative that showcases a great American novelist writing at the height of his powers and “should further cement Whitehead as one of his generation’s best” (Entertainment Weekly).

Like the blazing Chicago sun, the drama is heating up for the Davenports and their social set. Before the summer of 1910 drops its last petals, the lives and loves of these four young women will change in ways they never could have imagined. Inspired by the real-life story of the Patterson family, More Than This is the second book in the critically adored Davenports series, following four empowered and passionate young Black women as they navigate a rapidly changing society and discover the courage to steer their own paths in life — and love.

Civil Townsend, a privileged Black nurse, wants to make a difference in the lives of those who are less fortunate. She feels as if she’s doing honest, righteous work until she uncovers the possibility that the Depo-Provera shot that she has been assigned to administer to pre-teen girls may be potentially harmful to their bodies. In Take My Hand, Perkins-Valdez takes readers on a deep dive into the oftentimes hidden forms of systemic racism and generational oppression that rests within the foundations of America’s medical field. This novel provides a gentle, yet raw glimpse into a time in America’s history when experimenting on poor, Black bodies was the norm.

From James McBride, author of the bestselling Oprah’s Book Club pick Deacon King Kong and the National Book Award-winning The Good Lord Bird, a novel about small-town secrets and the people who keep them. Bringing his masterly storytelling skills and his deep faith in humanity to The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store McBride shows us that even in dark times, it is love and community — heaven and earth — that sustain us.

Atakora masterfully takes readers on a journey through the antebellum South before, during, and after the Civil War. Conjure Women centers on Rue, the town’s reluctant healer and midwife, who has inherited the generational, matrilineal gift of healing and releasing curses. When a presumably cursed “pale-skinned” baby is born and a mysterious disease begins to spread through the town, superstition and fear begin to rear their ugly heads, as the realms of faith and conjuring begin to clash and ricochet. The intricately woven lives of Rue, Miss May Belle, and Varina linger on long after the pages of this book have been completed.

The daughter of an affluent Black family pieces together the connection between a childhood tragedy and a beloved heirloom in this moving novel from the bestselling author of Black Cake, a Read with Jenna Book Club Pick.

It is 1873. Mrs. Eliza Touchet is the Scottish housekeeper — and cousin by marriage — of a once-famous novelist, now in decline. Andrew Bogle, meanwhile, grew up enslaved on the Hope Plantation, Jamaica. When Bogle finds himself in London, star witness in a celebrated case of imposture, he knows his future depends on telling the right story. The “Tichborne Trial” — wherein a lower-class butcher claimed he was the rightful heir of a sizable estate and title — captivates all of England. Is Sir Roger Tichborne really who he says he is? Or is he a fraud? Mrs. Touchet is a woman of the world. Mr. Bogle is no fool. But in a world of hypocrisy and self-deception, deciding what is real proves a complicated task.

From the National Book Award-winning author of Between the World and Me, a boldly conjured debut novel about a magical gift, a devastating loss, and an underground war for freedom. Written by one of today’s most exciting thinkers and writers, The Water Dancer is a propulsive, transcendent work that restores the humanity of those from whom everything was stolen.

In her debut novel, Shearer masterfully shows the trauma that many enslaved mothers experienced – having their children stripped away from them and sold off as property. River Sing Me Home explores the journey of a loving and determined mother across the Caribbean in hopes of finding the children that she birthed during slavery. After the Emancipation Act of 1834, and when Rachel’s master of Providence plantation in Barbados insists that the enslaved on his plantation must continue to work for free, she runs away from the plantation and beings her journey to find her five children.

A “thrilling, ambitious … intense” (Los Angeles Times) novel that explores the attempted assassination of Bob Marley in the late 1970s, from the author of Black Leopard, Red Wolf. Gripping and inventive, shocking and irresistible, A Brief History of Seven Killings is a mesmerizing modern classic of power, mystery, and insight.

Zoe Sivak’s Mademoiselle Revolution delves into the histories of the Haitian and French revolutions. Sylvie, a biracial heiress born free during a time of rebellion, revolt, and unrest, works to dismantle those in positions of privilege in order to stay vigilant in fighting for the marginalized. Despite being well-educated and having access to some forms of security, Sylvie finds herself in Paris intertwined with Maximilien Robespierre in a new fight for equality.