Essential Historical Fiction Books for Your Summer Reading List

Utopia Avenue is the strangest British band you’ve never heard of. David Mitchell’s kaleidoscopic novel tell the unexpurgated story of the band’s turbulent life and times; of fame’s Faustian pact and stardom’s wobbly ladder; of the families we choose and the ones we don’t; of voices in the head, and the truths and lies they whisper; of music, madness, and idealism. 

At the end of the nineteenth century, three revolutionary women fight for freedom in this captivating new novel inspired by real-life events and the true story of a legendary Cuban woman—Evangelina Cisneros—who changed the course of history.

Elisabetta, Marco, and Sandro grow up as the best of friends. But in the autumn of 1937, all of that begins to change as Mussolini aligns with Hitler’s Nazis, altering the very laws that govern Rome. Unfolding over decades, Eternal is a tale of loyalty and loss, family and food, love and war—all set in one of the world’s most beautiful cities at its darkest moment.

Troy has fallen and the victorious Greeks are eager to return home with the spoils of an endless war—including the women of Troy themselves. Largely unnoticed by her captors, the one time Trojan queen Briseis forges alliances where she can, all the while shrewdly seeking her path to revenge.

An electric debut novel set against the twilight of the American gold rush, two siblings are on the run in an unforgiving landscape—trying not just to survive but to find a home. Both epic and intimate, blending Chinese symbolism and reimagined history with fiercely original language and storytelling, How Much of These Hills Is Gold is a haunting adventure story and an unforgettable sibling story.

A luminous portrait of a marriage, a shattering evocation of a family ravaged by grief and loss, and a tender and unforgettable re-imagining of a boy whose life has been all but forgotten, and whose name was given to one of the most celebrated plays of all time, Hamnet is mesmerizing, seductive, impossible to put down—a magnificent leap forward from one of our most gifted novelists.

In Sunflower Sisters, Martha Hall Kelly tells the story of Ferriday’s ancestor Georgeanna Woolsey, a Union nurse during the Civil War whose calling leads her to cross paths with Jemma, a young enslaved girl who is sold off and conscripted into the army, and Anne-May Wilson, a Southern plantation mistress whose husband enlists.

In New York Times bestselling author Fiona Davis’s latest historical novel, a series of book thefts roils the iconic New York Public Library, leaving two generations of strong-willed women to pick up the pieces.

An unforgettable story of a daredevil female aviator determined to chart her own course in life, at any cost—this book spans Prohibition-era Montana, the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, New Zealand, wartime London, and modern-day Los Angeles. Epic and emotional, meticulously researched and gloriously told, Great Circle is a monumental work of art.

Based on the thrilling real-life story of socialite spy Nancy Wake, comes the newest feat of historical fiction featuring the astonishing woman who killed a Nazi with her bare hands and went on to become one of the most decorated women in WWII.

The child of a married Japanese aristocrat and her African American GI lover, Nori is an outsider from birth. Her grandparents take her in, only to conceal her. But when Nori glimpses a world in which perhaps there is a place for her after all, she is ready to fight to be a part of it—a battle that might cost her everything. Spanning decades and continents, Fifty Words for Rain is a dazzling epic about the ties that bind, the ties that give you strength, and what it means to be free.

This epic novel spanning decades and crossing continents follows two young people as they flee the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War in search of a place to call home. A masterful work of historical fiction about hope, exile, and belonging, A Long Petal of the Sea shows Isabel Allende at the height of her powers.