1920s-1970s. A richly imagined portrait of opera legend Maria Callas, tracing her rise from obscurity to international fame and her turbulent relationships with art, power, and love. Blends history, myth, and music into a dazzling character study.
- General Recommendations
- Staff-Created List
Historical Fiction 101
Historical fiction through the ages from antiquity to modern times. List created by Rachel from the Blue Springs South Branch and updated by Scott in Reader Engagement.
StaffLibrary Staff
Mid-Continent Public Library
User from Mid-Continent Public Library
23 items
- WWII. A blind French girl and a German boy struggle to survive the devastation of occupied France. Their lives intersect in a story of resilience, moral choice, and the small acts of kindness that endure in wartime.
- Bronze Age. Follett’s sweeping new epic journeys to the dawn of civilization, where warring tribes, shifting alliances, and the birth of writing shape the fate of empires. A grand tale of ambition, survival, and the power of knowledge.
- 1898. 1898. Set during the Klondike Gold Rush, this gripping survival story follows a group of strangers drawn to the promise of fortune in the frozen Yukon. As isolation and greed take hold, the wilderness itself becomes the most dangerous…
- 18th Century and beyond. Spanning three centuries and two continents, this powerful debut traces the descendants of two half sisters, one sold into slavery and one who stays in Ghana, and explores the lasting impact of colonialism and the slave…
- 17th Century. Set against the backdrop of colonial Jamaica, this lush historical novel follows an enslaved woman and the planter’s wife who forms a forbidden bond with her. A moving story about resistance, faith, and the many faces of love.
- 1920s–30s. A restrained and moving portrait of an English butler reflecting on his years of service and missed chances for love. Ishiguro’s quiet prose captures the ache of dignity, memory, and regret.
- Ancient Greece. Deane's novel is a retelling of The Iliad from the perspective of Achilles, who in this version is a trans woman. It features descriptive writing with fierce battles and meddling gods.
- Civil War. Brooks reimagines the absent father from Little Women as he leaves home to serve as a Union chaplain. His experiences on the battlefield and encounters with the horrors of slavery transform his understanding of courage and morality.
- Victorian era. Inspired by a real 19th century trial, Smith’s witty and layered novel explores truth, identity, and spectacle through the intertwined lives of a Scottish housekeeper, a novelist, and a man claiming to be a long-lost heir.
- Late Middle Ages. Set in 1346, Essex Dogs is a violent and cinematic romp through the French countryside following a mercenary band of British soldiers during the Hundred Years War. First in a trilogy.
- Renaissance. Set during the Spanish Inquisition, The Familiar is an atmospheric and richly detailed novel about a Jewish servant girl who can perform magical tricks and must compete in a dangerous magical contest.
- Colonial period. Cameron's action-packed novel was inspired by a real 17th century pirate who was training to be a shipwright when her father was murdered. She escapes to the sea and is captured by a pirate!
- Regency England. Marianne Simpson is a boxer in her uncle's all-women circus when she finds herself drawn to one of the crew, a handsome duke in disguise, in this steamy and exciting romance set in wartorn Europe.
- Antebellum North America. This sweeping, well-researched novel sheds light on the shared history of Black Canadians and Indigenous peoples in a small Canadian town that is a terminus on the underground railroad.
- Post Civil War America. Ridgeline is a bleak and evocative western about a battle between the American military and Native peoples in what is now Montana.
- Late Victorian Era. In 1895 India, an Anglo-Indian army captain with a love of Sherlock Holmes investigates the death of two women in Bombay at the behest of the family in this suspenseful historical mystery.
- WWI/Flu epidemic. A nurse in 1918 Dublin is left alone on Halloween to treat a ward full of pregnant influenza patients, with just the help of an activist doctor released from jail and an inexperienced volunteer to assist
- 1944. After their release from Manzanar, Aki Ito and her parents are resettled in Chicago where her older sister lives, but her sister dies days before they arrive. Dissatisfied with the police response, Aki investigates.
- 1950s. Based on the Erdrich's grandfather, The Night Watchman is about a respected Native American who rallies his community against a law being proposed in Congress that would invalidate a land treaty.
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