Author Topic: Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!  (Read 11835 times)

HappierAtHome

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Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!
« on: December 22, 2016, 02:04:05 AM »
I've read some Phillipa Gregory and really enjoyed it - the Boleyn and Red/White Queen novels.

I'm enjoying the TV adaptation of Outlander and was excited to read the book, but reading the reviews on Goodreads made clear that it would not be the book for me (warning, disturbing content:
Spoiler: show
I don't want to read a book in which the 'hero' commits marital rape yet we're still meant to find him romantic and wonderful
).

Sooooo recommend me some books, please :-) I'm willing to try anything from light, fluffy and not at all historically accurate, to dry and accurate. This is a genre I have barely dipped my toe into and I know there are some passionate readers on this forum!

Lews Therin

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Re: Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!
« Reply #1 on: December 22, 2016, 02:59:42 AM »
Anything from Bernard Cornwell.

After a few books, they all fit the same storylines anyways, but the history portions are pretty solid, just the personal portions of the main characters' story that doesn't actually exist.

Best were the Sharpe series and Azincourt.

MauiNut

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Re: Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!
« Reply #2 on: December 22, 2016, 05:05:40 AM »
If you're interested in the American Civil War, I highly recommend "The Killer Angels" by Michael Shaara.  An account of the Battle of Gettysburg, and the events leading up to the engagement.  A very good book.

If you're interested in Ancient Greece, then I recommend "Gates of Fire" by Steven Pressfield.  An account of the Battle of Thermopylae, told from the viewpoint of a Spartan slave-turned-warrior.

Drifterrider

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Re: Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!
« Reply #3 on: December 22, 2016, 05:42:38 AM »
I've read some Phillipa Gregory and really enjoyed it - the Boleyn and Red/White Queen novels.

I'm enjoying the TV adaptation of Outlander and was excited to read the book, but reading the reviews on Goodreads made clear that it would not be the book for me (warning, disturbing content:
Spoiler: show
I don't want to read a book in which the 'hero' commits marital rape yet we're still meant to find him romantic and wonderful
).

Sooooo recommend me some books, please :-) I'm willing to try anything from light, fluffy and not at all historically accurate, to dry and accurate. This is a genre I have barely dipped my toe into and I know there are some passionate readers on this forum!

That was going to be my contribution :)

I'm waiting for a good multi-hour mini series about Richard III (now that they found him).


okonumiyaki

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Re: Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!
« Reply #4 on: December 22, 2016, 06:31:14 AM »
Hillary Mantel's novels on Thomas Cromwell - Wolf Hall & Bring Up The Bodies.  Same characters as the Gregory books, but a different POV.  Award winning

I, Claudius & Claudius The God by Robert Graves.  Amazing books - you are lucky to read them for the first time

Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey & Maturin novels (but very nautical...)

And of course, all of Jane Austen :)  Because so many historical novels are weak pastiches of the original

Vanity Fair by Thackeray (it counts, because he wrote the book in the 1840's but it is set in the Napoleonic wars, so it is actually historical fiction)

William Golding - To the ends of the earth trilogy

Pat Barker - Regeneration trilogy

Tolstoy - War & Peace (but looooong)



« Last Edit: December 22, 2016, 06:53:20 AM by okonumiyaki »

Linea_Norway

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Re: Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!
« Reply #5 on: December 22, 2016, 07:05:41 AM »
These and other books by the same writers:

The Dovekeepers: A Novel
Alice Hoffman

The Bloodletter's Daughter (A Novel of Old Bohemia)
Linda Lafferty

Heartstone (The Shardlake Series)
C. J. Sansom

Butcher's Crossing (New York Review Books Classics)
John Williams

This one is available for free on Gutenberg:
The Story of My Boyhood and Youth
John Muir

Melodien. (German) Paperback – November 1, 2002
by Helmut Krausser
I read it in Dutch language. I can't find an English version for you on Amazon.

choppingwood

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Re: Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!
« Reply #6 on: December 22, 2016, 08:53:06 AM »
I've recently come across Sigmund Brouwer. His books cover really different parts of history than other writers'. Thief of Glory was set in the Japanese concentration camps in the Dutch West Indies (Indonesia). Sapphire was set in Panama during the building of the Canal. Nice characters, great repartee, and I find I am learning a lot about periods I didn't know about.

Best of all, he has written lots of books. I won't run out anytime soon.

MandalayVA

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Re: Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!
« Reply #7 on: December 22, 2016, 09:09:39 AM »
I've read some Phillipa Gregory and really enjoyed it - the Boleyn and Red/White Queen novels.

I'm enjoying the TV adaptation of Outlander and was excited to read the book, but reading the reviews on Goodreads made clear that it would not be the book for me (warning, disturbing content:
Spoiler: show
I don't want to read a book in which the 'hero' commits marital rape yet we're still meant to find him romantic and wonderful
).

Sooooo recommend me some books, please :-) I'm willing to try anything from light, fluffy and not at all historically accurate, to dry and accurate. This is a genre I have barely dipped my toe into and I know there are some passionate readers on this forum!

The Outlander books are for the most part really good.  The scene that you describe is a lot milder than the millennials let on and it doesn't occur again. 

Margaret George has always been a favorite of mine.  I re-read The Autobiography of Henry VIII yearly, but you won't go wrong with any of her books.  Anya Seton's Katherine, however, is probably my favorite historical novel--it's about Katherine Swynford, the mistress turned wife of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. 

wenchsenior

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Re: Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!
« Reply #8 on: December 22, 2016, 09:22:12 AM »
I've read some Phillipa Gregory and really enjoyed it - the Boleyn and Red/White Queen novels.

I'm enjoying the TV adaptation of Outlander and was excited to read the book, but reading the reviews on Goodreads made clear that it would not be the book for me (warning, disturbing content:
Spoiler: show
I don't want to read a book in which the 'hero' commits marital rape yet we're still meant to find him romantic and wonderful
).

Sooooo recommend me some books, please :-) I'm willing to try anything from light, fluffy and not at all historically accurate, to dry and accurate. This is a genre I have barely dipped my toe into and I know there are some passionate readers on this forum!

The Outlander books are for the most part really good.  The scene that you describe is a lot milder than the millennials let on and it doesn't occur again. 

Margaret George has always been a favorite of mine.  I re-read The Autobiography of Henry VIII yearly, but you won't go wrong with any of her books.  Anya Seton's Katherine, however, is probably my favorite historical novel--it's about Katherine Swynford, the mistress turned wife of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster.

Huh. I read the first 4 books of the Outlander series and I don't recall
Spoiler: show
any scenes of marital rape.
    Maybe my memory is slipping. There IS a scene where Jamie
Spoiler: show
beats Claire with a belt (according to their clan traditions of punishment after she lies to them and runs away).
That one I can definitely see being hard for some viewers and readers to get past. However, if you were able to stomach that scene onscreen in the series, along with all the sadistic torture scenes...then I would be very surprised if you couldn't read the books...

To topic...Sharon Kay Penman's books are really good historicals. Fairly accurate as well. The Sunne in Splendour is great (War of the Roses, really sympathetic Richard III characterization), and her books about Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine are also really good (starts with When Christ and His Saints Slept).

ETA: TOTALLY agree with the rec for Hilary Mantel. Those two books are among the best I've read in decades. Her Cromwell is just unbelievably fascinating. The tv adaptation was ok, but didn't come close to how brilliant the books are.
« Last Edit: December 22, 2016, 09:24:35 AM by wenchsenior »

MandalayVA

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Re: Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!
« Reply #9 on: December 22, 2016, 09:24:08 AM »
I am going to hell for forgetting Sharon Kay Penman.  Love her books.

boy_bye

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Re: Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!
« Reply #10 on: December 22, 2016, 09:26:47 AM »
Elizabeth Gilbert's "The Signature of All Things" is an absolutely beautiful book, set in the 19th century. There's botanical intrigue, abolitionists, and a very unique kind of heroine. I loved it, maybe you will too.

economista

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Re: Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!
« Reply #11 on: December 22, 2016, 09:33:16 AM »
I absolutely love historical fiction.  I really liked the Outlander series, and I'm actually re-reading it right now.  There is a really bad interaction with Jamie and Jack Randall, but nothing like that ever happens again.  My favorite books in the series start after they make it to America and the lead up and start of the Revolutionary War.  I don't have starz so I can't watch the series, but I really want to. 

Regarding other historical fiction series, I HIGHLY recommend the Century Trilogy by Ken Follett.  He follows a group of families through WWI, WWII, and the Cold War.  There is an American family, and English family, a German family, and a Russian family and it is absolutely wonderful.  He also wrote a few books that were set really far back in time, starting with the Pillars of Creation Pillars of the Earth that were also good. (Pillars of Creation is one of the books in the Sword of Truth Series by Terry Goodkind, which is a good series if you like fantasy)

I also really like all of the Edward Rutherfurd books.  Each one is based upon a city, like Paris or New York, and it follows a few families from the early founding of the city all the way through present day.
« Last Edit: December 22, 2016, 09:35:34 AM by economista »

Drifterrider

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Re: Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!
« Reply #12 on: December 22, 2016, 11:15:45 AM »

I also really like all of the Edward Rutherfurd books.  Each one is based upon a city, like Paris or New York, and it follows a few families from the early founding of the city all the way through present day.

Thanks for the tip.  Picking some up after work today.

choppingwood

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Re: Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!
« Reply #13 on: December 22, 2016, 11:54:36 AM »
Elizabeth Gilbert's "The Signature of All Things" is an absolutely beautiful book, set in the 19th century. There's botanical intrigue, abolitionists, and a very unique kind of heroine. I loved it, maybe you will too.

This sounds lovely, right up my alley. I've put a request in at my library.

NinetyFour

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Re: Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!
« Reply #14 on: December 22, 2016, 12:01:01 PM »
Following!

pbkmaine

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Re: Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!
« Reply #15 on: December 22, 2016, 12:33:26 PM »
For escapist historical romance that's kind of a mashup of Jane Austen and bodice rippers, I cannot recommend Georgette Heyer highly enough.

CloserToFree

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Re: Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!
« Reply #16 on: December 22, 2016, 12:45:03 PM »
Enjoying seeing these recs, thx for starting this thread!  I have really enjoyed these novels by Geraldine Brooks -- March (Civil War era; protaganist is the abolitionist father from Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, focused on his time at war) and Year of Wonders (the plague hits a small village in 1600s England).  Beautiful writing and storytelling, and some romance mixed in for good measure. *Warning: unless you are very good at not getting emotionally involved in what you read, I would NOT recommend reading Year of Wonders while pregnant for reasons that will become clear when you read it.*

SisterX

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Re: Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!
« Reply #17 on: December 22, 2016, 01:50:42 PM »
"The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society" by Annie Barrows and Mary Ann Schaffer is beautiful.

Anything by Georgette Heyer. They're classified under "romance" and given properly fluffy covers but don't really deserve to be there. She was a master at creating compelling, witty characters who get into outlandish yet believable escapades. She wrote both mysteries and her romances. I started with "Devil's Cub", but that's technically a sequel to "These Old Shades". "Sylvester, or the Wicked Uncle" is also among my favorites.

I'm currently re-reading "The Scarlet Pimpernel", another favorite.

"Mrs. Mike" is a great historical biography about a young woman who ended up moving to the Yukon after marrying a Mountie.

I'll come up with more later. :)

ETA: I just saw that someone else recommended Georgette Heyer as well. All the yes!

rpr

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Re: Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!
« Reply #18 on: December 22, 2016, 02:00:20 PM »
The Flashman Series
Author: George MacDonald Fraser

Fantastically researched with detailed footnotes, endnotes, references. Set in wonderful locations from 1840-1900s.

Afghanistan (1st Afghan war 1830s-40s)
India Sepoy Mutiny plus
China Taiping Rebellion
US Slave trade
US (pre Civil War/John Brown/Harpers Ferry)
US (Custer and Big Horn)
Europe (Bismarck etc).
Crimean War (Charge of the Light Brigade)

Unputdownable if you are a war history buff of that era.

Lookilu

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Re: Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!
« Reply #19 on: December 22, 2016, 02:12:52 PM »
I recommend Judith Merkle Riley's books, especially the Margaret of Ashbury trilogy.

SaskyStache

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Re: Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!
« Reply #20 on: December 22, 2016, 02:37:20 PM »
I'll second Bernard Cornwell.

And Colleen McCullough could be a good bet as well. I haven't read all of the Masters of Rome series, but I would recommend "The First Man in Rome" if you're interested in the Roman Empire. Her books are extensively researched and it feels like it paints a genuine picture of the era (I'm no expert). I would say it can move a bit slower than other historical fiction.

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Re: Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!
« Reply #21 on: December 22, 2016, 02:43:04 PM »
Some that have not been mentioned yet -

Walter Scott (medieval)

C S Forrester - Napoleonic wars at sea with Hornblower (Patrick O'Brien is the knock-off)

John Masters for colonial India (eg The Deceivers), and also Rudyard Kipling (short stories, and Kim) and J G Farrell (The Siege of Krisnapur)

Robert Louis Stevenson

Charles Dickens

Mary Renault, mostly classical (Alexander) but also WW (The Charioteer)


And sorry, pbkmaine, but Georgette Heyer is in no way ever comparable to a bodice-ripper

« Last Edit: December 22, 2016, 02:45:41 PM by former player »

iris lily

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Re: Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!
« Reply #22 on: December 22, 2016, 03:55:28 PM »
Hillary Mantel's novels on Thomas Cromwell - Wolf Hall & Bring Up The Bodies.  Same characters as the Gregory books, but a different POV.  Award winning

I, Claudius & Claudius The God by Robert Graves.  Amazing books - you are lucky to read them for the first time

Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey & Maturin novels (but very nautical...)

And of course, all of Jane Austen :)  Because so many historical novels are weak pastiches of the original

Vanity Fair by Thackeray (it counts, because he wrote the book in the 1840's but it is set in the Napoleonic wars, so it is actually historical fiction)

William Golding - To the ends of the earth trilogy

Pat Barker - Regeneration trilogy

Tolstoy - War & Peace (but looooong)
I love Vanity Fair. i didnt know it wasnt set in
Thackarey's current time. Thanks for that!

Daisy

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Re: Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!
« Reply #23 on: December 22, 2016, 06:34:54 PM »
The Spanish mini series "The Time In Between" on Netflix is excellent. It's got English subtitles. Although I speak Spanish, I relied on the subtitles a lot as every country has different ways of saying things in Spanish.

It's set during the Spanish Civil War and then WW2. Really well made! The cinematography was great. It's set in Madrid, Morocco, and Portugal.

Secretly Saving

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Re: Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!
« Reply #24 on: December 22, 2016, 06:47:46 PM »
Anything by Michelle Moran!  Love love love.

aetheldrea

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Re: Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!
« Reply #25 on: December 22, 2016, 07:09:04 PM »
Hillary Mantel's novels on Thomas Cromwell - Wolf Hall & Bring Up The Bodies.  Same characters as the Gregory books, but a different POV.  Award winning

...

Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey & Maturin novels (but very nautical...)

And of course, all of Jane Austen :)  Because so many historical novels are weak pastiches of the original

...

Tolstoy - War & Peace (but looooong)

Big +1 to the above, especially Patrick O'Brian... Very re-readable. Don't be put off by the nautical setting, the characters are what you will come back for.

Spork

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Re: Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!
« Reply #26 on: December 22, 2016, 10:06:56 PM »
 I just finished Stephen King's 11/22/63 and thought it was fabulous.  It sounds like it's about the JFK assassination -- and it sort of is -- but it is more just a fascinating novel about an ordinary guy.  It's not the stereotypical Stephen King horror tale... and I thought the writing was awesome.

Adram

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Re: Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!
« Reply #27 on: December 23, 2016, 01:00:14 AM »
Some good authors already mentioned, especially George MacDonald Fraser and Bernard Cornwell, a few I haven't heard of who I will be checking out.

I would recommend Conn Iggulden. The conqueror series, on Genghis Khan and the Mongols is brilliant, his emperor series on the life on Julius Caesar is also very good, and his new series on the war of the roses, good also... But the Genghis books were his best I think so I would start with those.

HappierAtHome

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Re: Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!
« Reply #28 on: December 23, 2016, 03:01:43 AM »
Wow, you guys are the best! Thank you. I'm making a list of all these recommendations.

I've read Friday's Child and it didn't do it for me - is it representative of Georgette Hayer generally?

Funny how many books I didn't even think of as being historical fiction! I already love Jane Austen, the Hornblower books, and Ken Follet. I guess Jane Austen isn't historical fiction as she was writing about her own time, but gosh she's good. 

I know exactly who I can borrow Wolf Hall from so I think I'll start there!

For the record, I've read the objectionable scene in Outlander and it definitely crossed the line - or in other words, is black and white enough for a conviction under my jurisdiction's criminal code - so yeah, I'm not reading that novel. It's one thing when evil or morally ambiguous characters commit sexual violence: it's another entirely when romantic heroes do. What can I say, I find consent sexy ;-)

lizzzi

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Re: Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!
« Reply #29 on: December 23, 2016, 05:47:24 AM »
I love the Brother Cadfael mysteries by Ellis Peters. There are around twenty of them, so plenty of good reading. They are set in the 1100's along the Welsh/English borders during the days when Stephen and Matilda were battling for the throne of England.

Another medieval mystery series is Alys Clare's Hawkenlye series. There are fifteen or so, featuring the long friendship between a Norman knight, Josse D'acquin, and the Abbess Helewise as they solve murders together. It starts during the Richard Plantagenet years near Tonbridge in England.

Another series is Cora Harrison's Burren mysteries, set in western Ireland during the time of Henry VIII, and featuring Mara, the Brehon of the Burren as the sleuth. As Mara judges miscreants and solves murders, the reader gets a fascinating look at the Brehonic laws of the time and at the rural life before English conquest took over. The Burren is almost a character in itself...kind of in the way the Scottish Highlands are.

RetiredAt63

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Re: Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!
« Reply #30 on: December 23, 2016, 08:10:40 AM »
And sort of modern day (1951) detective work about Richard III, The Daughter of Time, Josephine Tey.

Yes to Georgette Heyer and Ellis Peters.  They both also wrote modern mysteries, but their historical fiction (IMHO) is better.

wenchsenior

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Re: Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!
« Reply #31 on: December 23, 2016, 09:24:40 AM »
Wow, you guys are the best! Thank you. I'm making a list of all these recommendations.

I've read Friday's Child and it didn't do it for me - is it representative of Georgette Hayer generally?

Funny how many books I didn't even think of as being historical fiction! I already love Jane Austen, the Hornblower books, and Ken Follet. I guess Jane Austen isn't historical fiction as she was writing about her own time, but gosh she's good. 

I know exactly who I can borrow Wolf Hall from so I think I'll start there!

For the record, I've read the objectionable scene in Outlander and it definitely crossed the line - or in other words, is black and white enough for a conviction under my jurisdiction's criminal code - so yeah, I'm not reading that novel. It's one thing when evil or morally ambiguous characters commit sexual violence: it's another entirely when romantic heroes do. What can I say, I find consent sexy ;-)


Now I'm REALLY wondering what the hell scene I'm forgetting. Which scene is this exactly? And did they show it in the tv series?  ETA:...Ohhhh...had to go searching through the book...are you thinking of the first encounter after that scene I referenced in my first post? If so, yeah...I guess that could be upsetting to some. The way they handled it in the tv series was I think slightly less 'mixed signals' than in the book, but I can't really remember.

Also "Daughter of Time" YES! Totally forgot that one.

« Last Edit: December 23, 2016, 09:31:02 AM by wenchsenior »

lizzzi

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Re: Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!
« Reply #32 on: December 23, 2016, 11:26:43 AM »
For those who like Heyer's more historical books and are less interested in the screamingly funny romantic historicals, I'd recommend An Infamous Army--the one about Waterloo. It is fiction, and has some characters that we've met in earlier Heyer books, but is said to be so meticulously researched that students at Britain's Sandhurst military school were told to read it as a reference.

The only one of her historical fiction books that I just couldn't read at all was Royal Escape, about Charles II escaping to Europe after the Roundheads killed his father and ruled England for a while under Oliver Cromwell. Should have been gripping, but I don't know what happened. Boring as dirt.

For those who like well-researched historical romantic comedy but don't warm to the young, ingenue heroines (like in Friday's Child), maybe The Reluctant Widow or Venetia by Georgette Heyer would be more enjoyable...might want to try Frederica or The Grand Sophy, too. And a couple more with more mature characters--not so zany--are The Quiet Gentleman, and...one of my personal favorites that I've re-read several times--A Civil Contract. Some say A Civil Contract is too much like real life, too quiet, not comical enough...but that gives it a lot of charm, I think.

HappierAtHome

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Re: Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!
« Reply #33 on: December 26, 2016, 12:11:58 AM »
For the record, I've read the objectionable scene in Outlander and it definitely crossed the line - or in other words, is black and white enough for a conviction under my jurisdiction's criminal code - so yeah, I'm not reading that novel. It's one thing when evil or morally ambiguous characters commit sexual violence: it's another entirely when romantic heroes do. What can I say, I find consent sexy ;-)

Now I'm REALLY wondering what the hell scene I'm forgetting. Which scene is this exactly? And did they show it in the tv series?  ETA:...Ohhhh...had to go searching through the book...are you thinking of the first encounter after that scene I referenced in my first post? If so, yeah...I guess that could be upsetting to some. The way they handled it in the tv series was I think slightly less 'mixed signals' than in the book, but I can't really remember.

The scene I'm talking about has not been included in the series (at least up to the point I've watched). It's not ''mixed signals'', unless ''no'' is a mixed signal! Admittedly I've read it as an extract online, not in the book itself, soooo maybe on the page before that scene they agree that no means yes and pick a safe word to ensure no one is harmed?

Worth reading the low-star reviews on Goodreads if you're honestly curious - many of them quote specific scenes that are VERY problematic from a feminist (or y'know, basic human rights!) viewpoint. I'm surprised the book hasn't been edited ever so slightly to eliminate this issue. Sounds like it'd be fantastic... if only the hero wasn't a rapist. 

nnls

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Re: Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!
« Reply #34 on: December 26, 2016, 12:38:08 AM »
Thanks for starting this HappierAtHome getting heaps of good ideas for books next year.

lizzzi

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Re: Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!
« Reply #35 on: December 26, 2016, 05:20:58 AM »
Check out Historical Novels Review online to see reviews of most of the new historical fiction coming out, and maybe to check back issues to find reviews of books you may be considering. It is a quarterly journal--the journal of the Historical Novel Society.

HappierAtHome

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Re: Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!
« Reply #36 on: December 26, 2016, 06:05:52 AM »
Check out Historical Novels Review online to see reviews of most of the new historical fiction coming out, and maybe to check back issues to find reviews of books you may be considering. It is a quarterly journal--the journal of the Historical Novel Society.

That is awesome! Thank you!

wenchsenior

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Re: Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!
« Reply #37 on: December 26, 2016, 09:02:16 AM »
For the record, I've read the objectionable scene in Outlander and it definitely crossed the line - or in other words, is black and white enough for a conviction under my jurisdiction's criminal code - so yeah, I'm not reading that novel. It's one thing when evil or morally ambiguous characters commit sexual violence: it's another entirely when romantic heroes do. What can I say, I find consent sexy ;-)

Now I'm REALLY wondering what the hell scene I'm forgetting. Which scene is this exactly? And did they show it in the tv series?  ETA:...Ohhhh...had to go searching through the book...are you thinking of the first encounter after that scene I referenced in my first post? If so, yeah...I guess that could be upsetting to some. The way they handled it in the tv series was I think slightly less 'mixed signals' than in the book, but I can't really remember.

The scene I'm talking about has not been included in the series (at least up to the point I've watched). It's not ''mixed signals'', unless ''no'' is a mixed signal! Admittedly I've read it as an extract online, not in the book itself, soooo maybe on the page before that scene they agree that no means yes and pick a safe word to ensure no one is harmed?

Worth reading the low-star reviews on Goodreads if you're honestly curious - many of them quote specific scenes that are VERY problematic from a feminist (or y'know, basic human rights!) viewpoint. I'm surprised the book hasn't been edited ever so slightly to eliminate this issue. Sounds like it'd be fantastic... if only the hero wasn't a rapist.

Ok, got it, I skimmed the one-star Goodreads. Most direct quotes seem to refer to the scene (and aftermath scene) I described above. So I haven't completely lost my marbles, phew. A few others seemed to take offense at a different scene that I personally would not have ever considered problematic (having had several similar real-life encounters and found them to be sexy fun and never considered myself as 'forced' but only enjoyably 'persuaded'), but in today's explicit 'no means no' norms, yeah...I can kind of squint and see it. 

But re: the main upsetting sequence where
Spoiler: show
Jamie beats Claire with a belt, and a few eps later they have very rough and intense make-up sex
? Those scenes on the tv show were very close to the book versions. And I can totally understand why it put some readers and viewers off. For example, I knew my DH would really love a lot of the series' elements, but I also knew that he would FLIP OUT over the above-described scenes and the sexual violence at the end of the book. So, he didn't read the books. Instead, we watched the first half of the first season of the TV series, then he bailed and I described the rest of the plot. Now he's jumping back in as a viewer of Season 2 (not nearly as much sexual violence later in the series).   

This convo reminds me how interesting it is to consider changing norms in historical novels. During and prior to the 1990s, when Gabaldon's first book came out, historical romances regularly featured and romanticized rape and sexual assault of all kinds. I didn't read a lot of those novels, but when I did I didn't really think much about it. I don't think most readers did. At the time, Gabaldon's book was, if not exactly feminist, certainly more progressive than an avalanche of novels from the 70s and 80s.

Historical novels are also tricky because rape was super common in some eras and some settings. So if you want to avoid reading it, then you need to seek out novels that are somewhat unrealistic and white-wash that aspect of life mostly out, or those with settings where it would have been less common. Jane Austen, for example. Or SK Penman.  Or (NEW REC!!!) Edith Wharton.  I rarely read straight up romance novels anymore, but it does seem like those rape tropes are uncommon now, even in novels with settings where they would realistically be incredibly common.  Which is fine. I'm all for non violent escapist fantasy! (I also don't like to contemplate the tooth rot and body odor endemic in Ye Olden Days when I'm reading historical fiction LOL).

Not to derail the thread completely, but I am just rereading a well regarded literary fiction novel from the 80s, The Witches of Eastwick.  At the time, it was considered to be a fairly feminist book, and I remembered it that way from when I originally read it, when I was about 17. But it is weirdly dated and offensive now, in a whole bunch of ways that never struck me then. Actually, a lot of media from the 1980s seems WAY more sexist, racist, and homophobic in retrospect, and I think, why didn't we all notice this back then? But of course, the 80s were LESS sexist, racist, and homophobic than the 70s, which were less so than the 60s, and so on.

Fascinating how quickly norms change.

Unique User

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Re: Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!
« Reply #38 on: December 26, 2016, 10:52:26 AM »
And sort of modern day (1951) detective work about Richard III, The Daughter of Time, Josephine Tey.

I love this book!!  Sharon Kay Penman is great and not just for all the typical books - Here be dragons, etc.  Her Justin DeQuincy books are great short reads.  Others not mentioned are Laurie King's Mary Russell series and James Mitchner.  I also liked Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden and Girl with Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier.  If you liked Phillippa Gregory, you might like the Ursula Blanchard series by Fiona Buckley or the Elizabeth I series by Karen Harper.  Also, Alison Weir has written several books similar to Phillippa Gregory.   

lizzzi

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Re: Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!
« Reply #39 on: December 26, 2016, 11:37:19 AM »
The Ursula Blanchard Elizabethan mysteries are excellent--entertaining and well-written. Ursula is the illegitimate, fictitious half-sister of Elizabeth I. Fiona Buckley is a pseudonym for Valerie Anand, a British author of historical fiction. One of my all-time favorite, and highly-recommended historical fiction series is her Bridges Over Time series. It starts with The Proud Villeins before the Norman Conquest, and continues with book after book throughout English history,  until finally The Dowerless Sisters ends in modern times. Also her Anglo-Saxon and Norman books are great...Gildenford, The Disputed Crown, The Norman Pretender, King of the Wood. The only book of hers that I have had trouble reading was Crown of Roses, set during the Wars of the Roses. Just can't get into that one.

rpr

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Re: Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!
« Reply #40 on: December 26, 2016, 01:40:17 PM »
If you like Japanese history from the Edo period and mysteries, check out the Sano Ichiro mystery series.

Leisured

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Re: Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!
« Reply #41 on: December 26, 2016, 11:28:33 PM »
I support George MacDonald Fraser and the Flashman series. The running joke in the series is that Flashman, who was school bully in 'Tom Brown's Schooldays', has become a cavalry officer, and tries as hard as he can to avoid danger, and always gets up to his neck in danger.

My late mother liked Ellis Peters and the Cadfael series. It is a very long time since I read 'The Scarlet Pimpernel', and Walter Scott's 'Ivanhoe', the latter set at the beginning of 12th century England, but I liked them at the time.


Freckles

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Re: Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!
« Reply #42 on: December 27, 2016, 12:27:43 AM »
Elizabeth Gilbert's "The Signature of All Things" is an absolutely beautiful book, set in the 19th century. There's botanical intrigue, abolitionists, and a very unique kind of heroine. I loved it, maybe you will too.

Oooh, I just started this. Now I'm even more excited to continue it!

yakamashii

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Re: Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!
« Reply #43 on: December 27, 2016, 12:48:23 AM »
"The Jungle" and "Oil!" By Upton Sinclair. The Jungle is about the awful conditions faced by the meatpackers (and the meat) around the turn of the last century, and Oil! is about ... oil ... in the 1910s and 1920s.

StarBright

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Re: Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!
« Reply #44 on: December 27, 2016, 09:24:05 AM »
For those who like Heyer's more historical books and are less interested in the screamingly funny romantic historicals, I'd recommend An Infamous Army--the one about Waterloo. It is fiction, and has some characters that we've met in earlier Heyer books, but is said to be so meticulously researched that students at Britain's Sandhurst military school were told to read it as a reference.


So glad you mentioned this- re Sandhurst - I was scrolling through the thread and was going to bring it up if someone else didn't.

I've always really appreciated the research of both Heyer and Anya Seton. From Seton I've read Katherine and Dragonwyck a million times.

For some newer Hfic writers on the scene I've really enjoyed Kate Quinn and Stephanie Dray and C.W. Gortner. Quinn and Dray also write group novels with other writers (Ben Kane and maybe Michelle Moran?) about epic historic events from multiple POVs - I really like their Pompeii novel, "A Day of Fire."
« Last Edit: December 27, 2016, 10:48:24 AM by StarBright »

With This Herring

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Re: Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!
« Reply #45 on: December 27, 2016, 11:34:15 AM »
I don't usually care for historical fiction or mysteries, but I love pretty much anything by Barbara Hambly, so I recommend her Benjamin January series.  It is set in pre-Abolition New Orleans.  January is a freed slave making his living as a musician who ends up getting roped into solving mysteries.  Just a warning, some of the scenes in the second or third book are rather gruesome.  You will be able to see January as a good guy, but he is pushed into making some morally gray choices.  Read the books in order, and avoid looking at plot summaries for later books ahead of reading them, as they contain spoilers for events later in the series (aarrrgh).

Hambly tries to write dialogue in a generally historically-accurate way, so terminology that would be considered offensive now is used frequently.  The copies of these books that I have read have explained this terminology in a preface, but I'm not sure if these notes also appear in mass market paperbacks.

Blindsquirrel

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Re: Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!
« Reply #46 on: December 27, 2016, 06:51:34 PM »
Mutiny on the Bounty, Men against the Sea, Pitcairn's Island by Nordoff and Hall.  They are all great books about Capt Bligh and the mutineers.

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Re: Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!
« Reply #47 on: December 27, 2016, 07:36:47 PM »
Mary Renault, mostly classical (Alexander) but also WW (The Charioteer)

I love her book The King Must Die. It is based on the Greek hero Theseus, but without the fantastical elements, so the story becomes one that could have actually taken place and then evolved into the famous myth over time. It's a great read and could make a fantastic film.

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Re: Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!
« Reply #48 on: December 28, 2016, 02:52:14 AM »
Burial Rites by Hannah Kent.

Quote
Published in May 2013, it tells the story of Agnes Magnúsdóttir, a servant in northern Iceland who was condemned to death after the murder of two men, one of whom was her employer, and became the last woman put to death in Iceland.

Kent was drawn to the idea of writing her story after a visit to the scene of the woman's execution in a lonely area of Iceland, close to where she stayed for some time as a Rotary student when she was 18.

The novel crafts a more ambiguous, sympathetic image of the life of a woman widely regarded in popular opinion to have been 'an inhumane witch, stirring up murder'.

Burial Rites was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, and for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction (2014).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Kent

Fascinating, well-researched, and just superb writing.

deborah

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Re: Recommend your favourite historical fiction to me!
« Reply #49 on: December 28, 2016, 04:40:08 AM »
For those who like Heyer's more historical books and are less interested in the screamingly funny romantic historicals, I'd recommend An Infamous Army--the one about Waterloo. It is fiction, and has some characters that we've met in earlier Heyer books, but is said to be so meticulously researched that students at Britain's Sandhurst military school were told to read it as a reference.

The only one of her historical fiction books that I just couldn't read at all was Royal Escape, about Charles II escaping to Europe after the Roundheads killed his father and ruled England for a while under Oliver Cromwell. Should have been gripping, but I don't know what happened. Boring as dirt.

For those who like well-researched historical romantic comedy but don't warm to the young, ingenue heroines (like in Friday's Child), maybe The Reluctant Widow or Venetia by Georgette Heyer would be more enjoyable...might want to try Frederica or The Grand Sophy, too. And a couple more with more mature characters--not so zany--are The Quiet Gentleman, and...one of my personal favorites that I've re-read several times--A Civil Contract. Some say A Civil Contract is too much like real life, too quiet, not comical enough...but that gives it a lot of charm, I think.
The books that lead up to Infamous Army are quite good - Regency Buck is one of my favourites, and These Old Shades, and The Devil's Cub are quite good. I thought The Spanish Bride (the other Napoleon history, with much historical accuracy) was better than Infamous Army. I never appreciated Simon Coldheart (another historical fiction).

Friday's Child is one of the poorer Georgette Heyer's - I would add Sylvester to your list of the good ones.

I agree with everyone that the George McDonald Frazer books are good. And I love Josephine Tay. Has anyone mentioned Ellis Peters and the medieval mystery novels?