Popular Historical Fiction Books for Adults
Hundreds of books are added to the Library's collection each month. Here are the most popular Historical Fiction books for adults.
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The Midnight News
"From the best-selling author of Longbourn, a gripping novel of one young woman's unraveling during the Blitz-a story of WWII intrigue, love, and danger. It is 1940 and bombs are falling on London. Watching from her attic window, Charlotte sees enemy planes flying in over the city and her neighbours' homes turning to rubble. Still grieving for her beloved brother who never returned from France, Charlotte has moved away from her overbearing father and built a new life for herself. She works as a typist for the Ministry of Information, rents a room in a ramshackle house, and shares gin and confidences with her best friend, Elena. Every day brings new scenes of devastation, and after each heartbreaking loss Charlotte comes to fear that something-or someone-else is responsible. Who is the shadow man that seems to be following her? Is her mind playing tricks? Her nerves increasingly frayed, she soon finds her very freedom under threat. . . Utterly riveting and hypnotic, The Midnight News is a love story, a war story, and an unforgettable journey into the fragile mind and fierce heart of an extraordinary young woman"--
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This Is Happiness
"Change is coming to Faha, a small Irish parish that hasn't changed in a thousand years. For one thing, the rain is stopping. Nobody remembers when it started; rain on the western seaboard is a condition of living. But now - just as Father Coffey proclaims the coming of the electricity - the rain clouds are lifting. Seventeen-year-old Noel Crowe is idling in the unexpected sunshine when Christy makes his first entrance into Faha, bringing secrets he needs to atone for. Though he can't explain it, Noel knows right then: something has changed. As the people of Faha anticipate the endlessly procrastinated advent of the electricity, and Noel navigates his own coming-of-age and his falling in and out of love, Christy's past gradually comes to light, casting a new glow on a small world."--Publisher description.
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Queen Charlotte
"In 1761, on a sunny day in September, a King and Queen met for the very first time. They were married within hours. Born a German Princess, Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz was beautiful, headstrong, and fiercely intelligent--not precisely the attributes the British Court had been seeking in a spouse for the young King George III. But her fire and independence were exactly what she needed because George had secrets-- secrets with the potential to shake the very foundations of the monarchy. Thrust into her new role as a royal, Charlotte must learn to navigate the intricate politics of the court, all the while guarding her heart, because she is falling in love with the King, even as he pushes her away"--Dust jacket flap.
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The Marriage Portrait
"A novel set in Renaissance Italy, and centering on the captivating young duchess Lucrezia de' Medici"--
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Beneath A Scarlet Sky: A Novel
In 1940s Italy, teenager Pino Lella joins an underground railroad helping Jews escape over the Alps and falls for a beautiful widow; he also becomes the personal driver of one of the Third Reich's most powerful commanders.
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Rules of Civility
A chance encounter with a handsome banker in a jazz bar on New Year's Eve 1938 catapults Wall Street secretary Katey Kontent into the upper echelons of New York society, where she befriends a shy multi-millionaire, an Upper East Side ne'er-do-well, and a single-minded widow.
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Homegoing
"Two half sisters, Effia and Esi, unknown to each other, are born into two different tribal villages in 18th century Ghana. Effia will be married off to an English colonial, and will live in comfort in the sprawling, palatial rooms of Cape Coast Castle, raising half-caste children who will be sent abroad to be educated in England before returning to the Gold Coast to serve as administrators of the Empire. Her sister, Esi, will be imprisoned beneath Effia in the Castle's women's dungeon, and then shipped off on a boat bound for America, where she will be sold into slavery."--
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The Whalebone Theatre
"An utterly enchanting, immersive novel about an irrepressible young heroine who becomes an undercover agent during World War II-a sparkling debut, by turns heartwarming and heartbreaking. One blustery night in 1928, a whale washes up on the shores of the English Channel. By law, all whales belong to the King, but twelve-year-old Cristabel Seagrave has other plans. She and the rest of the household and their guests--her sister, Flossie (known affectionately as "The Veg"); her brother Digby, the long-awaited heir to Chilcombe manor; Maudie Kitkat, maidservant; Taras, a hot-tempered visiting artist--build a theatre within the whale's skeleton. Cristabel is an orphan, mostly ignored by her feckless step-parents and brisk governesses. But within the Whalebone Theatre, she is fully at home and in charge, and her imagination comes to life. As Cristabel grows into a headstrong young woman, chafing against expectations, World War II rears its head. She and Digby become British secret agents working undercover in Nazi-Occupied France on separate missions--a more dangerous kind of play-acting, it turns out, and one that threatens to tear the family apart. The Whalebone Theatre is a sweeping, transporting, completely irresistible novel, full of warmth and charm, humor and poignancy, passion and adventure-a story of love, bravery, lost innocence, and self-transformation"--
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To Track A Traitor
"Early one May morning Lane is pulled awake by a call from Scotland -- her grandfather has had a heart attack. As Lane makes plans to fly overseas, Inspector Darling prepares himself for a stint of bachelorhood. But before he can begin to dwell on it, the Nelson Police learn that Ben Arden, a local cad, has gone out for a late-night boat ride and not returned. In Scotland Lane finds her grandfather on the mend but her estranged sister Diana caught up in stressful circumstances of her own. As Lane follows a thread leading from South Africa to Aberdeen to the War Office in London it becomes apparent that her sister is not missing, as Lane feared, but on the run. Back at the Nelson Police station clues amass around the Arden case, but progress is interrupted when the mayor himself issues a demand that Darling travel to England to tie up a decades-old mystery. True to form, upon Darling's arrival in London he is swept up in Lane's mission, which threatens to endanger the entire family."--
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Shrines of Gaiety: A Novel
"The #1 national bestselling, award-winning author of Life after Life transports us to the dazzling London of the Roaring Twenties in a whirlwind tale of corruption, seduction, and debts that have come due. 1926, and in a country still recovering from the Great War, London has become the focus for a delirious new nightlife. In the clubs of Soho, peers of the realm rub shoulders with starlets, foreign dignitaries with gangsters, and girls sell dances for a shilling a time. The notorious queen of this glittering world is Nellie Coker, ruthless but also ambitious to advance her six children, including the enigmatic eldest, Niven, whose character has been forged in the crucible of the Somme. But success breeds enemies, and Nellie's empire faces threats from without and within. For beneath the dazzle of Soho's gaiety, there is a dark underbelly, a world in which it is all too easy to become lost. With her unique Dickensian flair, Kate Atkinson gives us a window in a vanished world. Slyly funny, brilliantly observant, and ingeniously plotted, Shrines of Gaiety showcases the myriad talents that have made Atkinson one of the most lauded writers of our time"--
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