New to Historical Fiction?
Start here. Three guides to get you reading the right book from the very first page.
📚 What Is Historical Fiction?
Learn what makes a great historical novel, how the genre works, and why readers love it.
Read the Guide →🎯 For Beginners
Not sure where to start? Our curated guide helps newcomers find the perfect first historical fiction read.
Get Started →⭐ Best of All Time
Explore the greatest historical fiction novels ever written, spanning every era and corner of the world.
See the List →Explore by Time Period
Every era of history has its own stories. Find the period that captivates you.
🪖 World War I
The Great War’s trenches, sacrifice and the generation that lived through it.
Explore →✈️ World War II
The most-written era in historical fiction. Resistance, courage and survival.
Explore →🎩 Victorian Era
Industrial revolution, empire, social upheaval and the birth of the modern world.
Explore →Featured Authors
Discover the masters of historical fiction and explore their complete bibliographies and reading orders.
Popular Series Reading Orders
Get the complete reading order for the most beloved historical fiction series.
The Last Kingdom
See Reading Order →Outlander
See Reading Order →Wolf Hall Trilogy
See Reading Order →Sharpe Series
See Reading Order →Kingsbridge Series
See Reading Order →Shardlake Series
See Reading Order →Curated Reading Lists
Not sure what to read next? Browse our handpicked lists by theme, era and mood.
⚔️ Best Medieval Historical Fiction
Knights, crusades, plague and political intrigue across the Middle Ages.
See the List →🏛️ Best Ancient Rome Books
From the Republic to the fall of the Empire, the greatest Roman fiction ever written.
See the List →✈️ Best WWII Historical Fiction
Resistance fighters, spies, soldiers and survivors. The finest stories from the Second World War.
See the List →👸 Best Female Lead Historical Fiction
Strong, complex women at the centre of history’s most gripping stories.
See the List →Latest Posts
Best Alternate History Books: The Ultimate Reading Guide
Alternate history asks the most irresistible question in fiction: what if? What if the Allies had lost World War II? What if the Confederacy had won at Gettysburg? What if a single assassination, a single battle, a single decision had gone the other way? The best alternate history novels are not escapist fantasy. They are…
George MacDonald Fraser: Complete Guide to Books & Series
There is a reasonable argument that George MacDonald Fraser wrote the greatest comic historical fiction series in the English language. The Flashman Papers, twelve novels and one short story collection published between 1969 and 2005, follow the fictional Victorian soldier Harry Flashman across every major crisis of the 19th century, from the First Anglo-Afghan War…
Flashman Papers Reading Order: Complete Guide
There is no other character in historical fiction quite like Harry Flashman. A coward, a liar, a bully, and a shameless self-promoter, he is also one of the most entertaining narrators in the entire genre. Over the course of twelve books, George MacDonald Fraser sent his incorrigible antihero charging through the great crises of the…
Alice Winn: In Memoriam Debut and Upcoming Releases
Alice Winn announced herself as one of the most exciting new voices in historical fiction with her debut novel In Memoriam, published in 2023. The book, a devastating love story set in the trenches of World War I, won the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize, the Waterstones Novel of the Year, the British Book Awards Debut…
Sebastian Faulks: Complete Guide to Books & Series
Sebastian Faulks is one of Britain’s most celebrated literary novelists, best known for writing historical fiction that transforms the horrors of war into profoundly human stories. His 1993 novel Birdsong has sold more than three million copies worldwide and is widely regarded as one of the defining works of modern English literature. Faulks belongs to…
Best Historical Fiction Set in the Ancient Middle East: Babylon, Persia, and Mesopotamia
Most readers who love ancient history have been well served by Rome and Greece. Shelves groan with novels set in the Forum and on the slopes of the Acropolis. But the civilisations that came before, and the empires that rose beside them, have largely been left in the shadows. Babylon, Nineveh, Persepolis, Uruk: these are…