The Shardlake series by C.J. Sansom is one of the finest achievements in historical crime fiction. Across seven novels, published between 2003 and 2018, Matthew Shardlake, a hunchbacked London lawyer, investigates murders at the heart of the most dangerous years…
Philippa Gregory‘s Plantagenet and Tudor novels are the best-known historical fiction about the women of England’s royal courts. Seventeen novels, published from 2001 to 2026, follow queens, princesses, mistresses and courtiers from the Wars of the Roses to the reign…
The Cicero Trilogy by Robert Harris is a complete series of 3 political thrillers set in Ancient Rome during the final decades of the Roman Republic. Narrated by Cicero’s loyal secretary Tiro, the trilogy chronicles the extraordinary life of Marcus…
The Conqueror series by Conn Iggulden comprises five epic novels that chronicle the rise of the Mongol Empire across three generations. The series follows the legendary Genghis Khan from his brutal childhood on the Mongolian steppes through his creation of…
The Emperor Series brings ancient Rome’s most legendary figure to vivid life through meticulously researched historical fiction that combines brutal warfare, political intrigue, and the making of a legend. Conn Iggulden’s epic saga follows Julius Caesar from his boyhood through…
The Century Trilogy is Ken Follett‘s most ambitious work: three enormous novels that follow five interconnected families through the whole of the 20th century. It begins in a Welsh coal town on the day of King George V’s coronation in…
The Wolf Hall Trilogy by Hilary Mantel is one of the great achievements of modern historical fiction. Across three novels published between 2009 and 2020, Mantel follows Thomas Cromwell from a beaten boy in Putney to the most powerful man…
Ken Follett’s Kingsbridge novels follow one fictional English town across more than eight hundred years, from a Viking-raided ferry crossing in 997 to the mills and riots of the 1820s. Each book has a new cast and a new century,…
Richard Sharpe is one of the great heroes of historical fiction: a London gutter child who joins the army to escape the hangman and rises from the ranks to become an officer in Wellington’s army. Across 24 novels and three…
Elizabeth Chadwick is one of Britain’s most acclaimed medieval historical fiction authors, hailed by the Historical Novel Society as “the best writer of medieval fiction currently around.” With over 33 novels spanning the 11th to 14th centuries, she has brought…