Saturday, November 30, 2024

Critics pick their favorite historical novels of 2024


It's not even December, and media outlets have been proclaiming their Best Books recommendations for 2024. I feel a bit sorry for those novels slated to come out next month! (Although to be fair, these may be included in roundups by pre-publication review sources.)

Here are the lists I've come across thus far.

As always, NPR's Books We Love crosses subgenres, age categories, and time periods (even ranging up through the 1980s) to present their annual collage of favorite historical novels: 44 of them.  If you prefer to see a list rather than a cover gallery, that's available too.

Writing for The Times (London), critics Nick Rennison and Antonia Senior pick the 10 best historical novels for 2024. This is paywalled, sorry, though if you have Apple News, you can read the article through the app. Some books included here that I haven't seen on other lists are Irish writer Kevin Barry's The Heart in Winter (set in 1890s Montana), Mary Horlock's The Stranger's Companion (1930s on the Channel Island of Sark), Hesse Phillips' Lightborne (Christopher Marlowe), and Rosanna Pike's A Little Trickerie (Tudor times).

The Washington Post (gift link) makes their picks, including Leonard Pitts, Jr.'s 54 Miles, Ashton Lattimore's All We Were Promised, and The Phoenix Crown by Kate Quinn and Janie Chang, which is on NPR's list too.

The top 10 list in The Independent has been out for a few weeks, and is very different from that in the compilation above. Overlapping titles include Robert Harris's Precipice (which I also read and enjoyed, though it wasn't my favorite of his) and Tracy Chevalier's The Glassmaker.

The final round of Readers' Choice Awards at Goodreads is out, with ten books vying for the title (in theory). Voting is only open for the next day and a half. Just because I'm curious how closely popularity will correlate with the ultimate rankings, here they are, listed by the # of reviews posted in the system as of today:

The Women by Kristin Hannah - over 90K reviews
The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon - 19,400+ reviews
James by Percival Everett - 13,800+ reviews
The Briar Club by Kate Quinn - 6700+ reviews
By Any Other Name by Jodi Picoult - 5300+ reviews
Husbands and Lovers by Beatriz Williams - 4600+ reviews
Anita del Monte Laughs Last by Xóchitl González - 3800+ reviews
The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali - 3600+ reviews
The Seventh Veil of Salome by Silvia Moreno-Garcia - 1200+ reviews
The Booklover's Library by Madeline Martin - 800+ reviews

Some books with higher #s of reviews were eliminated after the semifinals, so we'll see how this ends up.

Still to come: the New York Times list, which should be out in mid-December, and Library Journal's lists, out in their December issue.

Sunday, November 24, 2024

Ten recent indie-published historical novels to check out

If you aren't paying attention to indie-published historical fiction, you don't have a full picture of what the genre has to offer to readers today. You're also missing out on some wonderful stories. The best of these novels, as with those from mainstream publishers, have excellent writing and editing as well as professional cover art. And with indies, authors are organizing all this on their own, plus handling their own publicity and marketing.

How did I go about choosing these? Some are by authors who have had previous novels out with big presses, so I've been following their writing paths for years. The historical fiction market is so focused on specific eras and trends that when I hear about a new novel by a writer who turned to self-publishing after a successful career with bigger presses, my ears perk up. (While not the focus for this post, this holds true for small presses too.)  These books frequently incorporate less familiar topics, settings, and approaches, and as a reader, I appreciate greater variety.  Others listed below came to my attention through reviews and recommendations from trusted sources, or because I've read and enjoyed previous books by their writers. This is the first of two (at least) posts.

Someone Always Nearby by Susan Wittig AlbertSusan Wittig Albert has published a great many novels (mysteries) with NY presses, both on her own and co-written with her husband. Most of the books in her Hidden Women series of biographical novels, though, have been indie-published, including Loving Eleanor. Her latest, Someone Always Nearby, centers on Maria Chabot, a prominent promoter of Native American art, and a good friend to Georgia O'Keeffe. (November 2023)

Sleight of Hand by Elizabeth R. AndersenThe first novel in Elizabeth R. Andersen's Alewives of Colmar series was great fun. In Sleight of Hand, the followup to The Alewives, the three women brewers from 14th-century Alsace have another mystery on their hands when an unfortunate item shows up in one of their cooking pots.  (April 2024)

A Parcel of Rogues by Pamela BellePamela Belle's 17th-century Herons of Goldhayes saga, written in the '80s, still holds a treasured place on my bookshelf. The books in her Wintercombe series, following a Puritan woman and her family during the English Civil War, are also longtime favorites. A Parcel of Rogues, her first new novel in over 25 years, incorporates a different style and setting: the decadent, dangerous world of London and other English cities in the early 18th century. (June 2024)

The Lost Women of Mill Street by Kinley BryanKinley Bryan's debut Sisters of the Sweetwater Fury opened my eyes to little-known Great Lakes history and the roles of women at the time. For her second novel, she moves back in time to the Civil War, following two millworker sisters forced to begin new lives far away from their Southern home. (May 2024)

The Lioness by Gigi GriffisThe Lioness is biographical fiction about Jeanne de Clisson, known as the Lion of Brittany, a 14th-century privateer seeking justice for her late husband. The author has also written The Empress, a tie-in to the Netflix series of the same name about Empress Elisabeth of Austria, plus novels for younger readers. (November 2024)

The Baku Inheritance by Anne M. KennedyAnne M. Kennedy's debut is historical adventure/suspense. Based on its first three chapters, it took home the silver medal in the Adventure category of the Historical Novel Society's First Chapters competition earlier this year. Opening in 1890 in the oil-rich capital of Azerbaijan, it follows a man's quest to solve a mystery involving his family, a jeweled artifact, and an encoded message. (September 2024)

The Night the Light Went Out by A. M. ReadeThird and latest in her Cape May Historical Mystery series of standalone novels, The Night the Light Went Out is a locked room mystery of sorts set within a lighthouse during a violent storm along the New Jersey coast in the 1820s. The author also writes cozy mysteries and gothic suspense as Amy M. Reade. (August 2024)

The Longest Exile by Tana RebellisAfter author Michelle Moran recommended this novel on social media, I had to go look it up. Tana Rebellis' novel is first in a duology about Julia the Younger, a Roman noblewoman and Emperor Augustus' granddaughter, who finds herself sent into exile after becoming pregnant with an illegitimate child.  (June 2024)

Love's Knife by Tracey WarrTracey Warr specializes in historical fiction set in medieval times; previously published by Impress Books (UK), she has reissued her earlier novels under her own imprint along with new material, including this new book. Love's Knife, first in a series, introduces a female troubadour (trobairitz) who investigates a murder at the court of 11th-century Toulouse. (September 2024)

Anny in Love by Barbara WrightThe Anny of the title is Anne Thackeray, oldest daughter of Vanity Fair's author, as she begins finding her own place in the world, amid family obligations and her own love affairs, after her father's death. Barbara Wright won the Spur award from Western Writers of America for her 2003 novel Plain Language. (June 2024)

Sunday, November 17, 2024

The opening round is up for the 2024 Goodreads Choice Award for Historical Fiction

Voting for the opening round in the 2024 Goodreads Choice Awards is open for the next week, through November 24th. On the ballot for historical fiction are 20 titles, which appear in a random assortment.

Opening Round of the Goodreads Choice Award for Historical Fiction


I've read only two of these, The Great Divide and The Frozen River.  Much as I enjoyed these two, I'm going to take a wild guess that the ultimate winner for 2024 will be Kristin Hannah's The Women.  It has a 4.63 rating and, most importantly, 88,160 reviews already on Goodreads.  Nothing else comes close in terms of review numbers. But even though the novels on this grid with fewer than 1000 reviews don't stand much of a chance against very popular books, Goodreads remains a very useful tool for book discovery, and if you want more readers to get their eyes on a book that you highly recommend, have your say and vote for it, in hopes that it will make it through to the final round.  

Kristin Hannah's historical novels always fare well in this competition, but her previous novel, The Four Winds, lost to Taylor Jenkins Reid's Malibu Rising (which had more overall reviews) in 2021. 

Also, take a look at the initial picks for debut novels, since you'll find historicals there that didn't make the main category, like Ashton Lattimore's All We Were Promised, Ferdia Lennon's Glorious Exploits, Eve J. Chung's Daughters of Shandong, Elba Iris Pérez's The Things We Didn't Know, and O. O. Sangoyomi's Masquerade.

In the fantasy category are Rose Sutherland's A Sweet Sting of Salt, set in 1830s Nova Scotia; Katherine Arden's WWI novel The Warm Hands of Ghosts; Leigh Bardugo's Spanish Golden Age fantasy The Familiar; Yangsze Choo's The Fox Wife, set in early 20th-century Manchuria; and Ann Liang's mythological Chinese retelling A Song to Drown Rivers.  There's strong reader interest in historical fantasy genre-blends. The horror category has historical novels in it too, namely Del Sandeen's This Cursed House and C. J. Cooke's The Book of Witching.

I don't vote for books I haven't read, so my choice for historical fiction went to Ariel Lawhon's The Frozen River.  We'll see how far it gets in the process. New books frequently get introduced for the final round, so I'll be curious to see those, too.

Tuesday, November 12, 2024

Rachel Blackmore's Costanza reveals the real woman behind a groundbreaking 17th-century sculpture

She has gazed out at viewers for nearly four centuries: eyes wide, lips parted, hair unkempt, expression determined and sensual. The marble portrait of Costanza Piccolomini, one-time mistress of Baroque master Gianlorenzo Bernini, appears so lifelike it could almost speak, but as Rachel Blackmore reminds us in her exceptional debut novel, the real woman deserves a voice that stands independently of the male regard.

In 1630s Rome, Costanza runs a respectable household as the wife of artisan Matteo Bonucelli, a kind but less-than-amorous man. Matteo’s new commission for St. Peter’s Basilica brings the couple into the company of its chief architect, “Il Cavaliere” himself. Attracted by her boldness, Bernini offers to tutor Costanza in art interpretation, events that soon see them tumbling into an affair, a situation her husband—whose interests lie elsewhere—willingly tolerates.

Heady with passion and her new elevated position in society, Costanza sets aside the warnings from Bernini’s old rival and her childhood best friend. Her first encounter with the marble bust Bernini surreptitiously crafts in her image is a masterly scene, showcasing the author’s descriptive prowess alongside Costanza’s realization about her lover’s character, how he views her, and what it means for her reputation.

History records the terrible harm that Bernini inflicted on Costanza, foreshadowed in the chilling prologue, but here the narrative is all hers, revealing in intimate fashion how she reacts to this shocking betrayal and endures a painful loss of pride before gaining sufficient wisdom to come into her own.

This novel serves as a necessary corrective to the historical tendency to glorify talented but violent men while leaving their victims as footnotes. Costanza proves especially powerful since it’s based in fact, and because Blackmore carefully exposes the power differential between the sexes from multiple angles.

Rachel Blackmore's Costanza was published by Renegade Books, an imprint of Dialogue Books/Little Brown UK, in August, and I reviewed it from a personal copy for November's Historical Novels Review. For US-based readers, it's available as an ebook (currently 99 cents on Kindle, for however long this lasts).

Also for the same HNR issue, Katherine Mezzacappa interviewed the author and Harriet Constable (The Instrumentalist) alongside a discussion of her own new novel, The Maiden of Florence, about how they all brought little-known historical Italian women back into the spotlight.  See also Blackmore's piece for The Observer about the real history behind the sculpture of Costanza.

In her author's note, Blackmore explains how she was spurred to write this novel out of fury over the murder of Londoner Sarah Everard in March 2021, and years of "endemic violence against women," as she writes, that has long gone unaddressed. Costanza's story, fortunately, is also one of survival, and if you're curious to learn more about this woman from history's shadows, I recommend it.

Saturday, November 02, 2024

Eleanore of Avignon depicts a young woman's courageous path in medieval France

The Provençal city of Avignon in 1347-48 is rife with tension and drama, with the Catholic popes in residence, Queen Joanna of Naples seeking exoneration from her first husband’s murder, the arrival of the plague, and a stressed-out, decimated populace looking for someone to blame. In her debut, DeLozier takes full advantage of her setting’s potential with her exciting story. It’s a quest novel in a sense, encompassing a young woman’s mission to fulfill her calling as a healer while holding her family together in a perilous time.

Eleanore (Elea) and Margot Blanchet are the twin daughters of a papal notary and his late spouse, a talented midwife. One day while seeking herbal remedies outside the city gates, Elea runs into Guy “Guigo” de Chauliac, a man of modest birth who rose to become Pope Clement’s personal physician.

Through a combination of chance and clever negotiations, Elea becomes Guigo’s apprentice and, later, midwife to the expectant Queen Joanna while the deadly pestilence rages through the city. As Guigo and Elea pore over medical texts and tend to patients, desperate to discover a cure, she strives to juggle her multiple responsibilities.

As with other novels where invented characters play big roles in the lives of real people, some plot elements may raise eyebrows, and Elea, while courageous and resourceful, takes some careless risks. The pacing never flags; DeLozier paints the atmosphere clearly without weighty exposition, and the novel’s historical scaffolding shines, especially the details on the two types of plague and their symptoms (as was documented by the real Chauliac, an eminent medieval surgeon).

Elea faces personal danger in the form of a fanatical priest who once targeted her late mother, raising the stakes even higher. An entertaining novel about a woman’s strength and selflessness, unfair prejudice, and the sisterly bond.

Eleanore of Avignon is published next week by Dutton; I'd reviewed it from NetGalley for the Historical Novels Review. The novel made the LibraryReads list for November (the top ten fiction and nonfiction works chosen by US public library staff), which I think is terrific.  A debut novel set in a less familiar place in medieval times, and librarians and their readers are enthusiastic about it.  So let's have more of them! There is a thread related to witchcraft, so the novel fits that historical fiction trend as well.

Wednesday, October 23, 2024

For their next books, three prominent historical novelists are sticking with their genre roots

Several well-known historical novelists have announced their next books in recent weeks, and I found it especially interesting to see they're returning to (or in one case, staying with) the historical era and/or theme of their most popular books.

Just after the Frankfurt Book Fair began last week, Philippa Gregory's publishing team began getting the word out about her next historical, to be called Boleyn Traitor, focusing on Jane (Parker) Boleyn, the controversial sister-in-law of Anne who was rumored to have played a role in the downfall of two of Henry VIII's queens. Gregory has written about Jane before (she was a viewpoint character in her 2006 novel The Boleyn Inheritance) but the articles about the announcement refer mainly to her The Other Boleyn Girl (2001), her first biographical novel, whose huge success prompted a Tudor renaissance, so to speak, in the genre. 

2001: such a long time ago now.  This is making me feel old.

The pub date for Boleyn Traitor (HarperCollins) is a year from now, October 2025. Will this new book be any different, or just an extended version of the same story of Jane's life previously told?  We'll have to see, but I imagine there'll be some new interpretation.  It will be the first in a three-book series. Perhaps this means, also, that her Fairmile series, about the rise of an ordinary family in the 17th century, is officially complete at three books.


cover images
Not much to see here, really; these are the publishers' placeholder
covers, not the final ones.


Another novelist with strong roots in the 16th century is staying there; Alison Weir's next book, out in May 2025, will be The Cardinal, about Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, the English statesman who became Henry VIII's chief adviser and the mentor to his successor, Thomas Cromwell.  Wolsey tumbled from power during the king's attempt to secure a divorce from Katharine of Aragon. This will be Weir's first full biographical novel about someone who isn't a member of a royal family, though he will certainly be a familiar name to readers of Tudor fiction. Nearly all of Weir's novels have been about Henry VIII and his relatives, and since I've reviewed nearly all her recent books for Booklist, I'd been curious to see whether she'd be choosing someone new from the era or moving on to something else.  The publishers are Ballantine (US/Canada) and Headline Review (UK).

Also just announced, Ken Follett's newly revealed Circle of Days takes place far back in the past, much earlier than his previous books, but like his breakout historical The Pillars of the Earth (from way back in 1989), it centers on the vision and building of a significant historical structure: Stonehenge.  Edward Rutherfurd has imagined this event in his Sarum, and Cecelia Holland in Pillar of the Sky, among others, but that won't stop me from reading Follett's version. It will be out in September 2025 from Grand Central (US/Canada) and Quercus (UK).

All three of these books will be highly promoted and will reach many readers who are already eagerly anticipating them. Will this translate into another Tudor (or even a prehistoric) fiction trend?  It's doubtful, but if you enjoy novels set in earlier time periods, you'll have these to look forward to next year.

Friday, October 18, 2024

Julia Park Tracey's Silence examines women's agency in Puritan-era Massachusetts

Steeped in the language and mores of an earlier time, Julia Park Tracey’s meditative and defiantly life-affirming novel Silence follows a young woman punished for speaking her mind during a period of immense personal trauma.

A member of a Separatist Puritan community in seaside Hingham, Massachusetts in 1722, Silence Marsh, the gentle daughter of the village weaver, enjoys a playful, loving relationship with her husband David, a local constable. Then, in rapid, tragic succession, Silence endures the losses of three adored family members, a situation that sees her returning to live with her widowed father in her childhood home. After an outburst in church when she questions a chastening sermon and the purpose of a God who would cause her such grief, authorities sentence her to a series of humiliating public acts as well as a full year of enforced silence, with threats of worse if she doesn’t obey.

Over the subsequent months, Silence – unable to communicate verbally – looks inward, noting the people who shun her and pass judgment (like the parson’s sour-tongued wife) as well as those who see her suffering and try to help. Among the latter is Daniel Greenleaf, a physician from Boston who recommends walks in the fresh air and reading novels. The secret friendship between Silence and the parson’s preteen daughter also raises both their spirits.

Silence’s first-person narrative has the cadences of early New England colonial speech without feeling overly archaic. Finely crafted details on household items, duties, and people’s roles in the community add to the historical atmosphere. (One quibble: the dour royal magistrate, a frighteningly realistic figure, should be called “Sir George,” not “Sir Fellows.”) Silence’s philosophical struggles feel true to the time: a woman discovering her voice in a society that denies its value. Even her father, while caring and sympathetic, insists that she conform, heed the authorities, and accept her penance.

But: “I know your religion’s great men call for treating the bodily humours and for obeying the will of God, but God has given us the great gift of free will to learn and grow,” Dr. Greenleaf tells her. He perceives her melancholia as an illness, not the manifestation of sin, and explains that he wants to treat her accordingly. The novel explores, with carefulness and great compassion, how Silence begins to wrap her mind around this unfamiliar concept, one completely opposite to her religious upbringing. In this, Silence embodies all women trapped in a cruel, repressive situation as she slowly gains the wisdom and courage – and burning fury – to break away from it.

In the end, as accusations of witchcraft swirl through Hingham, Silence must decide how to use her voice, or whether she should use it at all. There are no simple answers, but Silence, after the most painful year of her life, knows the importance of making her own choice.

Silence was published by Sibylline Press, a publisher focusing on works by women over 50, in September; my thanks to them for the review copy. The main character is based on the author's 7th great-grandmother.