The 10 Best Historical Fiction Books for Winter 2024

Born on the day that WW2 broke out, 21-year-old Fay Knox cannot remember her early childhood in London, before she moved to a Norfolk village with her mother, Kitty. She has no memories of her father, and all that remains of him is a photograph. He died in an air raid, or at least that's what she was told. But on a visit to Paris in 1961, the truth reveals itself. 

In 1937, Eugene Knox, a young American doctor, fell for 19-year-old Kitty Travers on the day she arrived in Paris to study the piano at the famed Conservatoire. Their love affair unfolded as France fell under Nazi rule, leaving them desperate to survive. Their actions during wartime will have devastating consequences through the generations of their family.

Celia Lytton is the beautiful and independently-minded daughter of wealthy aristocrats. She's used to getting her way, but she's also a head-strong figure who wants to do what's best for her family. 

Sometimes, that means making difficult decisions on behalf of her family, including her husband, Oliver, and their children. She also doesn't mind meddling in the lives of others, like the destitute Sylvia Miller, Oliver's daunting elder sister, and the dashing but mysterious Sebastian Brooke.

Elizabeth is an artist whose eyesight is deteriorating. No longer able to enjoy the visual world, she immerses herself in music and memories, particularly of her later father, an old lightkeeper. The past melds into the present when her father's journals are found amid the ruins of an old shipwreck. 

With the help of Morgan, a delinquent teenager performing community service, Elizabeth goes through the diaries, looking for answers of her family's past. As they read on, Elizabeth and Morgan begin to realize that their fates are connected in ways they'd never imagined.

It is the 1950s and the Cazalets’ beloved matriarch, the Duchy, has passed away. Her death brings with it the end of the old world, one of great houses and servants, of the upstairs-downstairs rule of the British class system. Now, the remaining Cazalets are in turmoil. 

Louise, now divorced, is entangled in a messy affair. Polly and Clary are trying to balance marriage and motherhood with their own ideas and ambitions. Hugh and Edward, now in their sixties, are feeling out of step with the ever-changing modern world. Villy is trying to make an independent life for herself after her husband left her, and Rachel is facing even scarier challenges.

In 1851, Father Jean Marie Latour comes to serve as the Apostolic Vicar to New Mexico. This is a place divided by law, race, and custom. The vast territory of red hills and desert is American by law but historically the nation of Mexican and indigenous communities. 

In the almost forty years that follow, Latour tries to spread the good word and be a guiding light in the midst of an unforgiving land. He often feels like the only gentle force in a place of heartlessness and treachery. This is the birth of a new country and change is dramatic.

Imperial Woman is the fictionalized biography of the last Empress in China, Ci-xi. Born into one of the lowest ranks of the Imperial dynasty, she began her ascent as one of hundreds of concubines for the Xianfeng Emperor. Her singular beauty and savvy navigation of the court led her into the arms of the Emperor, who made her one of his most prized concubines. 

On the eve of his death, she became the unexpected de facto head of the Qing dynasty. Tzu Hsi was feared and hated by many in the court, but adored by the people, and her incredible ascent helped to redefine China for a new age.

F. Scott Fitzgerald's name is secure in the pantheons of literary history, but it's taken far longer for his oft-misunderstood wife Zelda to get her dues. When the beautiful and wild 17-year-old Zelda Sayre met Fitzgerald at a country club dance in 1918, it was love at first sight. 

Scott was an entirely unsuitable husband for a young Southern belle but he was insistent that his writing would bring them both fame and fortune. Zelda agreed, and soon his name was known everywhere. But being married to a so-called genius had its problems, especially for a young woman struggling in the roaring '20s to make her own name.

June 1944. Ginnie Travis is working in her father's furniture shop when the bombs drop across the city and decimate her home. Combined with her sister Shirley's untimely pregnancy, the two women are forced to leave home and go and stay with their aunt in Shropshire. 

Away from the nightmare of war, Ginnie finds peace. She falls in love with an American soldier, Lieutenant Nick Miller, stationed nearby. The only problem is that Nick has a fiancée back home. Then she finds out that her father has died in an air raid. With the family left almost penniless and Shirley and her child to provide for, Ginnie finds herself responsible for her entire family's welfare. But even as their beloved shop is under threat, Ginnie is determined to rebuild their lives and ensure the next generation's safety.

1944. London is engulfed by the Blitz as the Luftwaffe make their last desperate assault on the city. Londoners take to the shelters and wait out the carnage. In the East End children lead police to a charred, dismembered corpse buried in a bombsite. 

The victim is German and it soon becomes clear that this was not a result of the bombing. This was a murder. Detective-Sergeant Troy, a Russian immigrant in London, is brought in to find the culprit. The search will lead him to the dark underworld of London and into the seedy corruption of military intelligence.

Undine Spragg is beautiful is known across New York society for her beauty. Her family left the Midwest to give their beloved daughter the life they'd never had. But now, she's stuck in a gilded cage, and the family is living well beyond its means in an uptown hotel they can't afford to remain in. 

It's up to Undine to help the family climb up the social ladder and worm their way permanently into the world of the upper-class elite.