The Best Historical Fiction in Winter 2025 

An eccentric novelist entrusts his young protégé with completing his final work—just before he is found murdered and his manuscript missing in this “exceptional debut novel” (Theresa Lola, author of Ceremony for the Nameless) that “reads like an homage to the conventions of British Golden Age mysteries” (Booklist). 

Far from a standard whodunit, however, this novel set on an island in the Hebrides in the 1950s features a “metafictional plot twist” that “sets the novel apart from its peers” (Publishers Weekly), and promises to take the mystery novel in strange new directions.

The three Dubrovsky sisters lived a comfortable, peaceful life in Germany until the rise of the Nazi party forced them to pack their belongings into just two crates and flee to Shanghai, London, Toronto, New York, and beyond. 

Their story is told in this “strong debut that weaves time, place, and history gracefully” (Library Journal), a “gorgeous novel” (Foreword Reviews) that tells a “wise and nuanced tale of family, love, vocation, and brutality” (Booklist) that will have to be experienced.

“Drawing on stories and biographies of medieval saints, Rich Edwards faithfully highlights the lives of 13th-century religious women and the sacrifices they were forced to make” (Publisher Weekly). 

In this “fierce, luminous debut novel” (Shelf Awareness), readers are introduced to Aleys, an unlikely sixteen-year-old girl in 13th-century Bruges. 

Running away from home, she finds belonging among the fiercely independent beguines in this twisty novel that “juggles big spiritual ideas with big social issues” (Kirkus Reviews) and was named a Goodreads Readers’ Most Anticipated Book.

Hollywood’s Golden Age didn’t stay so golden on its own. It required polishing from PR fixers like Bartie Maddox, a broke young man who makes his way to the City of Angels. 

There, he became one of the most important fixers for one of the city’s biggest studios in this “page turner so sexy and spellbinding it’s sure to make a great series” (Jim Wiatt, former CEO of The William Morris Agency). 

Based on true stories from Hollywood’s infamous studio system, this is a tale of stars, scandals, and the stories that we tell ourselves about the people we see on the screen—people we think we know but have never really met.

“Agatha Christie meets Jane Austen,” as the ad copy declares, in this new Regency romance and mystery that captures English village charm. 

The big, old house at Painswick Court is rumored to be haunted, but Anne Loveday, a surgeon’s daughter, has memories of the place that are both comforting and tragic. Now, she has returned as the lady of the house's nurse.

 Unfortunately, someone wants the ailing Lady Celia to hurry her exit from this mortal coil—and it’s up to Anne to find out who and why before she becomes the next victim in this new book of romance and mystery.

Journey to 15th-century Sweden to solve one of the country’s most infamous murder mysteries in this new novel from the acclaimed author of the Wolf and the Watchman series.

Hope and Destiny features “everything you could wish for in a story: kings and rebels, betrayal and murder, a heartbreaking romance that seems destined for destruction” (New Yorker).

Hailed by Publishers Weekly as a “swashbuckling slice of historical fiction” and by Booklist as boasting “the immersive world-building detail of an epic fantasy novel,” this latest from the popular author is bound to be a hit.

Award-winning South African author Nadia Davids, whose work has been compared with Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Daphne du Maurier, offers a “beautiful, discomfiting, and moving” (Shelf Awareness) new gothic novel that Publishers Weekly calls a “stunner.” 

The year is 1920, and Soraya Matas has taken a job at the home of an eccentric woman. However, she may have bitten off more than she can chew in this “beautifully assured novel” that “interweaves the ghostly and the historical until both feel simultaneously real and imagined” (Kirkus Reviews).

“Grotesque, weird, and entirely unflinching, this tale of female empowerment packs a punch,” raves Publishers Weekly, while the Historical Novel Society calls the latest book from author Kristi DeMeester “a must for fans of feminist horror.” 

In 1750, a woman persecuted for witchcraft makes a bargain that will echo through her descendants for generations. A tale set across the 18th century, 1953, and 2007, three women confront the patriarchal ideals forced upon them and grapple with dark forces.

As described by Booklist, Dark Sisters is “a deadly serious, witchy story propelled by rage against the extraordinary and everyday violence men perpetrate against women, [that] reaches out across the centuries with a terror that is all too timely."

Three women from very different backgrounds find their paths crossing in the Krakow ghetto during World War II. 

Irena, a pharmacist, finds her family business enclosed within the ghetto’s borders. Natalia is a former medical student from a wealthy Jewish family who has lost everything until she takes a new job at the pharmacy. 

And Elsa is a member of the SS assigned to the ghetto—one whose eyes are about to be opened to some terrifying truths about the government she serves. 

James D. Shipman’s previous novels about World War II have been called “deeply impactful” (Christian Science Monitor) and a “historical tour-de-force” (Publishers Weekly).

The Harlem Renaissance serves as the backdrop for this Jazz Age mystery, which sees Harriet Stone, an independent Black intellectual, suddenly thrust into a murder investigation when her cousin and benefactor dies under mysterious circumstances. 

Who was responsible, and does it have anything to do with the other inhabitants of her boarding house? 

That’s what Harriet and her foster child, Lovey, will have to find out in this historical mystery that kicks off a new series from acclaimed writer Valerie Wilson Wesley, who was praised by the Los Angeles Times, hailing that “there’s crispness in Wesley’s plotting and sparkle in the supporting characters.”