7 Cozy Historical Fiction Books That Will Keep You Turning the Pages 

The first book in Ellis Peters’s beloved Chronicles of Brother Cadfael series, the Washington Post calls A Morbid Taste for Bones “irresistible” and “compelling.” 

Introducing readers to a 12th-century Benedictine monk named Brother Cadfael, a “wily veteran of the Crusades” (Los Angeles Times), A Taste for Bones plunges the good brother into a murder mystery with potentially spiritual implications and kicks off a series that has been adapted to the stage, radio, and television. 

Once you’ve been introduced to this “pleasing, and unusual, mixture of suspense and historical fiction” (London Evening Standard), you won’t soon forget Brother Cadfael, the unlikely sleuth who helped win his author a Crime Writers’ Association Silver Dagger Award.

An engagement party ends abruptly—and unexpectedly—when the groom-to-be suddenly vanishes. The only clue is a man who mysteriously appeared at his shoulder during a dance, causing him to break the engagement and disappear without a trace. 

The absent gentleman’s fiancée contacts the only person she knows who can potentially solve the enigma: her spinster aunt, Dido Kent, an “exemplary investigator” whose “keen powers of observation are matched by her sharp deductive reasoning” (Booklist).

It will take all of Dido Kent’s skills to unravel this “wonderful mystery” that is “rich in suspense, period detail, humor and most of all characters” (Louise Penny, Agatha Award-winning author of the Armand Gamache mysteries).

Ann Granger “knows her history and relates it with charm in this peek at Victorian morals and foibles” (Kirkus Reviews) that kicked off the long-running series of Inspector Ben Ross Mysteries. 

When Lizzie Martin takes a job as a companion to a wealthy widow and slum landlord, she learns that her predecessor in the role is supposed to have run off with an unknown man— until her body is found in the rubble of a building. 

Now, Lizzie must take the titular rare interest in corpses if she hopes to find out what really happened and avoid sharing the same fate, which she will do with the help of her childhood friend, Inspector Ben Ross, while “historical mystery fans will appreciate the great attention Granger pays to period detail as she evokes a suitably gritty nineteenth-century London” (Booklist).

“Charming, down-to-earth characters and gentle humor” (Library Journal) await readers in this second book featuring the exploits of genealogist and amateur sleuth Victory O’Shea, who becomes convinced that a local woman’s fall down the stairs is far from an accident. 

In fact, her investigations may lead her as far back in history as the court of Louis XIV and the notorious Man in the Iron Mask—assuming she can survive long enough to solve the case. 

However, the culprit doesn’t seem inclined to let that happen, and is willing to run Torie off the road (or perhaps go even further) to keep her nose out of it in this “warmhearted” (Kirkus Reviews) mystery that is part of a long-running series.

Two families in the bucolic English countryside have been engaged in a feud for generations—one that they periodically settle with deadly violence. 

Until now, the police have been powerless to stop them, but a new killing has given Scotland Yard an opportunity, and they’ve dispatched Sophie Burgoyne’s Agency to try to capture the killer and put an end to the feud. 

Unfortunately, to do so, they’ll have to attend the Fete and Annual Ball, where the two families come face to face, and tensions are higher than they’ve ever been in this standalone 1920s murder mystery that captures the turmoil, mystery, and danger of an ancient family feud.

England during World War II wasn’t always a cozy place, but the sleepy village of Crofter’s Green seems far from the perils of the war—until the local air raid warden turns up dead. 

Now, five friends from the village unite to try to solve the crime, becoming the Homefront Sleuths in this #1 Amazon bestselling book that kicks off an ongoing series of cozy historical mysteries. 

Winner of the Global Book Awards Silver Medal for Amateur Sleuth Mysteries, The Blackout Murders introduces readers to the five eccentric friends who make up the Homefront Sleuths: Evie, a former air raid warden herself and the would-be proprietor of the local tea shop; Alice, a sharp-tongued herbalist; Blake, the clever local schoolteacher; Harry, a retired detective; and Dotty, who can’t keep her nose out of a good mystery.

New York Times-bestselling author Claudia Gray brings together the beloved characters of Jane Austen with the classic country house murder mystery in this “well-done pastiche that balances menace with wit, recrimination with reconciliation, sin with redemption and justice with mercy” (Wall Street Journal). 

Emma and Mr. Knightley are throwing a party, but the villainous Mr. Wickham is certainly not invited. He shows up anyway, however, and then he shows up dead. Who was the culprit, and what was the motive? 

The children of several of Jane Austen’s original characters become amateur sleuths to solve the crime in this “astonishingly convincing and tremendously entertaining” first entry in a series (Criminal Element) that led BookPage to rave that, “Readers looking for a charming mystery will adore this book.”