Best Historical Fiction of the Century So Far via Book Riot, with Bonus Becky Thoughts on the Appeal of HF

As I have been updating my Demystifying Genre program (most recent slides here), I keep adding new resource links. Today, as I was swapping the Book Riot link on my historical fiction slide from one discussing the best HF of the last 10 years for this brand new one, "The Best Historical Fiction Books of the Century So Far," I realized I should probably post that list here as well.

Below you can find the introduction written by the workers who created this list as well as a link to see the full annotated list. You can use this to set up displays and even use it for a Conversation Starter to Display so you can gather your patron's titles as well. Click here for more about how to do that 

A final comment about Historical Fiction in general, before we get to the list itself, one of the biggest appeal factors I have been exploring when it comes to Historical Fiction is that its popularity is tied to the fact that readers know how it is all going to turn out. You see, because historical fiction is based on real history, readers can know before the dive in what the outcome will be; maybe not for the entire book, but in general. For example, when you read The Hunger by Alma Katsu, you know they are all going to die before you start. Or if you read a WWII epic, you know Hitler will be defeated. Even if it looks good for a moment in the first example or bad in the second, readers know deep down how it is all going to play out. 

Over the last 26 years of helping readers, one of the things that pops up again and again is that readers often won't try a book, especially by an author who is new to them, if they are worried about how it will all turn out. When we suggest HF, it is a shorthand for them to have an idea of what to expect, and that peace of mind is often enough for them to give an author they have never heard of or have never tried a chance.

Thanks for sticking around for some of my thoughts about Historical Fiction and its appeal. You can see more on slide 20 of my genre presentation. Now, you can find the intro and the link to the list below:

Book Riot's The Best Historical Fiction of the Century So Far Sponsored by Thrift Books

Selecting the best recent historical fiction books feels like a contradiction in terms. Historical fiction is a broad genre, encompassing thousands of years and spanning the entire globe. It can focus on the most well-known figures of all time or highlight everyday lives that don’t typically make it into textbooks. Ironically, historical fiction feels like a timeless genre—how can historical fiction be outdated or fresh?

Despite that, the genre has changed significantly over the decades, especially since the turn of this century. World War II historical novels are still a staple of book club reading lists, and there are always new angles to take on that setting, but we’re also seeing much more diversity in the kinds of people and places historical fiction highlights.

The best historical fiction books of the century so far take us from ancient Greece to the Joseon dynasty in Korea to the Six-Day War in Palestine to 1980s NASA astronaut training. Historical fiction continues to be biased towards recent events, but we are getting to see more of history around the world than we did just a few decades ago. 

The huge scope of the genre made it difficult to put this list together. Our writers had a lot of debates about what historical fiction even is: Does it need to focus on a real historical figure? (We voted “no.”) How far back in time counts as “historical”? (The most recent time period we included is the 1980s.) 

We also nominated many more books than made it onto this final selection. Until the last minute, we added and removed titles to try to curate a selection that represents the breadth of the genre. If you’re interested in which books ended up on the cutting room floor, All Access members will receive the full list of all of our nominations soon.

To make things even more complicated, historical fiction combines seamlessly with almost every other genre, including mysteries, fantasy, romance—even sci-fi. You’ll find some of these historical genre-blending titles below, but we prioritized books that are historical fiction first, with the other genres complementing that.

Here are our picks for the best historical fiction of the century so far.

Click here to read the list