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Historical Fiction is my absolute favorite genre to read. I’m always on the lookout for new books, so if you have a Historical Fiction favorite, I’d love to hear about it!
Here are a few of my favorites:
A Penny Parcel by Avery E. Hitch
Journey to the Cross, also by Avery
Rifles for Waite by Harold Keith
A Different Kind of Courage by Sarah Holman
Love Comes Softly by Janette Oke
Duncan’s War, King’s Arrow, and Rebel’s Keep by Douglas Bond
….I could go ON and ON but I don’t want to bore anyone. PLEASE tell me what your favorite Historical Fiction novels are!
The Viking Quest series by Lois Walfrid Johnson. The whole series is really bittersweet, which I love!
Well there are two types of historical fiction. There is historical fiction which takes place in a certain era at a certain place and helps you get a bit of a feel for what it might have been like, but most of the plot is based on personal conflicts not historical conflicts. I have read many good books like this. There is nothing inferior about them, but you don’t learn as much history. They are great to write though since they don’t require as much research. Then there is the type where the plot is heavily tied in with history. I’ll just talk about my favorites in this type of historical fiction since the other type is so broad. I think my favorite author of this type of historical fiction is Deborah Alcock. Five stars for her, fantastic writing all the way through. Henty is great for history and can be very exciting at times, but he doesn’t have the depth of truly great writer. A great way to learn history though. I just started reading a historical novel called Rora, which is top notch so far. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book so visual and masterly at relating characters’ inner thoughts except The Count of Monte Cristo. I wouldn’t say it is as good as that over all, but it is certainly getting into my favorites list so far. Les Mis is another great one. Maybe I’ll think up some more here.
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A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, Hostage Lands by Douglas Bond, The Red Keep by Allen French, Rolf and the Viking Bow by Allen French, Men of Iron by Howard Pyle, The Black Arrow by Robert L. Stevenson, Scottish Chiefs, by Jane Porter, Beyond Sing the Woods by Trygve Gulbranssen, The Count of Monte Cristo by Dumas, The Edge on the Sword by Rebecca Tingle, Dove in the Eagle’s nest by… eh, I forgot her name. 😛
Aaaaaand millions of others. I didn’t attempt any order, and I probably forgot most of them. 😛Historical fiction is probably my favorite genre, so I have read quite a few good ones, but two series I can think or right now that I enjoyed would be Shenandoah Sisters by Michael Phillips and The Russians by him and Judith Pella. There are many, many more though. A single book would be The List by C. D. Baker. Like @daeus was talking about, The List’s plot is a lot more involved with history than other historical fiction.
Flame of Resistance by Tracy Groot
INTJ - Inhumane. No-feelings. Terrible. Judgment and doom on everyone.
Pearl Maiden by H. Rider Haggard. The Eagle of the Ninth, The Silver Branch, and The Lantern Bearers, all by Rosemary Sutcliff. Those last three are one hundred percent fantastic.
Historical fiction is my favorite genre, too. 🙂
The Zion Covenant series, The Zion Chronicles series, and the Galway Chronicles, all by Bodie Thoene. The first series has a little too much romance in it for my liking, but otherwise it’s great.
The Young Underground, by Robert Elmer.
Hunted and Harried, by R. M. Ballantine.
Lysbeth, by R. H. Haggard. His other books are great story-wise, but they have too much anti-Semitism and racial prejudice in them.
The Scarlet Pimpernel series. The romance is annoying, but the adventure is outstanding.I’ll probably think of more later.
In Freedom’s Cause, by Henty.
Michael Strogoff, by Jules Verne.
Within the Palace Gates. It’s about Nehemiah and the rebuilding of the temple. I don’t remember the author.
Twice Freed; it’s about Onesimus.Does anyone know of a good story about the Scottish Covenanters? I really enjoy reading about them, but Hunted and Harried is the only fiction book I could find on that topic.
Douglas bond has a trilogy on the covenanters. I wouldn’t call him an amazing author, but he is good. I’ve never read that trilogy myself, but I have read one of his other books.
I thought I’d throw in an endorsement for The Hidden Hand here. Great book.
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Anything by Lois Walfrid Johnson is great, though I think Viking Quest is my favorite. And I’ll back up @sarah-h on the Zion Covenant and Zion Chronicles, though I had to wait for a bit until I was old enough to read the second one in the Chronicles.
A Night Divided by Jennifer A. Neilsen (a family separated by the Berlin wall. Pretty interesting.)
Horatio Hornblower is great, too. Though (this is pretty much the only time I’d ever say this) I liked the movies better than the books. Just a more consistent cast throughout.I love the Scarlet Pimpernel books too, @sarah-h! And I actually thought the romance was pretty well done, compared to a lot of other books.
I’ve also read Within the Palace Gates, and I did enjoy it— but I have a little bit of a personal problem with authors taking a Biblical story and filling it in with their imagination. I’m sure it’s not wrong, but it kind of annoys me a little, considering it’s probably not really all the way how it happened. 😛
And I’ve read Lysbeth too, and loved it— though I did come to the conclusion that I preferred Pearl Maiden. 🙂 Lysbeth was a little… eh… violent. Also, did you mean H. R. Haggard himself was antisemitic and racially prejudiced? Or that those problems were story-elements? Because I don’t remember getting that feeling… anyway. 😀Another good one is Before the Mast, though it’s not a novel. It’s a seaman’s journal, and interesting to anyone who likes that sort of thing, though I will warn you it has some pretty gruesome stuff in it. Ships in the 1800’s were not the most ideal place in the world. 😛
@kate-flournoy Heeeey! Within the Palace Gates! We just finished that as a school read-aloud in our family. 😀 It was pretty good. I had that same problem you mentioned with it sort of niggling the whole way through. But, hey, at least they didn’t outrightly change anything the Bible said. that was all just expanding on it.
That, and I didn’t like the beginning that well. Too much description for my taste. I mean, after 3 or 4 lines I think we get the idea of how the rug looks. There’s no need to continue. XPHaha… yes, the rug. 😛 The description was definitely overboard for a great part of the book. But oh boy was it rich! 😛
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