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Category: Historical Fiction

The Hidden Palace by Helene Wecker

The Hidden Palace by Helene Wecker

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The Hidden Palace is the sequel to The Golem and the Jinni (which I reviewed back in February). The Hidden Palace is even more intricately plotted than its predecessor and is as incredibly immersive. It is no wonder that it took Helene Wecker seven years to write this novel. The plot spans decades and touches on major historical events such as the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, the sinking of the Titanic and World War I. I found the tone of the novel to be on the pessimistic side, so I do not love it quite as much as The Golem and the Jinni, but it is definitely still worth reading.

DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THE GOLEM AND THE JINNI YET.

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The Rose Code by Kate Quinn

The Rose Code by Kate Quinn

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I am beginning to feel confident that Kate Quinn is a writer that I can rely on to churn out a great historical fiction novel. The Alice Network, The Huntress and now The Rose Code are all novels that I very much enjoyed reading. These three novels all have World War II as the backdrop, but each focuses on a different aspect of the war, and each one is well researched and intricately plotted. The Rose Code is about the people who worked at Bletchley Park during the war and helped win the war by cracking enemy military code and deciphering enemy communications.

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The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner

The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner

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Novels with dual timelines where the protagonist in the present timeline is trying to solve a mystery from the past timeline are like catnip to me. When I read the synopsis for The Lost Apothecary, I thought, yes, this is going to be good. And the reviews that I read for it were all very positive. But unfortunately, I ended up being disappointed by this novel. It has the potential to be a good novel, but it seems like the author was in a rush to tell the story and sacrificed a richer plot and stronger character development. There are other authors who tell this type of story much better, such as Kate Morton, Eve Chase and Susanna Kearsley (although her novels have a supernatural slant).

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A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes

A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes

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Lately, I seem to be reading a lot of novels by women that are a revival of Greek mythology, novels based on classical Greek literature written mainly by men. There is Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles (the first review I published on my blog) and Circe, and now A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes. I really enjoyed reading A Thousand Ships. It’s a feminist retelling of the Trojan war which focuses on the women who are usually side-lined in epic tales about the male heroes of Greek and Troy, and it’s purpose is to show that women can be heroes too even if they don’t fight in wars (with the exception of the Amazons).

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The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

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The Vanishing Half is a fascinating read and I highly recommend it. It is a novel about how identity is constructed. The central focus of The Vanishing Half is racial identity. It is about the Vignes sisters, identical twins Desiree and Stella, one of whom lives as a black woman while the other lives as a white woman and follows their lives through the decades spanning the 1950s to the early 1990s.

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Yellow Wife by Sadeqa Johnson

Yellow Wife by Sadeqa Johnson

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Yellow Wife is at times a difficult novel to read. Not because it’s boring or poorly written, but because of its honest depiction of its subject matter: slavery in antebellum US. Sadeqa does not shy away from vividly describing the horrifying treatment of African American slaves by their white masters. I’m not going to go into detail as it was difficult enough to stomach it while reading it. There were a few scenes in this novel where I had to stop reading for a moment and talk myself back into reading more. I’m not sharing this with you to turn you away from reading this novel. I think you should read it. I just can’t believe that people would treat other people the way white slave owners treated their slaves. But I don’t want to turn this review of Yellow Wife into a discourse on slavery. This novel speaks for itself on that subject.

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The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker

The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker

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The Golem and the Jinni is a long read, but worth every moment I spent on it. I really enjoyed this novel! I was first interested in reading this novel when it was published in 2013, but unfortunately never got around to it at the time. Silly me! I could have had this novel in my life for so many years! If you enjoy historical fiction and are interested in supernatural creatures from other cultures, then I highly recommend you read this novel.

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The Girls by Emma Cline

The Girls by Emma Cline

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Have you ever wondered what it would be like to get sucked into a Charles Manson-esque cult? The Girls by Emma Cline is a not so subtle riff on Charles Manson and his “family”, down to the horrific murders that Manson urged his followers to commit. In this novel the infamous cult leader’s name is Russell, but he is physical described like Manson, he plays guitar like Manson and he is even friends with a famous musician so that he can get a record deal like Manson. However, this novel is really about Evie Boyd.

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Sin Eater by Megan Campisi

Sin Eater by Megan Campisi

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Has anyone heard of sin-eating? I had no idea sin-eaters were an actual thing until I read Sin Eater by Megan Campisi. Of course, I had a go down the Google rabbit hole after I finished reading this novel to learn more about sin-eaters. It was an actual custom practiced in many countries, more particularly in Scotland, Wales and England, were a person, the sin-eater, would consume a ritual meal in order to take on the sins of a deceased person. The last known sin-eater apparently died in 1906. It is interesting the things that people believe in, and it is also interesting that anyone with such beliefs would willingly take on the role of sin-eater.

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The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

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I first became aware of The Song of Achilles when I read Miller’s other book Circe (published after The Song of Achilles. I also highly recommend you read it), then I started to notice it pop up on lists of must-read books. If you have any interest in Greek mythology or tragic love stories, I highly recommend this book. I only know the bare bones about Greek mythology myself; before reading this novel, my knowledge of Achilles was limited to him being a great hero with a weak heel. The Song of Achilles tells the story of Achilles through the perspective of Achilles’ great love, Patroclus. Miller based her novel on Homer’s the Iliad, where Achilles is a strong fighter and difficult to kill (but doesn’t have a vulnerable heel) but she diverges from the Illiad by writing the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus as a romantic one.

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