Historic event told like a story

[Annie]

I recently read An Officer and a Spy, which I loved. I'm looking for more very well written AND (mostly) historically accurate books about historic events. Any ideas?

[Rachel]

Hillary Mantel has written quite a few books in this style e.g. Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies They're reeeeeally long though.

If you don't mind reeeeeeeally long then there's also CJ Sansom's Shardlake series.

Also Rose Tremain's Restoration, Music and Silence

You might also like The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Vict although the style is less like a novel.

[Aaron]

The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History

[Annie]

Thank you! I will check them out!

[Laina]

I really enjoyed Rise to Rebellion and The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America. Both are history written in the style of a novel.

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Are you looking for fiction or nonfiction or either?

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

American Falls is about the Secret Service, both Union and Confederate, during the Civil War, and trying to prevent Lincoln's assassination. It's kind of a long novel but well written and very historically accurate, and it creates characters on both sides of the war whose stories and families you can really get into.

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Sacred Hunger

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

The 19th Wife combines a historical storyline, a wife who wants out of a marriage to Brigham Young, with a modern storyline set among present day polygamists.

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

I didn't like this one, but many people did: Homer & Langley is the fictionalized tale of two real life hoarders in Manhattan who became famous. If you read newspaper stories about hoarders today who die amid the detritus of their collapsed belongings, they often reference the Collyer brothers.

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

The Jump Artist

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

American Wife is the fictionalized story of Laura Bush's courtship and marriage to George W. Bush.

[Kathryn]

Pretty much anything by Erik Larson would fit the bill. I'd start with The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America.

[Michele]

Lobstergirl wrote: "American Wife is the fictionalized story of Laura Bush's courtship and marriage to George W. Bush."

Ha! I just bought that book second-hand and was trying to figure out which real-life First Lady it was based on. Thanks :)

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

It's a pretty good book! More interesting than you might think.

[Ann aka Iftcan]

Ride Proud, Rebel! there is also a companion book called Rebel Spurs Andre Norton also did another historical (sorry, can't remember the title and my books are packed away right now, so I can't go check it out) that is set in the West just BEFORE the outbreak of the Civil War. It's set on an Army Fort, and is very interesting. Ms. Norton was a librarian in her "daytime" job and her historicals are very well researched. I know in at least the one that I can't remember, she includes a rather comprehensive bibliography, which would provide you more books that are strictly non-fiction if that's what you prefer.

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

If you like Erik Larson, someone who writes in a similar style is Simon Winchester.

Krakatoa: The Day The World Exploded: August 27, 1883
Professor and The Madman
The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology

[Annie]

Thank you very much! I not really sure whether it's fiction or not. I want something historically accurate and based off a true story but yet told like fiction. I don't want a factual book or a made up story, but something inbetween.

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Hmmm....well if you want something a bit between fact and fiction, two very well known ones are:

In Cold Blood
The Executioner's Song

I've always thought of these as nonfiction, but their authors have often referred to them as "nonfiction novels."

[Kathryn]

The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary has been on my Amazon wishlist for ages. It might be time to order it!

[Sophie]

An American Tragedy is a fictionalized account of a real murder, and A Northern Light is a novel in which that same murder is a background event.

[Booksdingle]

Wedlock by Wendy Moore 'Wedlock tells the story of one eighteenth-century woman's experience of a brutal marriage, and her fight to regain her liberty and justice. Subjected to appalling violence, deception, kidnap and betrayal, the life of Mary Eleanor Bowes is a remarkable tale of triumph in the face of overwhelming odds'

[Nadine]

Red Joan is a fiction based on real events, and is an interesting account of the research done during the second world war.

[Ann aka Iftcan]

The Man Who Never Was The story about how the German's were fooled about where the D-day landings would take place. Made into a movie in 1956 starring Clifton Webb.

[Susan (the other Susan)]

"In Sunlight, In a Beautiful Garden," about the devastating Johnstown, Pennsylvia dam break that destroyed an entire town.

[Michele]

Gone with the Wind is a great Civil War novel.

If you like historical fiction set outside the U.S., there's Jean Plaidy's series of books about the English kings and queens. Queen of This Realm is possibly my favorite, about Elizabeth I.

Then there are Margaret George's The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers and Mary Queen of Scotland & The Isles.

Forever Amber covers events in 17th-century England, including the Restoration of Charles II, the Great Fire, and the Black Plague.

Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's Comte St. Germain series spans something like 5,000 years; all the books have the same main character (an immortal vampire) but each one puts him in a different historically significant period (Florence during the Inquisition, WWII Vienna, etc.). Yarbro does REAMS of research so the history is very accurate. My favorites are Blood Games (Nero's Rome) and Out of the House of Life (goes back and forth between ancient Egypt and Egypt in the 1820s.

[Ann aka Iftcan]

She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth

[Sam~~ we cannot see the moon, and yet the waves still rise~~]

i know someone already mentioned this, but definitely read In Cold Blood.

if you're looking for fiction, i love The Crucible. ooh, and Alias Grace. if you want to read nonfiction, i really liked Triangle: The Fire That Changed America.

[Nente]

How do you feel about naval fiction? The Golden Ocean by Patrick O'Brian is a fictionalized account of the voyage around the world by George Anson's squadron, seen through the eyes of one of minor ship officers.
And of course, his Aubrey/Maturin series is also highly recommended, though the protagonists there are definitely fictional, so it's not so close to historical accuracy.


Ooh, and if you're not afraid to dive a bit deeper in history, Young Henry of Navarre and Henry, King of France are just great.

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Colleen McCullough died today. Her historical series, Masters of Rome, is supposed to be good.

https://www.goodreads.com/series/4371...

[Michele]

Lobstergirl wrote: "Colleen McCullough died today. Her historical series, Masters of Rome, is supposed to be good.

It is, quite very.

[Jiji]

John Jakes North and South is fiction but with lots of historical details about the Civil War. It's a 5 book series

[Dee]

My Name is Mary Sutter - the fictionalized story of a female surgeon during the Civil War - she was mentioned in the non-fiction book Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War

[Darcy]

A.D. 500: A Journey Through The Dark Isles Of Britain And Ireland

[Teri-K]

If you like historical books, Elizabeth Chadwick has a series about William Marsahll that starts with his father's story, A Place Beyond Courage, that is quite good and very accurate.

And Bernard Cornwell writes a lot of books like that, many in series, like The Last Kingdom about the Danes in England.

[Tytti]

Jiji wrote: "John Jakes North and South is fiction but with lots of historical details about the Civil War. It's a 5 book series"

It's a trilogy...

[Jenna]

Vienna Waltz does a great job with the historical details of the Congress of Vienna -- down to the discussion of a Carousel --! It's a mystery with romance, but the period details and research into actual historical characters is very good.

[Jenna]

Michele wrote If you like historical fiction set outside the U.S., there's Jean Plaidy's series of books about the English kings and queens. Queen of This Realm is possibly my favorite, about Elizabeth I.

I agree! Jean Plaidy bases a lot of her work on Agnes Strickland (esp. for the Queens of England series) but her story telling is still good. I learned my English monarch reading all her books.

[Crystal Dawn]

What specific places and eras in history are you after? I love Early Modern European history which starts just after the medieval period ends, roughly 1100C. My all time favourites would be between The Constant Princess and the The Other Boleyn Girl by Phillipa Gregory(They take place after each other but both could be read as a stand alone). The third in that series The Boleyn Inheritance is also really good.
Like they said above Jean Plaidy is fantastic! I would also recommend Conn Iggulden. Any setting he touches he turns to gold.

[mj]

You could try books by G.A. Henty