Great historical fiction does not visit the past, it moves in and pays rent. This year's best take you to a combat hospital in 1966 Vietnam, a raft on the Mississippi, a shuttle launchpad in 1980 and a revenge plot aboard a 1954 overnight train. Here are the 10 we recommend first, each with a full preview and an original cinematic trailer.
Quick picks:
- The Women by Kristin Hannah: our preview + trailer
- James by Percival Everett: our preview + trailer
- Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid: our preview + trailer
How we picked
Every book here lives on the Curatsy Bookshelf, our library of the 120 most talked-about new books, each with a full preview and an original thirty-second cinematic trailer. For this list we weighed reader buzz, author track record and how hard the premise refuses to leave your head. We only feature books we would hand to a friend.
1. The Women by Kristin Hannah
She went to war to save lives. The hardest battle started when she came home.
A twenty-year-old nurse follows her brother to Vietnam and comes home to a country that refuses to see her. The defining bestseller of its year.
Read our full preview and watch the trailer →
→ Get it on Amazon2. James by Percival Everett
You have heard this river story before. Never from him.
Huckleberry Finn retold by Jim. Pulitzer winner, modern classic, already essential.
Read our full preview and watch the trailer →
→ Get it on Amazon3. Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid
In 1980, she traded the classroom for the stars.
Love inside NASA's 1980 shuttle class, where one December mission tests how much the sky can hold.
Read our full preview and watch the trailer →
→ Get it on Amazon4. Daughters of the Sun and Moon by Lisa See
Two sisters. One story the history books left out.
Sweeping new historical fiction from a permanent book club staple.
Read our full preview and watch the trailer →
→ Get it on Amazon5. The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden
Somewhere between the trenches, there is a hotel that should not exist.
WWI Flanders with a supernatural undertow: trench mud, brotherly love and a hotel between the lines.
Read our full preview and watch the trailer →
→ Get it on Amazon6. With a Vengeance by Riley Sager
But somebody on board plans to arrive alone.
1954, a luxury overnight train, six confessions to collect before Chicago.
Read our full preview and watch the trailer →
→ Get it on Amazon7. Lady X by Molly Fader
In 1978, someone in New York started making predators disappear.
A wife uncovering her movie-star husband's sins, split with 1970s New York where a vigilante hunts predators.
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→ Get it on Amazon8. An Artful Dodge by Karen Odden
In Victorian London, the finest thieves wore silk gloves.
An all-women thieving ring in Victorian London and one last job to buy a way out.
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→ Get it on Amazon9. The Red Sacrament by Sara Hinkley
Paris, 1870. The theatre's stars have not aged in a century.
Paris, 1870: the theatre's stars have not aged in a century and war is coming.
Read our full preview and watch the trailer →
→ Get it on Amazon10. Tenderness by Rowan Beaird
The bride escaped a cult. The guests came hoping it followed her.
A 1970s island wedding where the bride recently escaped a cult and the guests came hoping for scandal.
Read our full preview and watch the trailer →
→ Get it on AmazonKeep browsing
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