We asked eight well-loved authors of both historical fiction and non-fiction to each suggest a couple of books they recommend for history lovers to enjoy reading over the summer. They’ve come up with an inspiring mix of books they’ve loved and books they’re looking forward to reading themselves, some just published, and a few old favourites. We hope you get some good summer reading ideas from our list.
DV Bishop
Columba’s Bones by David Greig: Viking raiders attack the monastery on the Isle of Iona in 825 to steal the bones of St Columba, who first brought Christianity to Scotland. They depart without the holy relics and leave one of their men behind, believing him dead when he’s only dead drunk. Thus begins a battle of wits between him and those who survived the raid. Fewer than 200 pages, this short tale is funny, lyrical, violent and with highly memorable moments. Grieg’s background as an acclaimed playwright shines through in characterisation and dialogue – a real treat!
The Betrayal of Thomas True by AJ West: This is a haunting, heartfelt and sometimes heart-breaking story of life in Georgian London for gay men, who were known as mollies. West brings the capital city in the year 1715 alive on the page via immersive, scent-laden prose that is reminiscent of Suskind’s author of the award-winning Cesare Aldo historical thrillers set in Renaissance Italy.. Readers will find themselves caring deeply about Thomas and the family he finds in London. Evocative and often unflinching, this is an outstanding addition to the recent wealth of fiction set during the Georgian period. If the story doesn’t move you, seek medical help.
DV Bishop is the author of the award-winning Cesare Aldo historical thrillers set in Renaissance Italy. The fourth of these, A Divine Fury, was published on 20 June, 2024, and has already been longlisted for the 2024 McIlvanney Prize, run by the Bloody Scotland book festival.
Catherine Hanley
I always like to have fiction and non-fiction on the go at the same time, so I’d like to recommend one of each, set in different periods, for some nice variety in summer reading. Let’s start with Liz Fremantle‘s latest novel, Disobedient, the story of the amazing female 17th-century artist Artemisia Gentileschi. As ever, Fremantle has the knack of really immersing the reader in the time, place and story; when you eventually surface, your breath bated, it’s a genuine surprise to find that you’re back in the 21st century.
My current factual history read is the newly published House of Lilies by Justine Firnhaber-Baker, a lively gallop through the kings of the Capetian dynasty in France from the 10th century to the 14th. I’ve been having great fun getting to know some of the earlier and more eccentric monarchs: how did I survive before I knew that Henry I once stipulated in a marriage contract that a fully grown lion was to be supplied to him along with his bride? And if you want to learn about the really monumental consequences that might ensue following the loss of a library book, this is the summer read for you.
Catherine Hanley is a medieval historian and author who writes both fiction and non-fiction. Her most recent book, published on 9 May, 2024, is 1217: The Battles That Saved England, which charts the nascent sense of national identity that arose as the boy-king Henry III and William Marshal fought off the French Prince Louis’s invasion.
Chris Lloyd
In an admittedly crowded TBR pile, two books have been glaring at me harder than any other, so my plan is that I’m finally going to get round to reading them both this summer.
First up is Resistance by Halik Kochanski, which examines the many different forms of resistance in the various countries under occupation in the Second World War. Eschewing the heroics, it looks instead at the imperfections and humanness of resistance movements and the reactions of ordinary people, and questions why some resisted while many didn’t. The extraordinarily complex notions of resistance and collaboration – and of simply trying to survive – under this extreme circumstance have always fascinated me, so I’m excited at the thought of gaining greater insight into the nuances of what each one meant, along with their causes and consequences.
In what I’m hoping will be the perfect complement, my second read is Clouds Over Paris by Felix Hartlaub (tr Simon Beattie). A historian and the son of a museum director removed from his post by the Nazis because of his support for ‘degenerate’ art, Felix Hartlaub was sent to Paris in 1940 to do archival research for the German foreign office. A reluctant occupier, he wrote a diary chronicling the everyday life of Germans and French in Occupied Paris, observing a city attempting to cling to normality. Little of his writing remains as he disappeared without trace in Berlin in 1945.
Chris Lloyd is the author of the award-winning Occupation series featuring Eddie Giral, a morally complex French police detective walking a tightrope between resistance and collaboration in occupied Paris. The next, Banquet of Beggars, is out on 15 August.
Clare Mulley
Two books I have read and loved this spring are Thunderclap by Laura Cumming, which melds the stories of 17th-century Dutch painter Capel Fabritius and Laura’s own artist father until the stories seem to merge, creating new shades of colour.
And The Three Graces by Amanda Craig, a multi-stranded story of love actually, in its many different forms, set in idyllic rural Italy facing an influx of expats and migrants.
Next on my to read list is Sonia Purnell‘s Kingmaker, the life of Pamela Churchill Harriman — a political history book for the political summer ahead!
Clare Mulley is an award-winning public historian, author and broadcaster, primarily focused on female experience during the Second World War. Agent Zo, her most recent biography, is the story of Elzbieta Zawacka, the WWII Polish resistance fighter. It came out on 16 May, 2024.
Gill Paul
One Grand Summer by Ewald Arenz (tr Rachel Ward) is a coming-of-age, first-love story set in a South German town in the early 1980s. Frieder fails his school exams and is forced to spend the summer studying for resits in the home of his grandmother and stern step-grandfather. He discovers his grandmother’s diaries, documenting the period immediately after the war when she fell in love with his grandfather, and the history of this fractured, unconventional family is gradually exposed. The writing is exquisite, the characters complex and engaging, and the plot profoundly moving. It’s a bestseller in Germany and deserves to be here.
Songs in Ursa Major by Emma Brodie begins in 1969, when talented singer-songwriter Jane Quinn steps in to sing at a music festival after legendary star Jesse Reid has failed to show up. It’s not long before the two meet and fall for each other, an affair said to be loosely based on Joni Mitchell’s doomed romance with James Taylor. The period setting is immersive and convincing as Jane battles misogynist music industry bosses for artistic freedom. It’s an atmospheric page-turner, and I’ve been recommending it to everybody.
Gill Paul is the bestselling author of 12 historical novels. Her next, Scandalous Women — out on 29 August — is about Jackie Collins and Jacqueline Susann, two writers renowned for their controversial novels, and the beleaguered young editorial assistant who introduces them.
Laura Shepperson
My first suggestion is The Children of Jocasta by Natalie Haynes. A bold retelling of the story of Oedipus, famed for marrying his mother and killing his father, and the story of the children of Oedipus and Jocasta: the warring brothers Polynices and Eteocles, their justice-focused sister Antigone, and the youngest sister, Ismene.
I loved The Children of Jocasta because it was the first Greek retelling that gave me an idea as to what was permissible within myth, treating Greek myths as a springboard to a new story. Mythical characters are given rational explanations; such as the Sphinx, reimagined as a tribe of bandits. When I came to write my first novel, The Heroines, I was inspired by Haynes’s daring approach.
My second choice is The Burnings by Naomi Kelsey, a 2023 debut. It tells a story I had been unaware of before, about the 16th-century marriage between James VI of Scotland and Anna, princess of Denmark. The storms that threatened the lives of the royal ladies on their voyage to Scotland were believed to have been caused by witchcraft, culminating in the North Berwick Witch Trials. Politics and dark magic overlap dangerously in The Burnings. Kelsey’s vivid description and three-dimensional characters brought the story to life for me, and I now recommend it to all lovers of historical fiction.
Laura Shepperson is the author of the Sunday Times bestseller The Heroines. Her second novel, The Heir of Venus, a retelling of the story of the hero Aeneas through the eyes of his wives, will be in bookshops on 15 August, 2024.
Douglas Skelton
Thanks to tough deadlines, I won’t do much reading for pleasure over the summer but I will be undertaking research for ‘a thing’. I first read David Cordingly’s Life Among the Pirates back in the 1990s. It will be one of a number of books on the subject that I’ll be re-reading, or tackling for the first time, in the coming months. Mr Cordingly’s book is a fascinating look at the piratical world in fact and romance — and I’ll be wielding both in the upcoming ‘thing’. I’d tell you what it was but then I’d have to make you walk the plank.
It may be summer but that won’t stop me recommending SG MacLean’s The Winter List. Full disclosure, I’m a fan of Shona’s writing and this extension of the Damien Seeker universe brings 17th-century York in the grip of winter to life. This is sprightly storytelling and it’s obvious that the author has carried out exhaustive research into time and place. It all comes together — plot, character, historical detail and talent — to form a thoroughly engrossing read.
I’m so envious…
Douglas Skelton writes crime fiction and non-fiction. Most recently his Company of Rogues series has followed the (mis)fortunes of Jonas Flynt in 1715–16. The latest, A Grave for a Thief, was published on 8 February, 2024, and is released in paperback on 8 August, 2024.
Jo Willett
I’d like to recommend two books, one fiction and one non-fiction. The novel I’ve found completely absorbing recently is Trespasses by Louise Kennedy. Set in a small town just outside Belfast in the 1970s, it’s part love story, part political thriller and part snapshot of a very different way of life which is yet, for many of us, still within living memory. Cushla, our heroine, becomes involved with a older, married man, a human rights lawyer named Michael, against her better judgement. The passion of the relationship is beautifully portrayed. The novel is called Trespasses for a reason. Throughout, there is a powerful sense of foreboding, and, as events unfold, tragic consequences come into play.
My second book is Queen Victoria and her Prime Ministers: A Personal History by Anne Somerset. The author takes her readers through the story of how Victoria interacted with each of her prime ministers. It’s a fascinating insight into the power Queen Victoria exerted, and how wilful and at times perverse she could be. Each prime minister handled her differently, some far better than others. I found Anne Somerset made me look at the Victorian period through a very particular and unusual lens.
Jo Willett has followed a career as one of the UK’s best-known and most experienced freelance producers of TV comedy and drama by writing historical biographies. Her second, Sarah Siddons: The First Celebrity Actress, was published on 30 May, 2024.
I hope you’ve enjoyed our summer reading suggestions and have found some books you’d like to read. For more historical fiction and non-fiction inspiration, have a look at our round-up of books published in 2024. And join us again in December, when we’ll have our annual Christmas books feature.
Image:
Lady reading by Richard Edward Miller, c1920s: Wikimedia (public domain)
