10 Unforgettable Historical Fictions That Will Leave You With the Best Book Hangover

If you’ve ever finished a historical fiction book so good that you couldn’t pick up another right away, you know what a reading hangover feels like. It’s one of the best problems to have! I am a huge fan of historical fictions. I find them to be the perfect mix of raw emotions, fascinating settings, and unforgettable characters. In this post, I’m sharing some of the most memorable historical fiction books I’ve read as a book blogger. This list includes most rated historical fictions , uplifting books, books with historical novels featuring strong females and many more. They’re perfect for book club, or anyone who loves a great story worth every sleepless night.

Historical Fiction Books With The Hangover

The Women by Kristin Hannah

The Women by Kristin Hannah is a powerful story about courage and sacrifice. It follows Frankie McGrath, a young nursing student from 1960s Southern California, who joins the Army Nurse Corps during the Vietnam War. What I loved most about the book is that the story doesn’t end with the war. We see Frankie finding to difficult to live a normal life. Serving in the War left her with deep emotional, physical, and mental pain. Coming home is just as tougher her. I really loved the fact that through her journey, the book honors the bravery of women whose sacrifices have often been overlooked. Like any other Kristin Hannah books the writing is incredible. Also check out discussion question for The Women.

Women can be heroes. When twenty-year-old nursing student Frances “Frankie” McGrath hears these words, it is a revelation. Raised in the sun-drenched, idyllic world of Southern California and sheltered by her conservative parents, she has always prided herself on doing the right thing. But in 1965, the world is changing, and she suddenly dares to imagine a different future for herself. When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, she joins the Army Nurse Corps and follows his path.

As green and inexperienced as the men sent to Vietnam to fight, Frankie is over- whelmed by the chaos and destruction of war. Each day is a gamble of life and death, hope and betrayal; friendships run deep and can be shattered in an instant. In war, she meets—and becomes one of—the lucky, the brave, the broken, and the lost.

But war is just the beginning for Frankie and her veteran friends. The real battle lies in coming home to a changed and divided America, to angry protesters, and to a country that wants to forget Vietnam.

The Women is the story of one woman gone to war, but it shines a light on all women who put themselves in harm’s way and whose sacrifice and commitment to their country has too often been forgotten. A novel about deep friendships and bold patriotism, The Women is a richly drawn story with a memorable heroine whose idealism and courage under fire will come to define an era.

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Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

Where the Crawdads Sing is about Kya, a girl surviving alone in the marshes of North Carolina. She connects deeply with the land and wildlife around her. The best part of the book is Owens’ writing, which makes the marsh feel so real. There’s also a mystery about a local man’s death that I really loved. What makes this book special is Kya. She’s strong, lonely, and determined to live life on her terms. This is one of my favorite picks from Reese Witherspoon’s book club.

For years, rumors of the “Marsh Girl” haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet fishing village. Kya Clark is barefoot and wild; unfit for polite society. So in late 1969, when the popular Chase Andrews is found dead, locals immediately suspect her.

But Kya is not what they say. A born naturalist with just one day of school, she takes life’s lessons from the land, learning the real ways of the world from the dishonest signals of fireflies. But while she has the skills to live in solitude forever, the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. Drawn to two young men from town, who are each intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new and startling world—until the unthinkable happens.

In Where the Crawdads Sing, Owens juxtaposes an exquisite ode to the natural world against a profound coming of age story and haunting mystery. Thought-provoking, wise, and deeply moving, Owens’s debut novel reminds us that we are forever shaped by the child within us, while also subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps.

The story asks how isolation influences the behavior of a young woman, who like all of us, has the genetic propensity to belong to a group. The clues to the mystery are brushed into the lush habitat and natural histories of its wild creatures.

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The Book of Lost Names by Kristin Harmel

The Book of Lost Names is a moving historical fiction about bravery, love, and memory during World War II. It is about a secret code connected to a woman’s work in the French Resistance during World War II. This book gave me a real book hangover because it’s so emotional. It’s also one of the most captivating WWII books I’ve read.

Eva Traube Abrams, a semi-retired librarian in Florida, is shelving books one morning when her eyes lock on a photograph in a magazine lying open nearby. She freezes; it’s an image of a book she hasn’t seen in sixty-five years—a book she recognizes as The Book of Lost Names.

The accompanying article discusses the looting of libraries by the Nazis across Europe during World War II—an experience Eva remembers well—and the search to reunite people with the texts taken from them so long ago. The book in the photograph, an eighteenth-century religious text thought to have been taken from France in the waning days of the war, is one of the most fascinating cases. Now housed in Berlin’s Zentral- und Landesbibliothek library, it appears to contain some sort of code, but researchers don’t know where it came from—or what the code means. Only Eva holds the answer—but will she have the strength to revisit old memories and help reunite those lost during the war?

As a graduate student in 1942, Eva was forced to flee Paris after the arrest of her father, a Polish Jew. Finding refuge in a small mountain town in the Free Zone, she begins forging identity documents for Jewish children fleeing to neutral Switzerland. But erasing people comes with a price, and along with a mysterious, handsome forger named Rémy, Eva decides she must find a way to preserve the real names of the children who are too young to remember who they really are. The records they keep in The Book of Lost Names will become even more vital when the resistance cell they work for is betrayed and Rémy disappears.

An engaging and evocative novel reminiscent of The Lost Girls of Paris and The Alice Network, The Book of Lost Names is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the power of bravery and love in the face of evil.

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Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

Elizabeth Zott is a scientist in the 1960s who won’t let sexism stop her. She’s smart, determined, and true to herself. Lessons in Chemistry shows her breaking barriers in work and life while raising her daughter as a single mom. I also adored her clever companion, Six-Thirty. It’s one of the most unforgettable books I’ve read as a book blogger.

Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it’s the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel–prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with—of all things—her mind. True chemistry results.

But like science, life is unpredictable. Which is why a few years later Elizabeth Zott finds herself not only a single mother, but the reluctant star of America’s most beloved cooking show Supper at Six. Elizabeth’s unusual approach to cooking (“combine one tablespoon acetic acid with a pinch of sodium chloride”) proves revolutionary. But as her following grows, not everyone is happy. Because as it turns out, Elizabeth Zott isn’t just teaching women to cook. She’s daring them to change the status quo.

Laugh-out-loud funny, shrewdly observant, and studded with a dazzling cast of supporting characters, Lessons in Chemistry is as original and vibrant as its protagonist.

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The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner

The Lost Apothecary  is set in 1791. It follows Nella, an apothecary, who secretly helps women by giving them poisons to escape harmful men. Her life changes when she meets Eliza, a clever 12-year-old, leading to dangerous consequences. In the present, Caroline, dealing with her husband’s betrayal, finds an old apothecary vial and uncovers its link to Nella and Eliza. This is one of my favorite historical fiction set in England. I loved the dual timelines and the vivid 1790s setting.

A female apothecary secretly dispenses poisons to liberate women from the men who have wronged them – setting three lives across centuries on a dangerous collision course.

Rule #1: The poison must never be used to harm another woman.
Rule #2: The names of the murderer and her victim must be recorded in the apothecary’s register.

One cold February evening in 1791, at the back of a dark London alley in a hidden apothecary shop, Nella awaits her newest customer. Once a respected healer, Nella now uses her knowledge for a darker purpose – selling well-disguised poisons to desperate women who would kill to be free of the men in their lives. But when her new patron turns out to be a precocious twelve-year-old named Eliza Fanning, an unexpected friendship sets in motion a string of events that jeopardizes Nella’s world and threatens to expose the many women whose names are written in her register.

In present-day London, aspiring historian Caroline Parcewell spends her tenth wedding anniversary alone, reeling from the discovery of her husband’s infidelity. When she finds an old apothecary vial near the river Thames, she can’t resist investigating, only to realize she’s found a link to the unsolved “apothecary murders” that haunted London over two centuries ago. As she deepens her search, Caroline’s life collides with Nella’s and Eliza’s in a stunning twist of fate – and not everyone will survive.

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Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid

I am a huge fan of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s books. Her novels always leave me with the best book hangovers. I wish I could include all her books in this list, but I decided to pick Malibu Rising since it has the best setting. It’s set in Malibu in 1983 and follows the Riva siblings as they host a wild end-of-summer party. In just 24 hours, family secrets and heartbreaks are revealed. I loved how each sibling had their own story. The writing is fast and vivid. I flew through it and couldn’t stop thinking about it afterward. It’s also one of the most fast-paced books I’ve read. So if you are in a bad reading slump, you should read this one.

Four famous siblings throw an epic party to celebrate the end of the summer. But over the course of twenty-four hours, their lives will change forever.

Malibu: August, 1983. It’s the day of Nina Riva’s annual end-of-summer party, and anticipation is at a fever pitch. Everyone wants to be around the famous Rivas: Nina, the talented surfer and supermodel; brothers Jay and Hud, one a championship surfer, the other a renowned photographer; and their adored baby sister, Kit. Together, the siblings are a source of fascination in Malibu and the world over—especially as the offspring of the legendary singer, Mick Riva.

The only person not looking forward to the party of the year is Nina herself, who never wanted to be the center of attention, and who has also just been very publicly abandoned by her pro tennis player husband. Oh, and maybe Hud—because it is long past time to confess something to the brother from whom he’s been inseparable since birth.

Jay, on the other hand, is counting the minutes until nightfall, when the girl he can’t stop thinking about promised she’ll be there.

And Kit has a couple secrets of her own—including a guest she invited without consulting anyone.

By midnight the party will be completely out of control. By morning, the Riva mansion will have gone up in flames. But before that first spark in the early hours before dawn, the alcohol will flow, the music will play, and the loves and secrets that shaped this family’s generations will all come bubbling to the surface.

Malibu Rising is a story about one unforgettable night in the life of a family: the night they each have to choose what they will keep from the people who made them… and what they will leave behind.

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Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blau

Mary Jane pulls you right into someone else’s world. Set in 1970s Baltimore, it follows 14-year-old Mary Jane as she steps out of her strict, quiet life to nanny for a free-spirited family. The mix of her innocence with the family’s wild, rock-and-roll lifestyle makes for such a fun story. Mary Jane herself is so sweet and relatable, and by the end, you really feel like you’ve spent the summer with her. It’s one of the most feel-good books I’ve read, and it’s perfect if you need something uplifting. The audiobook is also fantastic, especially for road trip.

In 1970s Baltimore, fourteen-year-old Mary Jane loves cooking with her mother, singing in her church choir, and enjoying her family’s subscription to the Broadway Show Tunes of the Month record club. Shy, quiet, and bookish, she’s glad when she lands a summer job as a nanny for the daughter of a local doctor. A respectable job, Mary Jane’s mother says. In a respectable house.

The house may look respectable on the outside, but inside it’s a literal and figurative mess: clutter on every surface, IMPEACHMENT: Now More Than Ever bumper stickers on the doors, cereal and takeout for dinner. And even more troublesome (were Mary Jane’s mother to know, which she does not): The doctor is a psychiatrist who has cleared his summer for one important job—helping a famous rock star dry out. A week after Mary Jane starts, the rock star and his movie star wife move in.

Over the course of the summer, Mary Jane introduces her new household to crisply ironed clothes and a family dinner schedule, and has a front-row seat to a liberal world of sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll (not to mention group therapy). Caught between the lifestyle she’s always known and the future she’s only just realized is possible, Mary Jane will arrive at September with a new idea about what she wants out of life, and what kind of person she’s going to be. 

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The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

The God of the Woods is a gripping historical thriller set in 1975. When 13-year-old Barbara Van Laar vanishes from her family’s summer camp, it causes a frantic search and unravels deep secrets about the wealthy Van Laar family and their connection to the local community. I loved how atmospheric this book felt. The descriptions of the Adirondacks were incredible. It was one of the best engaging thriller audiobooks I listened to. If you enjoy historical fiction with secrets and suspense, this is one of those books that will definitely give you a hangover.

When a teenager vanishes from her Adirondack summer camp, two worlds collide

Early morning, August 1975: a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. Barbara isn’t just any thirteen-year-old: she’s the daughter of the family that owns the summer camp and employs most of the region’s residents. And this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared. Barbara’s older brother similarly vanished fourteen years ago, never to be found.

As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Moore’s multi-threaded story invites readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances. It is Liz Moore’s most ambitious and wide-reaching novel yet.

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The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek follows Cussy Carter, a blue-skinned librarian delivering books to remote parts of Kentucky in 1936. Through her work with the Pack Horse Library Project, she faces prejudice because of her rare skin color . The best part of the books is Cussy’s courage and her passion for books. You’ll love the setting. You can imagine the mountains and the hard lives of the people. This story is both about resilience and the power of books to bring hope.

In 1936, tucked deep into the woods of Troublesome Creek, KY, lives blue-skinned 19-year-old Cussy Carter, the last living female of the rare Blue People ancestry.

The lonely young Appalachian woman joins the historical Pack Horse Library Project of Kentucky and becomes a librarian, riding across slippery creek beds and up treacherous mountains on her faithful mule to deliver books and other reading material to the impoverished hill people of Eastern Kentucky.

Along her dangerous route, Cussy, known to the mountain folk as Bluet, confronts those suspicious of her damselfly-blue skin and the government’s new book program. She befriends hardscrabble and complex fellow Kentuckians, and is fiercely determined to bring comfort and joy, instill literacy, and give to those who have nothing, a bookly respite, a fleeting retreat to faraway lands.

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City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert

City of Girls is such a fun story set in 1940s New York, full of glamour, ambition, and drama. Vivian, the main character, is bold and adventurous, and she never apologizes for who she is. The book shows her wild highs and tough lows, from carefree romance to moments that really change her. My favorite part was the characters; they’re so big and full of life. Gilbert’s writing makes you feel like you’re right there in the city with them. It’s fun, emotional, and definitely very steamy. I loved hearing in an interview that Gilbert talked to real showgirls for the book. It made it feel even more special. She’s definitely one of those under-the-radar authors more people should know about.

In 1940, nineteen-year-old Vivian Morris has just been kicked out of Vassar College, owing to her lackluster freshman-year performance. Her affluent parents send her to Manhattan to live with her Aunt Peg, who owns a flamboyant, crumbling midtown theater called the Lily Playhouse. There Vivian is introduced to an entire cosmos of unconventional and charismatic characters, from the fun-chasing showgirls to a sexy male actor, a grand-dame actress, a lady-killer writer, and no-nonsense stage manager. But when Vivian makes a personal mistake that results in professional scandal, it turns her new world upside down in ways that it will take her years to fully understand. Ultimately, though, it leads her to a new understanding of the kind of life she craves-and the kind of freedom it takes to pursue it. It will also lead to the love of her life, a love that stands out from all the rest.

Now ninety-five years old and telling her story at last, Vivian recalls how the events of those years altered the course of her life – and the gusto and autonomy with which she approached it.

Beloved author Elizabeth Gilbert returns to fiction with a unique love story set in the New York City theater world during the 1940s. Told from the perspective of an older woman as she looks back on her youth with both pleasure and regret (but mostly pleasure), City of Girls explores themes of female sexuality and promiscuity, as well as the idiosyncrasies of true love. Written with a powerful wisdom about human desire and connection, City of Girls is a love story like no other.

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