Gone with the Wind

Two families—one Northern, one Southern—are torn by the approach of the Civil War.

An Irish immigrant and his partner fight in the Indian Wars and Civil War (Walter Scott Prize 2017).

In Civil War Concord, the March sisters—Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy—keep house while their father is at the front: theatricals, letters, poverty, and the question of who they will become when girlhood ends. Louisa May Alcott’s 1868 novel is Victorian American historical fiction of sisterhood and ambition, a New England home-front saga readers still search by title.

From the Civil War to the Great War, the Hamiltons and the Trasks settle the Salinas Valley, and two generations of brothers replay Cain and Abel—land, a woman named Cathy, and the Hebrew word timshel, thou mayest. John Steinbeck’s novel is Gilded Age family-saga historical fiction of California: a valley’s making, and a family’s argument with fate.

A healer’s daughter navigates slavery’s end and dangerous secrets (SAH Prize 2021).

In June 1941, Leningrad still has white nights when Tatiana Metanova meets Red Army officer Alexander Belov—then Hitler’s armies close the siege and hunger, secrets, and an impossible love take the city. Paullina Simons’s opening Bronze Horseman novel is World War II historical romance of the siege of Leningrad: war, family, and a passion that has to survive the winter.