The Song of Achilles
Madeline Miller
Patroclus narrates his bond with Achilles against the backdrop of the Trojan War.
Ancient world · Literary · Romance
Historical fiction · story type
Historical romance books
Romance historical fiction: Love stories grounded in a historical setting. This story-type shelf is historical fiction with a love plot—classics, sagas, and war novels included. Category historical romance (HEA, open-door / steamy) has its own shelf.
Looking for open-door category romance with a happily-ever-after? See steamy historical romance— that shelf is Quinn, James, Kleypas, not Gone with the Wind.
Curated on HisFic (45)
Hand-picked historical fiction tagged as romance.
Devil in Winter
Lisa Kleypas
Wallflower Evie Jenner needs a hasty marriage to escape her family; St. Vincent needs her fortune—and neither expects the marriage of convenience to become the real thing. Lisa Kleypas’s Wallflowers novel is steamy Victorian historical romance: a notorious rake, on-page heat, and a happily-ever-after.
Victorian / Gilded Age · Romance
Outlander
Diana Gabaldon
A WWII nurse walks through standing stones into Jacobite Scotland—and a complicated love story.
Early modern · World War II era · Time-slip · Romance
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Austen
When wealthy bachelor Mr. Bingley takes Netherfield, Mrs. Bennet is determined to marry off a daughter—but it is the proud Mr. Darcy, and Elizabeth Bennet’s first impression of him, that turns a Hertfordshire season into the most famous courtship in English fiction. Jane Austen’s 1813 novel is Regency historical romance of manners, money, and a woman who will not marry without respect.
Regency / Napoleonic · Romance · Literary
The Duchess Deal
Tessa Dare
The Duke of Ashbury comes home from war needing an heir, not a wife he has to look at in the light—until seamstress Emma Gladstone arrives in his library wearing a wedding gown and he decides on the spot that she will do. Tessa Dare’s Girl Meets Duke opener is steamy Regency historical romance: a marriage of convenience, unlimited teasing, and a happily-ever-after.
Regency / Napoleonic · Romance
The Reluctant Countess
Eloisa James
Giles Renwick, Earl of Lilford, has never made a fool of himself over a woman until he meets Lady Yasmin Régnier—too French, too gossipy, and entirely ineligible—and still finds himself proposing. Eloisa James’s Would-Be Wallflowers novel is steamy Regency historical romance: enemies-to-lovers, a scandalous love affair, and a happily-ever-after.
Regency / Napoleonic · Romance
Gone with the Wind
Margaret Mitchell
Scarlett O’Hara fights to survive the Civil War and Reconstruction in the American South.
Civil War · Victorian / Gilded Age · Romance · Family saga
North and South
John Jakes
Two families—one Northern, one Southern—are torn by the approach of the Civil War.
Civil War · Victorian / Gilded Age · Family saga · Military & war
The Bronze Horseman
Paullina Simons
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.
World War II era · Romance · Military & war
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows
A writer corresponds with islanders who survived German occupation—and finds a home among them.
World War II era · Military & war · Romance
The Tattooist of Auschwitz
Heather Morris
Based on a true story: a Slovakian Jew forced to tattoo prisoners at Auschwitz falls in love against impossible odds.
World War II era · Biographical · Romance
Désirée
Annemarie Selinko
In 1794 a Marseille silk merchant’s daughter opens a diary the day her brother is arrested, and the pages follow an engagement to Napoleon Bonaparte, marriage to General Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, and his election as Crown Prince of Sweden in 1810, through to her coronation as Queen Desideria in 1829. Annemarie Selinko’s 1951 novel (English 1953) is Regency romance historical fiction of the Napoleonic years as a merchant’s daughter lived them, from the Terror to a Stockholm crown.
Regency / Napoleonic · Romance · Biographical
Jane Eyre
Charlotte Brontë
Orphaned Jane Eyre survives Gateshead and Lowood, then takes a governess post at Thornfield Hall, where she falls in love with the brooding Edward Rochester—and discovers the secret locked on the third floor that makes their wedding impossible. Charlotte Brontë’s 1847 novel is Regency gothic historical romance: a woman who will not be owned, and the most famous governess courtship in English fiction.
Regency / Napoleonic · Romance · Literary
Katherine
Anya Seton
In fourteenth-century England, convent-raised Katherine de Roet is married to a harsh knight, then drawn into a decades-long love with John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster—through plague, the Peasants’ Revolt, and a Plantagenet court rotting with intrigue. Anya Seton’s novel is medieval biographical historical fiction of the woman whose Beaufort children would shape the English royal line.
Medieval · Biographical · Romance
Ross Poldark
Winston Graham
In October 1783 Ross Poldark comes back from the American war to Nampara in Cornwall and finds his father dead, the land derelict, and Elizabeth Chynoweth promised to his cousin Francis. Winston Graham’s 1945 novel is early-modern saga historical fiction of the years through 1787—a mine he fights to reopen, the bankers and gentry of Truro, and Demelza Carne, the miner’s daughter he takes in from a fair, who is his wife by the end of this first volume.
Early modern · Family saga · Romance
Scaramouche
Rafael Sabatini
In Brittany on the eve of the Revolution, lawyer André-Louis Moreau watches a marquis kill his closest friend, then goes from a Rennes courtroom to a traveling theater—where he plays the clown Scaramouche—and on to a Paris fencing hall as France turns on its nobles. Rafael Sabatini’s 1921 novel is French Revolution historical adventure of disguise, the sword, and a man born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.
Regency / Napoleonic · Early modern · Adventure & epic · Romance
The Far Pavilions
M. M. Kaye
Orphaned in the Himalayan foothills and raised as a Hindu, Ashton Pelham-Martyn is later claimed by British India as an officer—then falls in love with an Indian princess promised to another man, as the Raj and the Second Anglo-Afghan War tear his loyalties in two. M. M. Kaye’s novel is Victorian historical romance of nineteenth-century India: identity, empire, and a love story on the scale of the old panoramic sagas.
Victorian / Gilded Age · Romance · Adventure & epic
The Grand Sophy
Georgette Heyer
When diplomat Sir Horace Stanton-Lacy is posted to South America, he parks his high-handed daughter Sophy on her aunt in Berkeley Square, where cousin Charles is engaged to a grim bluestocking, Cecelia is in love with a useless poet, and the younger Ombersleys are starved of fun. Georgette Heyer’s 1816 novel is Regency historical romance: a managing heroine, a furious hero, and the London season rearranged at pistol-point and on horseback.
Regency / Napoleonic · Romance
Days Without End
Sebastian Barry
An Irish immigrant and his partner fight in the Indian Wars and Civil War (Walter Scott Prize 2017).
Civil War · Victorian / Gilded Age · Military & war · Literary
Loving Frank
Nancy Horan
Mamah Borthwick’s affair with Frank Lloyd Wright (SAH Prize 2009).
World War I era · Biographical · Romance
A Town Like Alice
Nevil Shute
Jean Paget, a young Englishwoman working in Malaya when the Japanese invade, is marched for months with a party of women and children, and an Australian prisoner, Joe Harman, is punished for helping them. Nevil Shute’s 1950 novel is World War II romance historical fiction of the years after—an inheritance in 1948, the news that Joe survived, and the outback settlement she sets out to turn into a town like Alice Springs.
World War II era · Cold War · Romance · Adventure & epic
Anna Karenina
Leo Tolstoy
Anna Karenina has a husband, a son, and St. Petersburg society—until a Moscow railway station and the officer Count Vronsky pull her into an affair the salons will not forgive; beside that ruin, landowner Konstantin Levin tries to make a marriage and a farm mean something. Tolstoy’s 1870s novel is Imperial Russian historical fiction of passion, class, and the question of how to live—the tragic counterpart to War and Peace already on the shelf.
Victorian / Gilded Age · Literary · Romance
Cold Mountain
Charles Frazier
Wounded Confederate soldier Inman walks home across North Carolina toward Ada, who is learning to keep a mountain farm alive as the Civil War wrecks the Blue Ridge. Frazier’s National Book Award winner is Civil War historical fiction of desertion, survival, and a love story paced to the land.
Civil War · Literary · Romance
Sense and Sensibility
Jane Austen
When Henry Dashwood dies, his widow and daughters are turned out of Norland: Elinor conceals her attachment to Edward Ferrars, while Marianne throws her heart at the dashing John Willoughby—until secret engagements, a broken ankle at Cleveland, and the marriage market of Barton and London test both sisters. Jane Austen’s 1811 novel is Regency historical romance of sense mixed with sensibility, and of two women who will not be saved by feeling alone.
Regency / Napoleonic · Romance · Literary
The Duke and I
Julia Quinn
In the 1813 London season, Daphne Bridgerton and Simon Basset, Duke of Hastings, fake a courtship to solve their marriage-market problems—then the performance becomes real. The first Bridgerton novel is Regency historical romance: ballrooms, gossip sheets, and a marriage of convenience that refuses to stay convenient.
Regency / Napoleonic · Romance
The Other Boleyn Girl
Philippa Gregory
Mary Boleyn’s perspective on the rise of Anne Boleyn and the dangerous theater of Henry VIII’s court.
Early modern · Biographical · Romance
The Scarlet Pimpernel
Baroness Orczy
In 1792, as the Terror’s guillotine claims French aristocrats, a foppish English baronet named Percy Blakeney leads a league that smuggles the condemned out of Paris under the sign of a small red flower. Baroness Orczy’s novel is French Revolution historical adventure: double identity, a Channel chase, and the template for the masked rescuer.
Regency / Napoleonic · Adventure & epic · Romance
A Farewell to Arms
Ernest Hemingway
On the Italian front in World War I, American ambulance driver Frederic Henry falls in love with British nurse Catherine Barkley as the Caporetto retreat unravels the army around them. Hemingway’s 1929 novel is Great War historical fiction stripped to weather, wounds, and a private peace that cannot hold.
World War I era · Military & war · Literary
Captain Corelli's Mandolin
Louis de Bernières
In 1941, Italian captain Antonio Corelli is posted to occupied Cephalonia with his mandolin, and is billeted on Dr Iannis and his daughter Pelagia, who is waiting for a fisherman fiancé gone to war. Louis de Bernières’s novel is WWII historical romance of an Ionian island: occupation, music, and a love tested when the war’s savagery finally arrives.
World War II era · Romance · Literary
Forever Amber
Kathleen Winsor
In 1660, sixteen-year-old Amber St. Clare comes up to London as Charles II returns and, left penniless when Bruce Carlton sails, climbs from the streets and the playhouse to the king’s favor. Kathleen Winsor’s 1944 novel is early-modern romance historical fiction of that Restoration life—the plague of 1665, the Great Fire of 1666, and Amber’s long pursuit of Carlton, who will not marry her and settles in Virginia.
Early modern · Romance
The Age of Innocence
Edith Wharton
In 1870s Gilded Age New York, lawyer Newland Archer is days from marrying flawless May Welland when her cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska, returns from a ruined European marriage and makes the tribe’s rules visible. Wharton’s Pulitzer novel is historical fiction of old New York: opera boxes, Newport summers, and a love affair society will not permit.
Victorian / Gilded Age · Literary · Romance
The English Patient
Michael Ondaatje
In the last months of World War II, a burned, nameless man lies in a ruined Italian villa with a Canadian nurse, a maimed thief, and a Sikh sapper—while morphine brings back the North African desert and a love affair that crossed maps and sides. Michael Ondaatje’s Booker-winning novel is WWII historical fiction of occupation, exploration, and the wreckage four people carry out of the war.
World War II era · Interwar · Literary · Romance
The Tale of Genji
Murasaki Shikibu
At the Heian court, the emperor’s son Genji is too loved to be left a prince in the line of succession and too restless to stay clear of love or politics, and the tale follows him through poems, rooms, and exile. Murasaki Shikibu’s early-eleventh-century novel, read in English in Royall Tyler’s translation, is medieval literary historical fiction of that shining prince and of the women and the next generation the story keeps after he is gone.
Medieval · Literary · Romance
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Anne Brontë
In the autumn of 1827, gentleman farmer Gilbert Markham watches a woman calling herself Helen Graham take ruined Wildfell Hall with her small son, shut the door on the neighborhood, and paint for a living. Anne Brontë’s 1848 novel is Regency romance historical fiction of the diary she finally lets him read—a marriage to Arthur Huntingdon she has fled, and a woman the law of the 1820s still counts as her husband’s property.
Regency / Napoleonic · Romance · Literary
The White Queen
Philippa Gregory
In 1464, widowed Lancastrian Elizabeth Woodville marries Yorkist King Edward IV in secret and steps into the Wars of the Roses as queen, mother, and survivor. Gregory’s opening Cousins’ War novel is late-medieval biographical historical fiction of a commoner queen, the Woodville rise, and the mystery of the princes in the Tower.
Medieval · Biographical · Romance
Tipping the Velvet
Sarah Waters
In the 1890s, Nancy Astley leaves the oyster parlour in Whitstable after she falls in love with the male impersonator Kitty Butler and follows her onto the London music halls. Sarah Waters’s 1998 novel is Victorian romance historical fiction of the life Nan builds when that affair breaks—under a man’s name on the streets, in a rich woman’s house in St John’s Wood, and in an East End household that asks something else of her.
Victorian / Gilded Age · Romance · Literary
Wuthering Heights
Emily Brontë
Lockwood, new tenant at Thrushcross Grange, takes shelter at Wuthering Heights and hears how the foundling Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw loved each other on the Yorkshire moors—until Cathy married Edgar Linton, died in childbirth, and Heathcliff’s revenge closed on the next generation at both houses. Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel is eighteenth-century gothic literary historical fiction of obsessive love, class, and a house that will not let the dead go.
Early modern · Regency / Napoleonic · Literary · Romance
Far from the Madding Crowd
Thomas Hardy
Bathsheba Everdene inherits a Weatherbury farm and hires the shepherd Gabriel Oak, whose flock she has already seen ruined; a valentine she meant as a joke binds Farmer Boldwood to her, and Sergeant Troy marries her before the storm, Fanny Robin, and a Christmas shooting sort the three suitors. Thomas Hardy’s 1874 novel is Victorian romance historical fiction of a woman who will run her own land, and of Wessex patience against a red coat.
Victorian / Gilded Age · Romance · Literary
Ivanhoe
Walter Scott
In 1194, disinherited knight Wilfred of Ivanhoe returns from the Crusades to an England split among Saxons, Normans, and the absent King Richard, with Rebecca of York and Rowena caught in the same violent pageant. Scott’s romance of tournament, outlaw woods, and Templar menace is the template later historical novels still copy.
Medieval · Adventure & epic · Romance
Lorna Doone
R. D. Blackmore
On Exmoor in the 1670s, yeoman’s son John Ridd sees the Doone clan kill his father, then finds a child named Lorna in their hidden valley and grows up set on winning her out of that stronghold. R. D. Blackmore’s 1869 novel is early-modern romance historical fiction of the Doone Valley, the Great Winter, and Monmouth’s Rebellion in 1685—a Somerset love story against an outlaw clan the law will not touch.
Early modern · Romance · Adventure & epic
Tess of the d'Urbervilles
Thomas Hardy
When the Durbeyfields learn they may be fallen d’Urbervilles, young Tess is sent to claim kin at Trantridge—and Alec d’Urberville’s assault sends her from a Wessex dairy and a marriage to Angel Clare toward the gallows at Wintoncester. Thomas Hardy’s 1891 novel is Victorian literary historical fiction of class, purity myths, and a woman England would not forgive.
Victorian / Gilded Age · Literary · Romance
The Paris Wife
Paula McLain
Hadley Richardson’s marriage to Ernest Hemingway unfolds in Jazz Age Paris among the Lost Generation.
Interwar · Biographical · Literary
Madame Bovary
Gustave Flaubert
In 1840s Normandy, Emma Rouault marries the kind country doctor Charles Bovary, then finds Yonville, motherhood, and provincial dinners too small—and spends herself on Rodolphe, on Léon in Rouen, and on silks she cannot pay for, until arsenic in the armoire ends the romance she had read about. Gustave Flaubert’s 1857 novel is Victorian literary historical fiction of a woman who wanted a different century, and of the French provincial world that would not give it to her.
Victorian / Gilded Age · Literary · Romance
The French Lieutenant's Woman
John Fowles
In 1867 Lyme Regis, gentleman-paleontologist Charles Smithson is engaged to a proper heiress when he becomes entangled with Sarah Woodruff, the outcast the town calls the French lieutenant’s woman. John Fowles’s novel is Victorian historical fiction that both inhabits a mid-century love story and lets a modern narrator question how such stories end.
Victorian / Gilded Age · Literary · Romance
The Mysteries of Udolpho
Ann Radcliffe
In 1584, Emily St. Aubert loses her father on a journey from Gascony through the Pyrenees, falls in love with Valancourt, and is taken by her aunt’s new husband, Signor Montoni, from Venice to the Castle of Udolpho in the Apennines. Ann Radcliffe’s 1794 novel is early-modern romance historical fiction of Emily’s imprisonment there, the black veil she is afraid to lift, and the engagement Montoni will not let her keep.
Early modern · Romance · Mystery