It's time to review the shortlist and vote for your top three books!
The three books that get the most votes will become the focus of our Historical Fiction Heart Book Club over the next three months.
Check out more about our shortlist here:
The Brightest Star by Emma Harcourt
Period: 1496 / Renaissance
Setting: Florence, Italy
A thirst for learning and a passion for astronomy draw an extraordinary young woman deep into the intellectual maelstrom, political complexities and religious extremism of Renaissance Florence. It’s a dangerous time to be a clever woman.
The Magnolia Palace by Fiona Davis
Period: 1919 / Gilded Age
Setting: New York, USA
Parallel timelines seeing 21 year-old Lillian Carter’s life as a sought-after model fall apart after losing her mother to the Spanish Flu. She takes a position as Private Secretary to Heiress Helen Frick and finds her caught in life-and-death family drama. Nearly 50 years later mod English model Veronica Weber has the chance to support her family with a career-making Vogue shoot set in the ex-Frick mansion that is now a Museum. She happens upon hidden messages that could reveal Lillian’s truth.
The Winter Orphans by Kristin Beck
Period: World War 2
Setting: Remote France
The incredible true story of children who braved the formidable danger of guarded, wintry mountain passes to escape the Nazis. Jewish refugee Ella Rosenthal and her sister Hanni are finally safe after leaving their parent to reside in a derelict castle overseen by the Swiss Red Cross. But when Germany invades southern France Ella and Hanni must embark on a new journey to stay safe.
The Sawdust House by David Whish-Wilson
Period: 1856
Setting: San Francisco, USA
San Francisco, 1856. Irish-born James ‘Yankee’ Sullivan is being held in jail by the Committee of Vigilance, which aims to rout the Australian criminals from the town. As Sullivan’s mistress seeks his release and as his fellow prisoners are taken away to be hanged, the convict tells a story of triumph and tragedy: of his daring escape from penal servitude in Australia; how he became America’s most celebrated boxer; and how he met the true love of his life.
The Seven Sisters by Lucinda Riley
Period: 1920s
Setting: Lake Geneva, Switzerland
Maia D’Apliese and her five sisters gather together at their childhood home, “Atlantis”—a fabulous, secluded castle situated on the shores of Lake Geneva—having been told that their beloved father, who adopted them all as babies, has died. Each of them is handed a tantalizing clue to her true heritage—a clue which takes Maia across the world to a crumbling mansion in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Once there, she begins to put together the pieces of her story and its beginnings.
The Burning Island by Jock Serong
Period: 1830 (early Australian colonisation)
Setting: Sydney, Australia
Eliza Grayling, born in Sydney when the colony itself was still an infant, has lived there all her thirty-two years. Too tall and too stern she’s lived a solitary life caring for her reclusive father Joshua. When the chance for a reckoning with her father’s old nemesis forces him to take a perilous sea voyage Eliza is forced to go with him. But the instant she sees the ship, the mission becomes her own.
Joan by Katherine Chen
Period: 1412
Setting, France
France is mired in a losing war against England. Its people are starving. Its king is in hiding. From this chaos emerges a teenage girl who will turn the tide of battle and lead the French to victory, an unlikely hero whose name will echo across the centuries. Girl. Warrior. Heretic. Saint? A stunning secular reimagining of the epic life of Joan of Arc.
Still Life by Sarah Winman
Period: 1944 (World War II)
Setting: Tuscany, Italy
It is 1944 and in the ruined wine cellar of a Tuscan villa as the Allied troops advance and bombs fall around them, two strangers meet and share an extraordinary evening together. Ulysses Temper is a young British soldier and a one-time globe-make. Evelyn Skinner is a sexagenarian art historian and possible spy. She has come to Italy to salvage paintings from the ruins. The two unlikely people find kindred spirits in each other and Evelyn’s talk of truth and beauty plants a seed in Ulysses’ mind that will shape the trajectory of his life.
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