If you like Downton Abbey...

The enduring fascination with the notorious aristocratic Mitford sisters never seems to die down. Their lives are far more scandalous than a Downton Abbey plot. Best-selling author Marie Benedict, known for uncovering the hidden stories of historical women (Carnegie's Maid, The Only Woman in the Room), has turned her pen to a fictionalized account of the oldest of the famous Mitford sisters.

Town & Country, listing the book on its best books of January list, calls it "a fun, compelling, and deliciously mannered saga."

If you like Brit Bennett...

In her note accompanying this debut novel (out January 31), Eleanor Shearer says she wanted to bring to life a story about the Caribbean in the aftermath of slavery—a time and place that is not well-known or widely understood. The reviews praise her ability to tell a great story without sacrificing the specific and historical details.

Bookstagrammer Jordan Snowden called it "an excellent choice for fans of Yaa Gyasi, Brit Bennett, and those already planning their Black History Month reading list."

If you liked The Other Boleyn Girl...

In Maggie O'Farrell's highly anticipated follow-up to Hamnet, readers travel to Renaissance Italy to follow the story of the young duchess Lucrezia de'Medici. Merging two powerful dynasties, her forced marriage is the start of some dark and thrilling turns in the court.

In the Boston Globe, Priscilla Gilman wrote: "O’Farrell has an uncanny ability to put us in Lucrezia’s very unusual shoes... The final twist is so unexpected and so gorgeously executed that it brought this reader to tears. With it, O’Farrell demonstrates fiction’s ability to offer counter narratives to those of received history, to open before us imaginative abundance and a tremulous sense of possibility."

If you liked Cold Mountain...

This saga (out on January 24) charts the repercussions of a scandalous 19th-century love affair between a young Sámi reindeer herder in the Arctic Circle and the daughter of a renegade Lutheran minister.

Kirkus Reviews gave it a starred review: "Beautifully written and masterfully researched, the book's greatest triumph is the characters, full of human foibles, passions, and tenderness, jealousy, courage, doubts, and moments of transcendence. 'He looked at the children, and he wondered suddenly about the length of their lives, if they would lose their reindeer, if they would go on to live in homes with walls that didn’t move…. The thought made him inexpressibly sad.' "

If you like Wes Anderson movies...

Winner of Canada's most prestigious literary prize, this book has been rising up on Tertulia's Most Talked About list. This story of a Black gay porter in the Canadian railways of the 1920s made the top Historical Fiction picks of 2022 from The New York Times, which called it "a display of storytelling tailor-made for adaptation as a Wes Anderson movie."

If you liked Women Talking...

This new release, listed on The Washington Post's notable picks for January, is about six enslaved women staging a covert rebellion against their owners. While set in the dramatically different scene of a Texas plantation, this book reminds us of Miriam Toews' Women Talking (out now as a film adaptation with Rooney Mara) for the subversive portrait of the women and their interior lives.

Acclaimed memoirist Kiese Laymon said the book had "the potential to change how Blacknesses, Texas and the nation are written about forever."

If you like Zora Neale Hurston...

This debut novel brings alive the untold history of the enslaved and Indigenous people of North America in the 19th century. In an interview on Shondaland, the author explains how the book was inspired by Hurston's weaving together of anthropology and folklore in her book Barracoon: "The story that I wanted to tell was broad. I’ve always enjoyed polyphonic narration. I like the idea of a chorus; I liked the idea of hearing a story told from a different perspective."

In a recent review, The New York Times said "Thomas’s work is a testament to the power of story and a veneration of those whose tales are often forgotten in mainstream media."

If you love vintage Dior...

From the author of The Paris Seamstress, this is the story of an orphan turned WWII spy turned Paris fashion icon. The Bookpage review of the book raved: "Through tight, page-turning prose and a richly developed view of 1940s Europe, Lester weaves a spellbinding portrait of a woman who knows how to survive—and how to win. Alix is such a strong central character that the rest of the narrative shapes itself to her like a well-tailored gown, making The Three Lives of Alix St. Pierre a wonderfully human and utterly gripping work of historical fiction."