The Best Historical Fiction Books to Read in 2025

"Historical fiction you can feel in your bones," declared the Los Angeles Times in their list of most anticipated books of 2025. The author of Room reconstructs the infamous 1895 Montparnasse train disaster through diverse passengers from across Europe and beyond.

The prize-winning Irish author of Where They Were Missed whisks readers to war-ravaged Belfast in 1941, where two sisters try to carry on amid the bombing and the rubble. SJP hailed this “intimate celebration of sisterhood and a moving tribute to childhoods cut short by war. Rich in voice and beautifully rooted in place, Lucy Caldwell's characters leap from the page in all their joy and devastation. The result is a novel of stunning ambition."

Before Francis Picabia and Marcel Duchamp shook up modern art, Gabriële Buffet-Picabia was helping lead the way. Written by her great-granddaughters, this vibrant novel brings to life the daring woman behind the avant-garde. A literary hit in France, now ready to charm U.S. readers.

The latest from the Pulitzer Prize finalist author of Swamplandia! transforms the Dust Bowl into a surreal stage of secrets and sorcery. A “Prairie Witch” guards memories like treasures, a cursed farmer’s blessings turn deadly, and a time-traveling camera reveals the buried sins of a crumbling town. "An inspired and unforgettable fusion of the gritty and the fantastic," raves Publishers Weekly.

In this "unusually colorful and intelligent" debut novel set in Nazi-occupied Brussels, a tight-knit community in an elegant Beaux Arts building becomes entangled in a dangerous web of secrets when a Jewish family disappears and a Nazi official moves in. "A poignant and rich World War II novel," raves Kirkus Reviews. "A special treat for fans of the genre."

From the bestselling author of Hour of the Witch comes a historical love story set in war-torn Virginia in 1864. When a Confederate woman finds a wounded Union officer near death, she must choose between duty and conscience, risking everything to save an enemy. Inspired by true events, this richly atmospheric novel is “propulsive and tense with each plot turn… a flawless novel,” according to The Historical Novel Society.