Historical fiction is as thrilling of a genre as fantasy or sci-fi, and this list is a primer for anyone who is looking to find this out for themselves. That’s right. Want to get into historical lit, but don’t know where to start? This list covers everything from new bestselling releases to certified classics.
That includes books that have been adapted for the screen, like Alias Grace and The Underground Railroad, as well as some books that are still waiting to get their shot at an adaptation. Each one is an impeccable historical fiction choice for readers looking to round out their 2026 Goodreads list.
There is a lot of great historical fiction out there, and this list surveys a range of different examples of what the genre can do. To start, we’ll look at an upcoming historical novel that is sure to be a hit, and then we’ll look back at some other A+ entries in the genre to check out while waiting for it.
As a genre, historical fiction’s history goes way back, but for the purposes of this list, selections have been limited to 21st century publications, most of them from the past decade or so.
The Pirate Queen (Forthcoming)
Written By Ariel Lawhon; Coming September 8, 2026
The Pirate Queen, Ariel Lawhon’s latest novel, is one of the most highly anticipated historical fiction releases coming in the back half of 2026. Hitting shelves in early September, it is primed to make the last great beach read of the summer, or the first book of a cozy, literary fall.
Pirate Queen is the fictionalized tale of the real-life, but semi-mythological figure Grace O’Malley, a legendary Irishwoman from the 16th-17th centuries. Here is Penguin Random House’s synopsis of the book:
Grace O’Malley was born to be a sea captain. But despite her natural skill on the water, Grace learns early that her dreams of a life at the helm are not compatible with the expectations of her noble family. As the only daughter of a powerful chieftain, her role is to secure a strong alliance and bear children. But when she’s sent to foster with a nearby clan, Grace falls for a clever and open-minded second son—a man she cannot have.
Married off against her will to a brutal warrior, Grace performs her duty, all the while gathering followers loyal to her, and consolidating her husband’s power, only to be ousted from his lands. But this betrayal offers Grace the opportunity to return to sea, finally leading clan O’Malley’s mighty fleet. Just as she finds true independence, Queen Elizabeth’s incursions into Ireland grow bolder and Grace must fight to defend her land, her ships, and the people she loves most against the cruel and power-hungry English deputies, who will stop at nothing to check her influence.
The Pirate Queen dives deep into an underserved era in historical fiction, with a perfect focal character. Ariel Lawhon has proven herself to be a leading figure in today’s historical fiction landscape with heavily researched and deeply resonant fiction, and The Pirate Queen is expected to deliver again.
Daughter Of Egypt (New Release)
Written By Marie Benedict; Published In March 2026
Daughter of Egypt is the 13th novel by prolific historical fiction writer Marie Benedict. (Which, actually, is a pen name; the author has also released seven books under her real name, Heather Terrell, putting her output at 20 books in nearly 20 years since her debut.) It is an ambitious, epic take on the genre, telling a story that spans worlds and generations.
Daughter of Egypt follows two main characters, separated by millennia. The first is Lady Evelyn Herbert, in a story set a century ago in the 1920s; Evelyn helped her father find King Tut’s tomb, but was denied any credit or glory.
Paralleled with her story is the tale of Hatshepsut, the first ancient Egyptian woman to reign as Pharaoh. Daughter of Egypt is a total pageturner, and its intertwined narratives will keep readers on the hook until the very end.
Lincoln In The Bardo
Written By George Saunders; Published In 2017
Lincoln in the Bardo, George Saunders’ first novel, is for readers who want a challenge. It is historical fiction, but it is also experimental fiction. It is short enough to read in a day, but it’s also the kind of book readers might puzzle over a few chapters, or even pages, at a time.
Bardo offers a surreal look at the liminal space between life and death, but its strangeness and avant-garde style are undergirded by serious historical research. The book is built around a heartbreaking emotional core, centered on the death of Abraham Lincoln’s young son, Willie, and the doomed president’s grief over the loss.
No one writes like George Saunders; he’s a legitimately singular voice in American fiction. As such, no one has written historical fiction quite like this.
Alias Grace
Written By Margaret Atwood; Published In 2017
Margaret Atwood’s monumental career spans forms and genres. She is a poet, and has written her share of nonfiction, as well as putting her stamp on literary genres ranging from speculative fiction (Oryx and Crake), to dystopian (The Handmaid’s Tale) to historical, like her 2017 novel Alias Grace. (Yes, this is the second historical Grace on our list.)
Like most great works of the genre, Alias Grace injects fictional characters into a real historical time, place, and situation. In this case, Atwood creates the character of Dr. Simon Jordan, a 19th-century psychiatrist who is contracted to study Grace Marks, a convicted murderer.
Alias Grace has its twists and turns, and doesn’t end where most readers would suspect at the beginning. It is playfully sensational, in the sense that Atwood knows she’s not totally beholden to the historical record, but still grounded in its historical setting and the facts of the real Grace’s case as they have come down through history.
The Underground Railroad
Written By Colson Whitehead; Published In 2016
Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad is a Pulitzer Prize-winning piece of historical fiction. Whitehead is a two-time Pulitzer winner, and one of America’s greatest living literary icons. The Underground Railroad is a massive and masterful achievement in fiction. It is the story of an enslaved woman making her way to freedom, but also of the many people and systems determined to stop her.
The Underground Railroad begins in the Antebellum South and follows its protagonist, Cora, as she makes her way north. Predictably, it is a journey full of hardship and heart, but as a writer, Colson Whitehead isn’t interested in emotionally manipulating his readers. Instead, he wants to engage them critically.
Though the book’s characters and plot are fictional, each element of The Underground Railroad corresponds to a historical reality, or a harsh truth about the past Whitehead wants to illuminate.
A Brief History Of Seven Killings
Written By Marlon James; Published In 2014
A Brief History of Seven Killings is a huge book in every sense of the word. It is long, 688 pages. (26 hours, for audiobook listeners. And Seven Killings is a great audiobook rendition of a literary masterpiece, read by an all-star cast of narrators.) It is ambitious. It is densely plotted, crosses genre boundaries, and remains endlessly dazzling on a beat-by-beat, sentence-by-sentence level.
A significant part of Seven Killings is about a real attempted assassination, the 1976 shooting of Bob Marley, called “the Singer” in Marlon James’ novel. But the story goes far beyond that, as James traces the spider-web, or broken mirror connections between that event and the eponymous killings.
Connections both real and imagined. A Brief History of Seven Killings is a great example of how much confidence it takes to write historical fiction: enough to know when to stick to the facts, when to fill in the gaps between them, and when to discard the truth entirely in favor of the story.
Year Of Wonders
Written By Geraldine Brooks; Published In 2001
Geraldine Brooks’ Year of Wonders is subtitled A Novel of the Plague. It takes place in the 17th century, and concerns a remote English town that quarantines itself after an outbreak of bubonic plague. Told through the first-person narration of young widow Anna Frith, it is an unflinching fictional interpretation of a real historical incident.
Especially in retrospect, the novel has an urgent and relevant quality to it, as it traces the small-scale breakdown of society in the town once they are isolated from the rest of the world and people start to die. Make no mistake, Year of Wonders is a tragedy, but it’s also a spellbinding example of Brooks’ knack for historical fiction.
Year of Wonders was Brooks’ first novel; her second, March, won the Pulitzer Prize, beating another historical fiction novel (which deserves an honorable mention here), E.L. Doctorow’s similarly titled The March. Geraldine Brooks has released four more novels since, all of them historical fiction, and all of them worth picking up.