New Books in Historical Fiction

A sweeping historical coming-of-age novel set against India’s 1948 takeover of Hyderabad, The Sirens of September (India Penguin, 2025) shifts between the palaces of princely Hyderabad, the refugee camps of post-Partition Bombay, army command rooms and the seedy lanes of London’s Piccadilly. Farishteh Ali Khan, an aristocratic teenager who enjoys a gilded existence, tumbles into a web of international espionage, political intrigue and dark family secrets. A few chance meetings between her and an air force pilot, Saleem El Edroos, lead to them striking up a long-distance courtship. When Hyderabad falls, the new regime makes the Ali Khans and the Edrooses answer for their old loyalties. The one person who can come to their aid can also tear Farishteh’s family apart. Author Bio Note: Zeenath Khan is a writer who divides her time between Hyderabad, India and New York City. The Sirens of September is her debut novel. She has written about history, travel and current affairs for Scroll, Mint Lounge, Siasat and Literary Traveler. Aside from writing, she enjoys reading, working out, baking, and spending time with her friends and three grown-up children. The article mentioned in the podcast can be found here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/historical-fiction

Despite the long-held perception that medieval and early modern women were as quiet, pious, and obedient as society expected them to be, the truth is more complex. The Bailiff’s Wife (Cuidono Press, 2025) builds on a historical event recorded in a seventeenth-century English broadsheet to create a picture of a society in flux, the result of far-reaching political and religious changes that found expression in the English Civil War and its aftermath, the Restoration of King Charles II. Sarah Kidd, a woman whose husband has gone missing, along with the small fortune with which he intended to support her and their infant son, sets out—defying the demands of social convention—to find out what happened to her missing Nathaniel. She tracks him to the Cotswold village of Chalfont St. James, where despite relentless hounding, the local constable and magistrate refuse her requests for an exhumation of the body discovered in the village three years before and never identified. After annoying pretty much everyone in town by her refusal to take no for an answer, Sarah finds support from the unlikely combination of Frances Bright, a relatively well-off Quaker widow with two daughters, and Arthur Brunskill, the local vicar whose Puritan religious sympathies have fallen out of favor with the Restoration. As the tale unfolds, it develops into a classic murder mystery. Someone in Chalfont St. James caused the death of Nathaniel Kidd, and Sarah will not let matters rest until she sees the killer brought to justice. And this small, insular setting turns out to harbor plenty of suspects anxious to avoid drawing notice to themselves … Maren Halvorsen is a historian of medieval and early modern Europe and lifelong writer of fiction. The Bailiff’s Wife is her debut novel. C. P. Lesley is the author of two historical fiction series set during the childhood of Ivan the Terrible and four other novels. Her latest book, Song of the Steadfast, appeared in 2025. Maren's website here Cuidono Press's website here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/historical-fiction

Donald Rumsfeld was a major player in American history. In this riveting alternative history, he's put on trial for his role in the United States 2003 invasion of Iraq. The Trial of Donald H. Rumsfeld (Dlnp, 2025) charts Rumsfeld's rise to fame and power, the fight with President Donald Trump that leads to his prosecution, and his spellbinding trial at the International Criminal Court. Told through the eyes of a mysterious narrator whose identity-and pivotal role in Rumsfeld's downfall-are eventually revealed, The Trial of Donald H. Rumsfeld is a tale of politics, betrayal, and the explosive mix of unbridled ambition and absolute power. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/historical-fiction

When we meet Maple Bishop in the first book in her series, Death in the Details, she is reeling from a series of life-changing circumstances. Rural Vermont in 1946 doesn’t have much use for a childless widow with limited means of support and even less interest in knitting, baking, and chitchat. Maple ruffles feathers, including those of Ginger Comstock, the leader of local female society in Elderberry, the very small town where Maple moved two years before with her doctor husband, Bill. That’s another strike against her, in fact: Elderberry is the kind of town that accepts newcomers slowly, if ever. It doesn’t help when Maple, who builds dollhouses to fill her empty days and decides to sell them to supplement her income, uncovers a murder. Even the local sheriff barely tolerates what he sees as her interference in an open-and-shut case. Fast forward a few months, and Maple’s situation has improved—a little. In Murder in Miniature (Crooked Lane Books, 2025), she’s still something of a social outcast, but her dollhouses have acquired a new purpose and she has a few more friends in town. Even the crotchety sheriff has developed respect for her abilities. So when a cabin fire on the outskirts of town creates an opening for Maple’s particular gift for re-creating a crime scene, he doesn’t hesitate to ask for her help. Neither of them could have predicted that this case will bring them into contact not only with big city criminals but also with a mystery from Maple’s past.  Katie Tietjen—an award-winning writer, teacher, and school librarian—lives in New England with her husband and two sons. Murder in Miniature is the second book in the Maple Bishop series, following Death in the Details, which came out in 2024. C. P. Lesley is the author of two historical fiction series set during the childhood of Ivan the Terrible and four other novels. Her latest book, Song of the Steadfast, appeared in 2025. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/historical-fiction

Eleanor of Aquitaine is best known as the wife of England’s Henry II, the mother of his numerous children—including two kings, Richard the Lionheart and his infamous brother John, of Magna Carta fame—and perhaps for her long incarceration at Henry’s insistence after their burning romance turned to ashes. What is often forgotten is that Eleanor, before she ever met Henry, ruled as queen of France for fifteen years. About a decade into her marriage, Eleanor accompanied her husband, King Louis VII, on the Second Crusade to re-establish Christian control over Jerusalem. In The Queen’s Companion (Cuidono Press, 2025), this is where her story intersects with that of Lucy Pick’s narrator, Lady Aude, who has her own reasons for traveling from Europe to the Holy Land. Interspersed with the events of the Second Crusade, told from the point of view of the crusaders and witnessed by Aude as Eleanor’s lady-in-waiting, is Aude’s own history, which she presents in the form of stories to Eleanor and her women. Aude is ruthlessly honest in revealing her own flaws and errors as well as her triumphs, and through her voice Lucy Pick creates a character—at times unlikable, but always indomitable and even admirable, much like Eleanor herself—who shines a spotlight onto medieval life in all its complexity. Lucy Pick, a historian of the thought and culture of medieval Spain, taught for over twenty years at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago. The Queen’s Companion is her second novel. C. P. Lesley is the author of two historical fiction series set during the childhood of Ivan the Terrible and four other novels. Her latest book, Song of the Steadfast, appeared in 2025. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/historical-fiction

Kavya is an Indian-American professor and single mother struggling with debilitating panic attacks. Bombarded by flashbacks of cruelty and violence that disrupt her everyday life, she is left with no choice but to confront the intergenerational trauma tormenting her. At first,  Kavya finds some relief in piecing together the legacies of her family's experiences with colonialism, colorism, and casteism. But just as she starts to recover, explosive confessions threaten to bring her world crashing down. Tilt: A Novel on Intergenerational Trauma (Rowman & Littlefield, 2024) is an unflinching feminist novel about the devastating histories that haunt us and the unexpected beauty of facing our pasts. Meghana V. Nayak is Professor of Political Science and Chair of Women's and Gender Studies at Pace University-NYC. Pamela Fuentes historian and editor of New Books Network en español Communications officer- Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, University of Toronto. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/historical-fiction

Catherine Merridale, a writer and historian renowned for her expertise on Russia and the Soviet Union, discusses her latest novel, 'Moscow Underground'. She shares insights on the turbulent social and political shifts during Stalin's regime, particularly through the lens of Moscow's subway system. Merridale also reflects on her transition from historical research to fiction, weaving rich narratives and personal tales into the complexities of Stalinism. The conversation touches on the significance of food and survival in the 1930s, offering a vivid portrayal of resilience amidst hardship.

This fascinating novel—dual-time historical with a fantastical overlay, based in part on the life of the author’s great-grandfather, a nineteenth-century charlatan—follows the career of a young Scotswoman named Nairna Liath. When we meet her in 1900, Nora, sixteen years old, travels the Scottish countryside at the insistence of her father, Tavish, who supports himself and his daughter by hawking her supposed skills as a medium—expressed through his own mangled Gaelic mixed with a series of parlor tricks that Nairna has mastered. But we soon find out that the joke’s on Tavish: Nairna really does have psychic talents, especially in reading Tarot cards. Her ability attracts attention from the Society for Psychical Research, setting Nairna on her path to become the spiritualist Nora Grey. Her tale is intertwined with (in fact, propelled by) that of Nairna’s grandmother, Lottie Liath, in the 1860s. Lottie has just lost her husband in a coal mining accident, and when she protests the lack of financial support provided by the uncaring mine administration, the manager has her arrested and thrown in jail. From there, the pregnant Lottie ends up in an asylum. And it’s the asylum, where she is subjected to psychic experiments, that brings her increasingly into conversation with Nora. The Entirely True Story of the Fantastical Mesmerist Nora Grey (Kensington Books, 2025) is rich in drama—both tragedy and comedy—as well as rapid switches of identity accompanied by pseudo news reports from various types of sources that illuminate Nora’s and Lottie’s stories in various ways. It’s tremendous fun and heartbreaking at the same time, and it’s best just to suspend disbelief and go with the flow. If you do, I guarantee you will love every minute of this story. Kathleen Kaufman, a native Coloradan and long-time resident of Los Angeles, California, is the author of six previous books. A University of Southern California alum, she teaches high school English and is a writing and composition adjunct professor at Santa Monica College. The Entirely True Story of the Fantastical Mesmerist Nora Grey is her latest novel. C. P. Lesley is the author of two historical fiction series set during the childhood of Ivan the Terrible and four other novels. Her latest book, Song of the Steadfast, appeared in June 2025. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/historical-fiction

This compelling debut novel explores the interconnected lives of three acclaimed female concert pianists: Clara Bishop; her teacher, Zofia Mikorska; and their nineteenth-century predecessor, Constantia Pleyel—best known for her arrest and subsequent incarceration for the murder of her own piano teacher, a composer named Aleksander Starza. Exactly how these three women are connected becomes clear only late in the book, but two of the elements that link them are Starza’s best-known composition, known as the “Fire Concerto,” and the metronome used to kill him—once thought to have been destroyed after his death. Clara is the center of The Fire Concerto (Union Square Publishing, 2025). Once a brilliant performer, she suffered career-ending injuries during a performance of the Fire Concerto and, when we meet her, is tending bar in Austin, Texas. An unexpected summons to her teacher’s “final concert” turns macabre when she discovers that it is actually a reading of Zofia Mikorska’s will. Other beneficiaries receive instruments or documents; Clara inherits an antique metronome with the assurance that she will know what to do with it. She does not. In fact, she has no idea how valuable it is until a visit to an antiques dealer reveals the connection to Aleksander Starza. With some help from another former student, with whom she once alternated between competition and attraction, Clara is gradually drawn into a search for the truth of Starza’s murder, Pleyel’s part in it, and the connections between them and her brilliant but difficult teacher. In the process, Clara must also confront her own past and come to terms with the career she has lost. Sarah Landenwich—writer, writing educator, and classically trained pianist—is the author of The Fire Concerto, her debut novel.  C. P. Lesley is the author of two historical fiction series set during the childhood of Ivan the Terrible and four other novels. Her latest book, Song of the Steadfast, came out in June 2025. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/historical-fiction

How to Dodge a Cannonball is a razor-sharp satire that dives into the heart of the Civil War, hilariously questioning the essence of the fight, not just for territory, but for the soul of America.How to Dodge a Cannonball (Henry Holt, 2025) is funnier than the Civil War should ever be. It follows Anders, a teenage idealist who enlists and reenlists to shape the American Future―as soon as he figures out what that is, who it includes, and why everyone wants him to die for it. Escaping his violently insane mother is a bonus.Anders finds honor as a proud Union flag twirler―until he’s captured. Then he tries life as a diehard Confederate―until fate asks him to die hard for the Confederacy at Gettysburg. Barely alive, Anders limps into a Black Union regiment in a stolen uniform. While visibly white, he claims to be an octoroon, and they claim to believe him. Only then does his life get truly strange.His new brothers are even stranger, including a science-fiction playwright, a Haitian double agent, and a former slave feuding with God. Despite his best efforts, Anders starts seeing the war through their eyes, sparking ill-timed questions about who gets to be American or exploit the theater of war. Dennard Dayle’s satire spares no one as doomed charges, draft riots, gleeful arms dealers, and native suppression campaigns test everyone’s definition of loyalty.Uproariously funny and revelatory, How to Dodge a Cannonball asks if America is worth fighting for. And then answers loudly. Read it while it’s still legal. You can find author Dennard Dayle at his newsletter. And I am your host, Sullivan Summer. You can find me online, on Instagram, and on Substack, where she and Dennard went to talk about Cannonball spoilers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/historical-fiction