I enjoy books that follow individual lives with a lot of character building and would love suggestions.
Books like:
Katherine by Anya Seton
Isola by Allegra Goodman
The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
I especially like anything based in the Middle Ages because of the focus on the time period and day to day life. Asia, Europe, America, Africa, wherever. I've read Ken Follett and Phillipa Gregory already. Thank you!!
by Clear_Adhesiveness27
15 Comments
Leo the African by Amin Maalouf
Try Alison Weir
The covenant of water. It covers 3 generations is southern India 1920s-1970s. It’s a hefty book at over 700 pages. I have about 100 pages left but I can definitely say they did a real good job with character building.
Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset
Not middle ages but Pachinko (Korea), The Love Songs of W.E.B Du Bois (USA – Black Americans), Do Not Say We Have Nothing (China), Homegoing (Ghana and USA). The Lost Century (Hong Kong).
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee follows a Korean family from 1910 through to 1989.
Moloka’i by Alan Brennent
“Rachel Kalama, a spirited seven-year-old Hawaiian girl, dreams of visiting far-off lands like her father, a merchant seaman. Then one day a rose-colored mark appears on her skin, and those dreams are stolen from her. Taken from her home and family, Rachel is sent to Kalaupapa, the quarantined leprosy settlement on the island of Moloka’i. Here her life is supposed to end—but instead she discovers it is only just beginning.”
The main character is fictional, but the leper colony was real, and existed as a prison for lepers for more than 100 years.
Matrix by Lauren Groff
Great Circle
A long petal of the sea by Isabel Allende (1930s Spanish civil war is where it begins)
It’s not set in the Middle Ages and I don’t know if you would consider it historical fiction because part of it takes place in current times, but The 7 Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid kinda fits the brief.
There have been a zillion books written about Mary, Queen of Scots, but her life was so crazy that most novels about her just focus on one episode in her life. John Guy wrote a biography of her that has been published under different titles, but all of them include “Mary” in the title. If you haven’t read much about her, you’ll be amazed.
Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy takes a look at Thomas Cromwell that is more sympathetic than most, looking at him through the lens of humanism. Much of his early life is told in flashbacks, but Mantel’s writing is gorgeous and demands your attention. Some folks find her style in these books to be difficult to follow but I clicked with it right away and I know that this is true for many people, otherwise it wouldn’t be so popular.
Matrix by Lauren Groff is superb and definitely fits the bill. It’s based on Marie de France, who was a 12th century poet (her work survives to this day). The novel takes one of the theories of who she was (a bastard cousin of Henry II of England) and tells her story from age 17 or so until her death in her late sixties or seventies. She’s sent, at 17, to be prioress of an impoverished convent in rural England and, through sheer force of will and personality, turns it into a thriving mini-kingdom. It’s a superbly written novel. The language Groff uses echoes the character in a really interesting way – alternatively earthy and ethereal. I highly recommend the book!
Not quite her whole life but starts with her as a small child and follows through to adulthood:
Hild, then Menewood by Nicola Griffith
William Marshal series by Elizabeth Chadwick 6 books follows his life.
This is an oldie, but I’ve read it a couple times–The Physician by Gordon. Starts off in the 12th century I think! The beginning had me hooked.
Harlot’s Ghost – Norman Mailer