3 Historical Novels to Read in 2021

Stefanie Brook Trout
3 min readDec 31, 2020

Like historical fiction? Add these great reads to your TBR shelf.

Book of the Month Club editions

Small Country: A Novel

by Gaël Faye, translated from the French by Sarah Ardizzone
Hogarth 2018 — Hardcover $25.00

Of course a book can change you. It can even change your life. It’s like falling in love. And you never know when such an encounter might happen. You should beware of books, they’re sleeping genies.

In this brief and beautiful novel, a young boy in Burundi comes of age in the midst of civil war and genocide. The French edition, Petit pays, won the 2016 Prix Goncourt des lycéens and the 2016 Prix du premier roman.

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The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo: A Novel

by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Atria 2017 — Hardcover $26.00

I’m under absolutely no obligation to make sense to you.

A glamorous Hollywood star whose personal life captivated the public as much as her movies is finally ready to tell her story. The mysterious Evelyn Hugo famously married seven men, and her biographer is determined to find out, once and for all, which was the love of her life. A powerful and well-written story of love, loss, and finding truth.

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The Heart’s Invisible Furies

by John Boyne
Hogarth 2017 — Hardcover $28.00

Maybe there were no villains in my mother’s story at all. Just men and women, trying to do their best by each other. And failing.

Don’t be intimidated by its size — or scope, for that matter. This great work of literature may clock in at nearly 600 pages and span 70 years of history, but it will also sweep you off your feet and remind you why epics are awesome. Winner of the Lambda Literary Award Nominee for Gay Fiction (2018), Andrew Carnegie Medal Nominee for Fiction (2018), and Book of the Month Book of the Year Award (2017), The Heart’s Invisible Furies has solidified its place in the New Canon of modern classics.

Buy It

Get a hardcover edition from the Book of the Month Club for as low as $9.99.

Or get a paperback copy for $17.00 (currently on sale for $15.64) from Bookshop.

*To get Book of the Month titles for $9.99, you have to purchase them as add-ons to your monthly box. To only purchase one book per box, the price is $12.50 per month under a yearly membership plan or $14.99 per month under a monthly plan. Use my referral links posted above, and I’ll get a free book credit. Learn more about Book of the Month here.

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Stefanie Brook Trout

MFA Creative Writing & Environment | Educator & local labor leader | Editor of Prairie Gold & Fracture anthologies | Opinions mine | she/her/hers