Score

The She-Wolf is an old book - I think it came out in the '50s? Not sure if it belongs here.

I am waiting impatiently for the new Deborah Harkness novel out on July 15th !!! I have read and reread the other two A Discovery of Witches and Shadow of Life. I will read them along with the new novel when it comes out.

Several books, like Outlander, Clan of the Cave Bear, Dragonflight, Here Be Dragons, Mists of Avalon, Wicked are are older books. This is for new books that are historical fiction (traditionally not Fantasy or SF) coming out in 2015. Let's give these new books a chance to be discovered. ;-)

I went through and deleted the older books, but there are still four with 2014 dates on the list. Not my list so I didn't feel I could make the call.

The Boston Girl: A Novel is a late 2014 release, but Untitled Kate Morton Book 5,The Empty Throne, and The Figaro Murders all have release dates in both 2014 and 2015.

Yeah, The Empty Throne comes out in October 2014 in the UK so it should probably be removed. Same with the Kate Morton book.

The Boston Girl originally had a 2015 release date but it was moved up to December.

The Figaro Murders looks ok as both current editions have the same 2015 release. The author mentions on her profile page it's out in 2015 as well.

FYI, Rebel Queen: A Novel by Michelle Moran is the US title for The Last Queen of India. So it only needs to be added once :)

What's Orphan Train doing on here? It came out in 2013.

Looks like some inappropriate entries got added to the list. I'll work on reviewing and cleaning them up.

Hmm...I have a book being RE-released this year (self-published it last year, then it was picked up by Lake Union.) To add or not to add? You guys make the call.

Thanks for the invite, btw--this is a really great list! Lots of stuff to add to my TBR pile. :)

In general, this list is for books with an original 2015 publication date. If your book was originally released in 2014, I recommend adding to the 2014 Historical Fiction list here: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/3...

It is getting harder and harder for men to write and get published in what passes as historical fiction any longer?

What qualifies as historical fiction is becoming absurd too.

All the Light We Cannot See - last year's GR's HF winner (that was written by a man) was not even historical fiction.

It was a fictional idea that was set in a time motif. Typical of what passes for HF today.

T wrote: "It is getting harder and harder for men to write and get published in what passes as historical fiction any longer?

What qualifies as historical fiction is becoming absurd too.

All the Light We C..."

"All the Light We Cannot See" takes place during WWII, and while definitions of historical fiction vary depending on who you ask (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historic...), fiction set during WWII seems to qualify as historical fiction.

As for male authors getting their historical fiction published, a simple Google search demonstrates that there is no such shortage. For example: http://historicalnovelsociety.org/gui...

Part 1: BS Roxana on male authors. This is not some empty observation on my part. The lack of men publishing has been talked about on many sites and even the Yuppie, Globalist, War for Profit, Imperialist Mind Control NPR has broached the topic.

The simple answer is, men are not reading at the near same rate as women today. That is clear. The result is a different type of book that is being sold to a different market. Not a bad thing - excepting, what it has done to the Historical Fiction genre.

NOTE*** Great books are still great books regardless of who writes them. On the flip side - much is written down to the current market just to get published.

Part 2: ATLWCS is not Historical Fiction. As I commented on a review of of it - it is a fluffy fictional idea set in a time motif. There is a difference.

I will grant you, ATLWCS does come somewhat closer to-the-mark of what once was the Historical Fiction standard - than many other books on the list above. But, it failed IMO.

I will not write a book here, why I feel this way. I think if you look, many on the ATLWCS's review section felt the same way and commented on it. Have a gander.


If you want proof about Historical Fiction in general? Just look at the list of books above? It's got Fantasy to Crime to Alternative History to Romance to Fabricated Fantasy Gender Revisionist History to any combo of the above all set in time motifs. But, it certainly has very little hard core what-use-to-pass-for Historical Fiction on it. (And very few male writers to boot)

Historical Fiction has become the go to round file for fictional ideas of all genres. It's now build the time motif and the story will come. Or is it the other way around. Hmmm? That's a good question.

The Nightingale is a perfect example of a "fluffy fictional idea set in a time motif written down to the current market." Love that description.

MTK: Thanks. I will avoid the "The Nightingale".

I'll admit, I am a bit over the top when it comes to HF.

But, I do have to wait and wait for the few real ones that do manage to arrive anymore. It's longer and longer nowadays too. (And, I'm running out of read time. Soon, I will be history.)

Especially for the swashbucklers ( excepting, the latest wave of "fantasy" writer driven ones - a strange, disturbing ((on many levels of modern human development)) and growing flow of bad swashbuckler books - they, almost to a one, lack the prerequisite humor of the true swashbuckler - really a boring bunch, that fantasy writer crowd).

Like here on GoodReads, it's the long lists of other faux HF crud that I have to wade through, that really gets me going.

I now find more HF in the general stacks of older books. Stuff that was written about the author's contemporary times - that the passage of time has made historical to our eyes. The drawback here is, this method has the limit of being mostly 19th forward - when the writing of the modern novel began in earnest. Thereby, cutting off all that came before.

I'm not one to wholly limit what a HF novel can be either.
"Victus: The Fall Of Barcelona by Sanchez-Pinol is one of the best works of historical fiction ever written, IMO. And, he does stretch the genre a bit in it. So, I'm not a prude or an absolute purist at all. HAHA!

I did notice Gravity's Rainbow on this list too. WOW! Heavy man! Did they read it while sober? Gravity's Rainbow is a Poster Child for what I'm talking about here. It is one of my favorite books too. The history, therein, provided nothing more than a setting for the complete record of a 60s/70s counter-culture psychedelic dream. I doubt, Pynchon felt he wrote it as HF either.

Sorry, rambling again

Gravity's Rainbow is on the list? I may have to remove that, as it's certainly not "new."

Where on the list did you see it?

I hear what you are saying T. Unfortunately I think the definition of historical fiction for the average person has drastically evolved. Scanning the authors above I see many if not most that are not traditional HF. They are chick lit in a historical context. Which is not to say they are not good or entertaining. The two I voted for are not HF in the true sense. And most people would not be able to differentiate - I think I recently had to go and look it up to understand and I am still not totally clear on it.

Susanna - Censored by GoodReads wrote: "Gravity's Rainbow is on the list? I may have to remove that, as it's certainly not "new."

Where on the list did you see it?"

???? But, I'm pretty sure I ran across it somewhere on there when trolling for a HF read.