Step into the past this fall with our collection of the latest historical fiction new release books. Turn the page and watch history comes alive against a backdrop of golden autumn leaves and transportive settings. For our Time Traveler Reader Type, autumn is the perfect season to journey across centuries, explore sweeping historical dramas and experience classical romance.
Browse our list of historical fiction new release books, featuring vivid details, rich historical backdrops and unforgettable drama. Packed with masterful new titles from acclaimed authors like Alice Hoffman, Kate Morton, Philippa Gregory and Ken Follett, your ticket to the past awaits.
New Historical Fiction Books October 2026
A Waltz to Remember: Stephanie's Story
by Mary Balogh
A single waltz changed everything. But now they must try to preserve that magic for a lifetime in New York Times bestselling author Mary Balogh's new book in the Ravenswood series.
The youngest Ware daughter, Stephanie, has always harbored secret passion for the best friend of her brother. In her eyes Bertrand Lamarr, Viscount Watley, is perfect. For many years she thought of herself as quite the opposite. When he surprised her by asking her to save a waltz for him, she panicked--and refused him in the unkindest words.
Stephanie's guilt over her behavior is such that she now dreads seeing him, as she inevitably must, at the Christmas family reunion she is attending. She wants to hide from him, but what she doesn't know is that Bertrand has always admired her from afar and is determined to overcome her apparent dislike of him and win his waltz. For he believes there is magic between them, and they will discover it can conquer all their regrets and fears if they but give themselves a chance.
Adam and Eve
by Jeffrey Archer
THE FINAL NOVEL FROM THE MASTER STORYTELLER
November 11th, 1918. As the guns of the First World War fall silent, two babies draw their first breath.
Eve is the daughter of an Earl. Adam, a shepherd's son. Yet from their first meeting they form an extraordinary bond that neither privilege nor prejudice can break.
Then on a single September night in 1940, as Hitler prepares to invade the British Isles, their actions will change his mind. Determining not just their own futures but the fate of a nation.
They will show extraordinary courage. They will make unimaginable sacrifices. And the story of what they did will stay with you long after you've turned the last page.
From the green fields of England to the beaches of Dunkirk, Adam & Eve is a breathtaking epic of courage, sacrifice, and love forged in Britain's darkest hour.
- "An enthralling tale perfect for fans of history, romance and suspense." Kirkus
- "There are few writers who can tell the kind of epic-scale stories that he seems to spin so effortlessly." Booklist
- "This is an exhilarating send-off." Publishers Weekly
- "A storyteller in the class of Alexandre Dumas." Washington Post
- "One of the top ten storytellers in the world." Los Angeles Times
- "Archer is a master entertainer." Time
Mystery Play
by Elizabeth Kostova
The last living member of a family of historians who has been hunted by dark forces associated with Dracula finds himself in peril at the hands of a new threat in this thrilling novel from the #1 bestselling author of The Historian.
After his beloved mother passes away suddenly, Jay Turner finds himself at a crossroads. She was always secretive, and when he returns to their Boston home to clear out her possessions, he finds an unusual item: a partially burned scrap of newspaper bearing the name "Gael Brogan." Soon after, a deliveryman leaves behind a package containing a small antique volume bound in leather--and two bloody footprints.
The sight of the volume is chilling. As a young scholar, his mother had been given the medieval book--one of a set commissioned by Vlad Țepeș, otherwise known as Dracula, just before his death in 1477. She'd always warned Jay of the dangers associated with it, and had donated it to a museum before she died . . . yet here it is, back in his possession.
Jay sets out to learn more about Gael Brogan, a prominent nineteenth-century actor whose last and most famous role was based on Bram Stoker's Dracula. As Jay begins to dig deeper--with the help of a mysterious woman named Rhiannon--he uncovers the frightening story of a young actress who fell under Brogan's sway long ago. Before long, Jay and Rhiannon realize that something similarly implacable is pursuing them.
In this epic and riveting tale, Elizabeth Kostova takes us deep into the Gilded Age of the theater and across the Atlantic in pursuit of an ancient evil and its dramatic followers.
Queen of Lombard Street
by Lisa Kleypas
From New York Times bestselling author Lisa Kleypas--a sweeping, richly layered Victorian novel about a trailblazing female economist who's determined to build Britain's first women's bank, but she must fight both financial corruption and a system intent on destroying the newly found family she's created.
In Victorian England, no woman--not even a brilliant economist like Reina Martin--is allowed to open her own bank account. Men will take care of everything, women are told. But Reina knows better. As the illegitimate daughter of a Spanish immigrant mother, she's haunted by the memory of living with unpaid grocer's bills and no coal for the hearth.
So together with her mentor, the powerful banker William Farlow, Reina will build the first all-women's bank, where women can manage their own financial security.
At home, Reina's domestic staff of recently paroled prisoners are building new lives and becoming a found family. But soon Reina is shocked to discover that her enigmatic butler, John Pembroke, is an undercover police detective. He's been assigned to investigate Farlow, who's suspected of financial crime on a scale so massive, it could destabilize the British economy. Pembroke needs Reina's expertise for a high-stakes nighttime heist to obtain incriminating evidence.
Now Reina faces the agonizing choice of betraying her mentor or turning her back on thousands of working-class families who stand to lose everything. Either way, her dream of the women's bank may be over.
But courage and sacrifice aren't limited to the battlefield--they also occur at the kitchen table, where women who believe in compassion and community are working to remake the future. And when the stakes are highest, Reina knows to trust her heart as well as her intellect.
Based on real-life trailblazers such as Mary Paley Marshall, Britain's first female economist, and financial titan Hetty Green, Queen of Lombard Street brings to light the hidden history of extraordinary women whose achievements should be celebrated. How can we know who we are, if we don't know who we were?
Royal Witch
by Philippa Gregory
Royal Witch: the gripping new novel from the international bestselling author.
Ambition. Sorcery. Treason. How far will one woman dare to go?
1420. Eleanor Cobham arrives at the court of Henry V. Pretty but not highborn, she hopes for nothing more than to marry well.
It is a golden age for England, its royal family's dynasty stretching across Europe. But chaos waits in the shadows. Betrayals and shifts of power change the flourishing world Eleanor has stepped into.
Working in the household of a Countess who commands her own army, Eleanor begins to see for the first time what a woman is capable of...what men's promises are truly worth.
As the safe, comfortable future she'd envisioned begins to shift, Eleanor changes with it. Now she must use her wits to survive - and to rise. Her newfound ambition will to carry her further than any woman before has dared. But if she is to rule England itself, she will need to turn to darker arts.
Solace House
by Will MacLean
You are about to enter a place of strange genius, possible madness, and timeless love . . .
"The Secret History meets The Haunting of Hill House ... rich, thoughtful, terrifying."--Nicholas Binge, author of Dissolution
An addictive and brilliant puzzle box of a novel following a group of university students who discover an astonishing secret while clearing out a neglected Victorian mansion
For Alex Lane's wealthy university friends, the summer break stretches out before them, full of promise and fabulous plans. But for Alex, broke as usual, going home is not an option. So when the university offers him an unusual summer job clearing out a dilapidated Victorian mansion, Solace House, he jumps at the chance.
Alex joins an unlikely crew of students, from stoner Clive to uptight, short-tempered Helen, and the extremely peculiar Adam. Alex is particularly drawn to mercurial, red-headed Ella, and as the students begin sorting through piles of old newspapers and magazines, dusty antiques, and esoteric junk, Alex and Ella become enthralled by the elaborate and eerie journals of the house's former owner, Edwin Flayne. In these diaries, Flayne details his obsession with his missing mother and his belief in a mysterious realm lying parallel to ours, along with coded instructions on how it might be reached.
As the students gradually uncover the house's secrets, the rift between those who want to delve further and those who believe they've already gone too far grows ever wider.
The Piano Teacher of Montparnasse
by Heather Morris
The #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz returns with a masterful new novel that captures the astonishing bravery of ordinary people in extraordinary times.
In 1942, the Nazis come for a Jewish family living in the Montparnasse area of occupied Paris. In the chaos of their arrest, eleven-year-old Josephine runs to the only person she can trust: her piano teacher, Andrée Levallois, a secret French Resistance operative.
Andrée takes her in as a member of the family, spreading their rations and risking everything to keep her safe. But soon the authorities close in, and both Andrée and Josie are caught in a desperate race to stay alive.
Epic in scope and based on real people and historical events, Heather Morris has written a story of breathtaking beauty, at once gripping, heartbreaking, and uplifting.
The Queen of Roses
by Julia Kelly
Spanning the ballrooms of Pasadena and the sunlit gardens of Altadena, a new novel of love and sacrifice from the internationally bestselling author of The Light Over London and The Last Garden in England.
1960: Frustrated reporter Theresa Johnson's life changes when she receives a phone call from a Miss Pearce who claims her obituary about one of Pasadena's last great hoteliers is wildly inaccurate. Seeking the truth, Theresa drives to the mysterious Rosewood House nestled high in the Altadena foothills. Even more intriguing than the house's beautiful garden is Miss Pearce's proposal that Theresa help her settle old scores by writing her biography.
1903: Beautiful but haughty, Adele Pearce is reluctant to leave the London Season and her last hope of a proposal. When she arrives in California, she discovers the startling truth of why her mother has called her there: her father has squandered his fortune and Adele must marry a wealthy American to save the family.
Stifled by expectation as Pasadena's newest doyenne, Adele's only comfort is Rosewood House and the beautiful garden she creates with the help of taciturn gardener Alexander Macalister. However, as Adele's feelings for Alex flourish, a fire ignites in the San Gabriel Mountains above Rosewood House, threatening everything Adele holds dear, while in 1960, Miss Pearce learns that history has a terrible habit of repeating itself.
The Scarlet Ball
by Nghi Vo
From USA Today bestselling author Nghi Vo, this all-consuming tale of ballrooms and bloodshed weds The Gilded Age with the Gothic vision of Guillermo del Toro.
Pick a face, pick a fate.
Judith Ban, former convent girl, courtesan, and failed thief, is on the lookout for her next identity. The daughter of a Vietnamese adventuress and a French naval officer, she's no stranger to risk, but she's unprepared for the secrets of New York's legendary Four Hundred, or for the women who build their power at the city's heart through blood-soaked, gold-etched rituals of demonic marriage.
In exchange for enough wealth to outrun her past, Judith strikes a deal with the matriarch of the powerful Howard family: she will stand in for the missing Howard granddaughter, who was poised to make her debut when she disappeared. With Miss Iphigenia Marshall's face stitched over her own, Judith is white, rich, and about to risk body and soul in the deadly games that determine which girls will find a match--and which will be devoured. If she can keep her wits and her life, her reward will be a husband with undreamt-of power who will be hers to command...so long as she can keep his infinite hungers fed. But to survive the season, Judith will have to seduce a storm in the shape of a man, before the night to which everything has been leading--the Scarlet Ball where the demons choose their brides.
A razor-sharp subversion of romance tropes and nightmare of manners, Vo's fusion of history and fantasy does for Edith Wharton what her acclaimed debut The Chosen and the Beautiful did for F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Historical Fiction New Releases September 2026
Agrippa: A Novel of Ancient Rome's Descent Into Dictatorship
by Robert Harris
From the #1 internationally bestselling author of Conclave and Dictator, a gripping tale of ancient Rome's descent into dictatorship
He was born feet first, a dangerous way to enter the world. His mother did not survive, and the nickname, Agrippa--mother killer--stuck. But the schoolyard taunting only served to harden his resolve and hone his predilection for aggression. In time, the name lost its sting and became instead a mark of his invincibility. It came to shape his destiny.
Agrippa was a mere commoner, a plebeian, his father a humble Stoic, but he earned the respect and fear of his peers. He defended a bullied young boy, Octavius, who turned out to be the nephew of Caesar himself, a chance encounter that would change the trajectory of his life. He eventually joined the ranks of the legionnaires and marched against their enemies.
As gripping and full of intrigue as his bestselling novel Conclave, Agrippa is Robert Harris's monumental return to the world of ancient Rome on the precipice of dictatorship, a novel for our times.
The Barman of the Ritz
by Philippe Collin
AN INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER - A BLOOMBERG BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
A celebrated bartender at the Ritz Hotel during the Nazi occupation of Paris harbors a dangerous secret in this "magnificent" (ELLE), "brilliant" (Le Parisien) international bestseller based on a true story.
"The Barman of the Ritz brilliantly captures the tense, morally murky atmosphere of Nazi-occupied France. Richly researched and utterly absorbing, this World War II novel pulls readers inside Paris's legendary Ritz Hotel--where every cocktail, every conversation, and every choice could change a life forever." -- Anne Berest, author of The Postcard
Paris, 1940. The Nazis have descended on Paris and the Occupation has begun. Businesses across the city have shuttered, but the legendary Ritz Hotel remains open, its dazzling lights still burning bright on the Place Vendôme. When it becomes the favorite watering hole of the occupying forces, its barman, Frank Meier, is forced to adapt to a new clientele. But Frank has a secret: he is Jewish.
Tensions rise as the war progresses, but Frank refuses to leave his post behind the bar. Unbeknownst to the Nazi officers he serves night after night, Frank forms precarious alliances with unlikely accomplices in order to save other Jewish families in the city and keep his loved ones alive.
Inspired by real events, with the highest of stakes and a brilliant protagonist, The Barman of the Ritz is a heady cocktail of history and fiction set in one of Paris's most glamorous places, diving deep into the impossible choices of an ordinary man in extraordinary circumstances.
Dodge City
by Patrick DeWitt
From bestselling author Patrick deWitt comes Dodge City, a rollicking novel about a young man on an amphetamine-fueled cross-country road trip, fleeing the draft for the safe haven of Canada.
It's 1967 in Los Angeles and Lee Clarke has received his draft notice, calling him up to fight in the Vietnam War. A straitlaced, apolitical twenty-three-year-old from Concrete, Washington, Lee is studying at UCLA until a fistfight leads to his expulsion--and his removal from the deferment list. The draft notice forces him to make the first political decision of his life, and though he's happy in California and loves his girlfriend, he will leave the country and head for the border.
He signs up at a drive-away car-delivery service, chancing into a showroom-new Jaguar bound for the East Coast. Bringing only a single suitcase and a bag of amphetamines, he makes his stimulated progress against the width of the country, pining for the life he's left behind and wondering what his decision will mean for his future.
But he is not just saying goodbye to the country of his birth. In four different towns strung out along the northern United States, Lee visits each member of his immediate family: his father, a World War II veteran in a state of degradation; his mother, engaged in a buoyantly manic and never-ending performance with her shut-in sibling; his heartbroken, misanthropic brother, Harry; and finally his twin sister, Grace, a brash, young nurse-in-training mired in romantic drama at a Manhattan psychiatric hospital.
An arresting portrait of a country in flux and a family in disarray, Dodge City represents a signal achievement in an already illustrious body of work by the "twenty-first-century Mark Twain" (Slate). Witty, moving, and delightfully off-kilter, Patrick deWitt's sixth novel is a brilliant and raucous exploration of family, country, division, and war, from an elegant humorist who never shies from the stranger aspects of human behavior.
The Library of Leaving
by Emily Dunlay
From the author of Teddy, a dazzling historical novel about an American librarian in 1920s Switzerland who must face the truth of decisions she made to survive during the First World War.
In the wake of the Great War, American Helen Fox lives a solitary life in Switzerland as a librarian, cataloguing books left as bequests by diplomats and other expatriates. Bookish and buttoned up, Helen is shocked when she receives a package that hints at her far more colorful past: it's a draft chapter of a novel written by a man she knew intimately during the war--a soldier she nursed at a camp in the Alps for wounded Allied troops. Though he claims his book is fiction, Helen is afraid of what it might reveal about who she used to be, really, and whose side she might have been on. ...
Bursting with literary references and testament to the power of reading, this lush and atmospheric tale of love, grief, and betrayal interweaves Helen's own recollections of her life--including her affair with an exiled Austrian baron--with pages from her ex-lover's supposedly fictional book and other dispatches. The Library of Leaving is both a story of a wartime romance and a meditation on how books read or written tell--and sometimes distort--the truth of a life.
Our Noble Selves
by Kate Atkinson
A thrilling tale of post-World War II London, where the peace proves as tricky to navigate as the past, from the #1 international bestselling author of Life After Life.
When crime correspondent turned war reporter Harry Flynn returns to Britain from Singapore in 1945, he takes a quiet job with the Festival of Britain, a government-funded endeavor aimed at celebrating the nation's creativity, grit, and ingenuity. There, he joins a team of misfits and eccentrics as they help to ready the Festival for launch.
When a Frenchwoman goes missing, Flynn becomes the central suspect in her disappearance--and possible murder. He was the last person to see her alive, yet he has no memory of the evening they spent together. As evidence against him mounts, Flynn begins to wonder if he might actually be to blame. To make matters worse, he is surrounded by people who have their own secret agenda.
There may be a carnival atmosphere in London as the country attempts to throw off the drab privations of war, yet beneath the frivolity there is also a worthy attempt to hold up a mirror to both its history and its future. With her unique voice and her skill at conjuring the past, Kate Atkinson turns her light on a nation reconstructing its image and the lengths to which some might go to manipulate the outcome. Witty, brilliantly plotted, and with an unforgettable cast of characters, Our Noble Selves paints a vivid portrait of a former empire struggling with its identity in the aftermath of war.
The Pirate Queen: A Novel from the New York Times Bestselling Author of the Frozen River
by Ariel Lawhon
A sweeping historical adventure inspired by the life of Grace O'Malley, the legendary Irish folk heroine who risked everything to defend her people. Venture onto the high seas with the thrilling latest from the New York Times bestselling author of The Frozen River and I Was Anastasia.
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.
Keenly observed and fiercely written, Ariel Lawhon's new action-packed novel channels the untamed beauty and harsh realities of sixteenth-century Ireland, as seen through the eyes of an unforgettable heroine who rightly became “the Pirate Queen of Ireland.”
Soldiers & Sailors
by Terrence Holt
Pursued by a past he cannot bring himself to remember, Hal returns to his decaying Midwestern birthplace, where he takes a job as staff physician at a decrepit veteran's home. There, Hal finds himself the unwilling audience of his patients' horrific stories, and descends with them into a Dantesque vision of the hell of war. Fleeing one hell for another, Hal searches the ruins of his ancestral home for clues to his own family's descent into murder and madness. Between these two worlds, Hal finds a guide in Nell, the wryly attentive receptionist--who harbors her own secrets about both worlds.
The ancient veterans compel Hal to hear what they did and what they suffered, remembering a blood-spattered village in France, or the infernal jungles of New Guinea, the terrors of the Murmansk run or the rail yards of Dachau. Their anguished recollections illuminate this novel like star shells over a darkened battlefield. As the veterans' war stories grow stranger and more terrible, they lead Hal to a terrifying discovery: about his patients, his family, and his collapsing world.
In Hal's struggle to rebuild his world on the ruins of his father's war, Terrence Holt has created a gripping saga, one ringing with the echoes of America's bloodstained history, and the dire possibilities of our collective future. An epic celebration of the storyteller's craft, Soldiers & Sailors offers a literary testament to the heroism of those whose sacrifice must never be forgotten.
Taxi Dancer
by Marivi Soliven
"Welcome to the electrifying underworld of California's Depression-era taxi dance halls, where a dance could cost you a dime, a chance at romance, or a bullet in your back."--Rick Bonus, Professor and Chair at the Dept. of American Ethnic Studies in the Univ. of Washington
Based on a true story, Taxi Dancer is a gripping historical novel by Marivi Soliven that illuminates the hidden world of Depression-era Filipino taxi dance halls, weaving a forbidden interracial romance with a high-stakes murder mystery to explore race, desire, survival, and the Filipino American experience in 1930s California.
"If we can't marry white girls, we can at least dance with them." In response to Depression-era California laws that criminalized interracial marriage, Filipinos established taxi dance halls where they could mingle with American women.
When Filipino farmworker Eli and American taxi dancer Lucinda fall in love, they hope to move to Washington State where they can legally wed. Their plans are derailed when Eli is arrested for the shooting death of a dance hall owner.
As Lucinda fights to exonerate Eli, she uncovers a murder conspiracy orchestrated by Mamie Savage, a rival dance hall owner and Sal, her Filipino bartender. The capital punishment trial brings to light abhorrent secrets concealed by the conspirators, the victim, and Lucinda herself. Inspired by true events in San Diego's Stingaree district.
World News from Waverley High
by Linda Kass
A tale of identity, activism, and finding your voice in a world on fire, this coming-of-age novel set at an urban high school captures a singular moment in American history--through the eyes of one unforgettable girl.
1969. Lena Rosen is an intelligent, observant teenager torn between spontaneity and self-consciousness. During her junior year, she becomes attuned to the pulse of her times in her first-period Current History class, where rebellion, social change, and musical innovation of the 1960s dominate discussion.
When Lena becomes the associate editor of the school newspaper The Beacon, she is drawn into the swirling discourse surrounding the Vietnam War, civil rights, environmental disasters, and campus protests--while also grappling with her growing attraction to Jack Stone, the paper's editor.
As the year progresses and the antiwar movement gains momentum, the unrest builds at Waverley High. Lena wrestles with her own cultural and religious identity as a Jewish teen while she and her fellow students struggle to cope with racial discord, a bomb threat, and the emotional toll of a world that seems to be unraveling. When tragedy collapses the distance between headlines and Lena's own life, she must decide what it means to stand for peace--and to hope for a better world.
Set during one school year against the backdrop of an America on the brink of change, World News from Waverley High reveals the crossroads of personal growth and national unrest.
For more historical fiction book recommendations, check out our Time Traveler picks for Summer 2026. You may also enjoy our book recommendations for Bookworms or Leading Ladies.