Historical Fiction audiobooks

Riviera Gold

By: Laurie R. King

Narrated by: Jenny Sterlin

Length: 12 hours 11 minutes

Abridged: No

Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes turn the Riviera upside down to crack their most captivating case yet in the New York Times bestselling series that Lee Child called “the most sustained feat of imagination in mystery fiction today.”

It’s summertime on the Riviera, and the Jazz Age has come to France’s once-sleepy beaches. From their music-filled... Read more

A Dangerous Business

By: Jane Smiley

Narrated by: Thérèse Plummer

Length: 7 hours 47 minutes

Abridged: No

“Mrs. Parks was often paid in gold dust, but she paid her girls in dollars …”

From the beloved Pulitzer Prize–winning and best-selling author: a rollicking murder mystery set in Gold Rush California, as two young prostitutes follow a trail of missing girls

Monterey, 1851. Ever since her husband was killed in a bar fight, Eliza Ripple has been... Read more

Empty Theatre

By: Jac Jemc

Narrated by: Jefferson Mays

Length: 12 hours 9 minutes

Abridged: No

A wildly over-the-top social satire reimagining the mad misadventures of the iconic royal cousins King Ludwig and Empress Sisi, from the incomparable Jac Jemc.

History knows them as King Ludwig II of Bavaria and Empress Elizabeth of Austria, icons of the late nineteenth century who died young and left behind magnificent portraits and palaces. But... Read more

The Half-Drowned King

By: Linnea Hartsuyker

Narrated by: Matthew Lloyd Davies

Length: 15 hours 33 minutes

Abridged: No

An exhilarating saga of the Vikings that conjures a brutal, superstitious, and thrilling ninth-century world and the birth of a kingdom—the debut installment in a historical literary trilogy that combines the bold imagination and sweeping narrative power of Game of Thrones, Vikings, and Outlander.Centuries ago, in a blood-soaked land ruled by... Read more

Moonrise Over New Jessup

By: Jamila Minnicks

Narrated by: Karen Chilton

Length: 10 hours 47 minutes

Abridged: No

Winner of the 2021 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction, a thought-provoking and enchanting debut about a Black woman doing whatever it takes to protect all she loves at the beginning of the civil rights movement in Alabama.
 
It’s 1957, and after leaving the only home she has ever known, Alice Young steps off the bus into the... Read more

The Codebreaker's Secret

By: Sara Ackerman

Narrated by: Jennifer Robideau

Length: 9 hours 14 minutes

Abridged: No

A brilliant female codebreaker. An “unbreakable” Japanese naval code. A pilot on a top-secret mission that could change the course of WWII. The Codebreaker's Secret is a dazzling story of love and intrigue set during America’s darkest hour.

1943. As war in the Pacific rages on, Isabel Cooper and her codebreaker colleagues huddle in “the dungeon”... Read more

The Night Ship

By: Jess Kidd

Narrated by: Fleur De Wit & Adam Fitzgerald

Length: 10 hours 13 minutes

Abridged: No

Based on a true story, an epic historical novel from the award-winning author of Things in Jars that illuminates the lives of two characters: a girl shipwrecked on an island off Western Australia and, three hundred years later, a boy finding a home with his grandfather on the very same island.

1629: A newly orphaned young girl named Mayken is... Read more

Breaking Time

By: Sasha Alsberg

Narrated by: Elle Newlands & Joshua Manning

Length: 10 hours 8 minutes

Abridged: No

"Perfect for fans of Outlander... A lush story of star crossed lovers and time traveling assassins." —Laura Sebastian, New York Times bestselling author of Ash Princess

Fate brought them together. Time will tear them apart.

When a mysterious Scotsman suddenly appears in the middle of the road, Klara thinks the biggest problem is whether she hit... Read more

The Great When

By: Alan Moore

Narrated by: Kobna Holdbrook-Smith

Length: 13 hours 28 minutes

Abridged: No

Bloomsbury presents The Great When by Alan Moore, read by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith.

This audiobook features an exclusive essay, The True History of What Didn’t Happen, written and read by Alan Moore.

From the New York Times bestselling author and legendary storyteller Alan Moore, the first book in an enthralling new fantasy series about murder,... Read more

The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water

By: Zen Cho

Narrated by: Nancy Wu

Length: 3 hours 57 minutes

Abridged: No

Zen Cho returns with a found family wuxia fantasy that combines the vibrancy of old school martial arts movies with characters drawn from the margins of history.

A bandit walks into a coffeehouse, and it all goes downhill from there.

Guet Imm, a young votary of the Order of the Pure Moon, joins up with an eclectic group of thieves (whether they... Read more

The Forest of Vanishing Stars

By: Kristin Harmel

Narrated by: Madeleine Maby & Kristin Harmel

Length: 11 hours 21 minutes

Abridged: No

Parade “Best Books of Summer” pick * Real Simple pick * She Reads “Best WWII Fiction of Summer 2021” pick

The New York Times bestselling author of the “heart-stopping tale of survival and heroism” (People) The Book of Lost Names returns with an evocative coming-of-age World War II story about a young woman who uses her knowledge of the... Read more

Lilac Girls

By: Martha Hall Kelly

Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell, Kathleen Gati, Kathrin Kana...

Length: 17 hours 29 minutes

Abridged: No

Inspired by the life of a real World War II heroine, this powerful debut novel reveals an incredible story of love, redemption, and terrible secrets that were hidden for decades.
 
New York socialite Caroline Ferriday has her hands full with her post at the French consulate and a new love on the horizon. But Caroline’s world is forever changed... Read more

The Mermaid and Mrs. Hancock

By: Imogen Hermes Gowar

Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson

Length: 17 hours 18 minutes

Abridged: No

Shortlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction“Wonderful… completely transporting.”  —Madeline Miller, New York Times bestselling author of Circe and The Song of Achilles ""Historical fiction at its finest, combining myth and legend with the brutal realities of the past. . . . Comparisons will be drawn to the works of contemporary authors... Read more

The Muse

By: Jessie Burton

Narrated by: Bahni Turpin & Maria Elena Infantino

Length: 13 hours 21 minutes

Abridged: No

From the #1 internationally bestselling author of The Miniaturist comes a captivating and brilliantly realized story of two young women—a Caribbean immigrant in 1960s London, and a bohemian woman in 1930s Spain—and the powerful mystery that ties them together.England, 1967. Odelle Bastien is a Caribbean émigré trying to make her way in London.... Read more

The Perishing

By: Natashia Deón

Narrated by: Lisa Reneé Pitts & Kevin R. Free

Length: 11 hours 21 minutes

Abridged: No

A Black immortal in 1930s Los Angeles seeks to recover the memory of her past in this visionary novel from NAACP Image Award nominee Natashia Deón

Lou, a young Black woman, wakes up in an alley in 1930s Los Angeles with no memory of how she got there or where she’s from. Taken in by a caring foster family, Lou dedicates herself to her education... Read more

More Miracle than Bird

By: Alice Miller

Narrated by: Polly Lee

Length: 9 hours 22 minutes

Abridged: No

For fans of Paula McLain’s The Paris Wife and Amor Towles’s Rules of Civility, Alice Miller's sweeping debut novel charts the love story of two of literature’s most fascinating characters: Georgie Hyde-Lees and her husband, W. B. Yeats.

On the eve of World War I, twenty-one-year-old Georgie Hyde-Lees—on her own for the first time—is introduced to... Read more

The Zone of Interest

By: Martin Amis

Narrated by: Matthew Lloyd Davies

Length: 11 hours 7 minutes

Abridged: No

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE



AN NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR



From one the most virtuosic authors in the English language: a powerful novel, written with urgency and moral force, that explores life—and love—among the Nazi bureaucrats of Auschwitz.



"A masterpiece . . . Profound, powerful, and morally urgent . . . A benchmark for what serious literature... Read more

Earls Trip

By: Jenny Holiday

Narrated by: Harry Frost

Length: 11 hours 33 minutes

Abridged: No

Ted Lasso meets Bridgerton for a nineteenth century spin on The Hangover in USA Today bestselling author Jenny Holiday's laugh-out-loud Earls Trip



Even an earl needs his ride-or-dies, and Archibald Fielding-Burton, the Earl of Harcourt, counts himself lucky to have two. The annual trip that Archie takes with his BFFs Simon and Effie holds a... Read more

The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows

By: Olivia Waite

Narrated by: Morag Sims

Length: 9 hours 49 minutes

Abridged: No

When Agatha Griffin finds a colony of bees in her warehouse, it’s the not-so-perfect ending to a not-so-perfect week. Busy trying to keep her printing business afloat amidst rising taxes and the suppression of radical printers like her son, the last thing the widow wants is to be the victim of a thousand bees. But when a beautiful beekeeper... Read more

Maplecroft

By: Cherie Priest

Narrated by: Johanna Parker & Roger Wayne

Length: 12 hours 17 minutes

Abridged: No

The people of Fall River, Massachusetts, fear me. Perhaps rightfully so. I remain a suspect in the brutal deaths of my father and his second wife despite the verdict of innocence at my trial. With our inheritance, my sister, Emma, and I have taken up residence in Maplecroft, a mansion near the sea and far from gossip and scrutiny.




But it is not... Read more

One for All

By: Lillie Lainoff

Narrated by: Mara Wilson

Length: 12 hours 23 minutes

Abridged: No

Tania de Batz is most herself with a sword in her hand.

Everyone in town thinks her near-constant dizziness makes her weak, nothing but “a sick girl.” But Tania wants to be strong, independent, a fencer like her father—a former Musketeer and her greatest champion.

Then Papa is brutally, mysteriously murdered. His dying wish? For Tania to attend... Read more

Untethered

By: Angela Jackson-Brown

Narrated by: Karen Murray

Length: 10 hours 51 minutes

Abridged: No

Sometimes family is found in the most unlikely of places . . .In the small college town of Troy, Alabama, amidst the backdrop of 1967, Katia Daniels lives a life steeped in responsibility. At the Pike County Group Home for Negro Boys, she pours her heart into nurturing the young lives under her care, harboring a longing for children of her own.... Read more

The Vengeance of Mothers

By: Jim Fergus

Narrated by: Laura Hicks & Erik Steele

Length: 13 hours 35 minutes

Abridged: No

"[Narrator Laura Hicks] captures the compelling emotions of these desperate women as they escape their former lives of hardship and dare to dream of a freedom they haven't yet known." — Booklist, starred review

The stunning sequel to Jim Fergus' award-winning One Thousand White Women.

9 March 1876
My name is Meggie Kelly and I take up this pencil... Read more

Dread Nation

By: Justina Ireland

Narrated by: Bahni Turpin

Length: 11 hours 56 minutes

Abridged: No

New York Times bestseller * Six starred reviewsAt once provocative, terrifying, and darkly subversive, Dread Nation is Justina Ireland's stunning vision of an America both foreign and familiar—a country on the brink, at the explosive crossroads where race, humanity, and survival meet.Jane McKeene was born two days before the dead began to walk... Read more