Historical Fiction audiobooks

The Lonely Hearts Hotel

By: Heather O'Neill

Narrated by: Julia Whelan

Length: 12 hours

Abridged: No

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2017 BY THE BOSTON GLOBE AND THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

"So filled with vivid descriptions and complex characters that the reader's experience is virtually cinematic. . . Utterly compelling." – The Washington Post

From the author of When We Lost Our Heads, a spellbinding story about two gifted orphans –  in love with each... Read more

The Midnight Cool

By: Lydia Peelle

Narrated by: Don Hagen

Length: 11 hours 1 minute

Abridged: No

The Whiting Award—winning author of the story collection Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing delivers her enchanting debut novel, set in 1916 Tennessee: a rich and rewarding tale of two flawed yet endearing grifters who pursue women, wealth, and a surprisingly valuable commodity for the troops in Europe—mules.A middle-aged Irish immigrant,... Read more

Leopard at the Door

By: Jennifer McVeigh

Narrated by: Katharine Lee McEwan

Length: 12 hours 10 minutes

Abridged: No

Set in Kenya in the 1950s against the fading backdrop of the British Empire, a story of self-discovery, betrayal, and an impossible love from the author of The Fever Tree.
 
After six years in England, Rachel has returned to Kenya and the farm where she spent her childhood, but the beloved home she’d longed for is much changed. Her father’s new... Read more

To Capture What We Cannot Keep

By: Beatrice Colin

Narrated by: Polly Stone

Length: 11 hours 38 minutes

Abridged: No

Set against the construction of the Eiffel Tower, this novel charts the relationship between a young widow and an engineer who, despite constraints of class and wealth, fall in love.

In February 1887, Caitriona Wallace and Émile Nouguier meet in a hot air balloon, floating high above Paris--a moment of pure possibility. But back on firm ground,... Read more

The Terranauts

By: T.C. Boyle

Narrated by: Lynde Houck, Joy Osmanski & Charlie Thurston

Length: 20 hours 53 minutes

Abridged: No

A deep-dive into human behavior in an epic story of science, society, sex, and survival, from one of the greatest American novelists today, T. C. Boyle, the acclaimed, bestselling, author of the PEN/ Faulkner Award–winning World’s End and The Harder They Come.It is 1994, and in the desert near Tillman, Arizona, forty miles from Tucson, a grand... Read more

The Girl From Venice

By: Martin Cruz Smith

Narrated by: Zach Appelman

Length: 8 hours 10 minutes

Abridged: No

From Martin Cruz Smith, “a master of the international thriller” (The New York Times), a suspenseful World War II love story set against the beauty, mystery, and danger of occupied Venice.

Venice, 1945. The war may be waning, but the city known as La Serenissima is still occupied and the people of Italy fear the power of the Third Reich. One... Read more

The Risen

By: Ron Rash

Narrated by: Richard Ferrone

Length: 5 hours 21 minutes

Abridged: No

New York Times bestselling author Ron Rash demonstrates his superb narrative skills in this suspenseful and evocative tale of two brothers whose lives are altered irrevocably by the events of one long-ago summer—and one bewitching young woman—and the secrets that could destroy their lives.While swimming in a secluded creek on a hot Sunday in... Read more

Mischling

By: Affinity Konar

Narrated by: Vanessa Johansson

Length: 10 hours 56 minutes

Abridged: No

Pearl is in charge of: the sad, the good, the past.

Stasha must care for: the funny, the future, the bad.

It's 1944 when the twin sisters arrive at Auschwitz with their mother and grandfather. In their benighted new world, Pearl and Stasha Zagorski take refuge in their identical natures, comforting themselves with the private language and... 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 Heavenly Table

By: Donald Ray Pollock

Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne

Length: 13 hours 53 minutes

Abridged: No

From Donald Ray Pollock, author of the highly acclaimed The Devil All the Time and Knockemstiff, comes a dark, gritty, electrifying (and, disturbingly, weirdly funny) new novel that will solidify his place among the best contemporary American authors.

It is 1917, in that sliver of border land that divides Georgia from Alabama. Dispossessed... Read more

A Certain Age

By: Beatriz Williams

Narrated by: Mia Barron, Barbara Goodson & Adrienne Rusk

Length: 12 hours 51 minutes

Abridged: No

The bestselling author of A Hundred Summers brings the Roaring Twenties brilliantly to life in this enchanting and compulsively readable tale of intrigue, romance, and scandal in New York Society, brimming with lush atmosphere, striking characters, and irresistible charm.As the freedom of the Jazz Age transforms New York City, the iridescent... Read more

Barkskins

By: Annie Proulx

Narrated by: Robert Petkoff

Length: 25 hours 53 minutes

Abridged: No

Now a television mini-series airing on National Geographic May 2020!
A Washington Post Best Book of the Year & a New York Times Notable Book

From the Pulitzer Prize–­­winning author of The Shipping News and “Brokeback Mountain,” comes the New York Times bestselling epic about the demise of the world’s forests: “Barkskins is grand... Read more

Heat and Light

By: Jennifer Haigh

Narrated by: Michael Rahhal & Allyson Ryan

Length: 14 hours 45 minutes

Abridged: No

Acclaimed New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Haigh returns to the Pennsylvania town at the center of her iconic novel Baker Towers in this ambitious, achingly human story of modern America and the conflicting forces at its heart—a bold, moving drama of hope and desperation, greed and power, big business and small-town families.Forty... Read more

The Plot against America

By: Philip Roth

Narrated by: Ron Silver

Length: 13 hours 23 minutes

Abridged: No

In an astonishing feat of empathy and narrative invention, our most ambitious novelist imagines an alternate version of American history.In 1940 Charles A. Lindbergh, heroic aviator and rabid isolationist, is elected president. Shortly thereafter, he negotiates a cordial “understanding” with Adolf Hitler, while the new government embarks on a... Read more

The Last Painting of Sara de Vos

By: Dominic Smith

Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini

Length: 9 hours 56 minutes

Abridged: No

A masterful new story charts the circuitous course of the sole surviving work of a female Dutch painter

This is what we long for: the profound pleasure of being swept into vivid new worlds, worlds peopled by characters so intriguing and real that we can't shake them, even long after the reading's done. In his earlier, award-winning novels,... 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 Railwayman's Wife

By: Ashley Hay

Narrated by: Fiona Hardingham & Steve West

Length: 8 hours 50 minutes

Abridged: No

For fans of The Light Between Oceans, this “exquisitely written, true book of wonders” (Geraldine Brooks, Pulitzer Prize-winning author) explores the aftermath of World War II in an Australian seaside town, and the mysterious poem that changes the lives of those who encounter it.

In 1948, in a town overlooking the vast, blue ocean, Anikka Lachlan... Read more

The Summer Before the War

By: Helen Simonson

Narrated by: Fiona Hardingham

Length: 15 hours 46 minutes

Abridged: No

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A novel to cure your Downton Abbey withdrawal . . . a delightful story about nontraditional romantic relationships, class snobbery and the everybody-knows-everybody complications of living in a small community.”—The Washington Post

The bestselling author of Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand returns with a breathtaking... Read more

Jane Steele

By: Lyndsay Faye

Narrated by: Susie Riddell

Length: 12 hours 13 minutes

Abridged: No

Nominated for the 2017 Edgar Award for Best Novel

The reimagining of Jane Eyre as a gutsy, heroic serial killer that The New York Times Book Review calls “wonderfully entertaining” and USA Today describes as “sheer mayhem meets Victorian propriety.”
 
“A thrill ride of a novel. A must read for lovers of Jane Eyre, dark humor, and... Read more

At the Edge of the Orchard

By: Tracy Chevalier

Narrated by: Hillary Huber, Mark Bramhall, Kirby Heyborne & ...

Length: 9 hours

Abridged: No

“With impeccable research and flawless prose, Chevalier perfectly conjures the grandeur of the pristine Wild West . . . and the everyday adventurers—male and female—who were bold enough or foolish enough to be drawn to the unknown. She crafts for us an excellent experience.”
—USA Today

From internationally bestselling author Tracy Chevalier,... Read more

Alice

By: Christina Henry

Narrated by: Jenny Sterlin

Length: 8 hours 28 minutes

Abridged: No

A mind-bending new novel inspired by the twisted and wondrous works of Lewis CarrollIn a warren of crumbling buildings and desperate people called the Old City stands a hospital with cinder-block walls that echo the screams of the poor souls inside. In the hospital, there is a woman. Her hair, once blond, hangs in tangles down her back. She... Read more

Georgia

By: Dawn Tripp

Narrated by: Ann Marie Lee

Length: 12 hours 21 minutes

Abridged: No

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • In a dazzling work of historical fiction in the vein of Nancy Horan’s Loving Frank, Dawn Tripp brings to life Georgia O’Keeffe, her love affair with photographer Alfred Stieglitz, and her quest to become an independent artist.

This is not a love story. If it were, we would have the same story. But he has his, and I have... Read more

The Queen of the Night

By: Alexander Chee

Narrated by: Lisa Flanagan

Length: 19 hours 7 minutes

Abridged: No

From a writer praised by Junot Díaz as “the fire, in my opinion, and the light,” comes a mesmerizing novel that follows one woman’s rise from circus rider to courtesan to world-renowned diva.Lilliet Berne is a sensation of the Paris Opera, a legendary soprano with every accolade except an original role, every singer’s chance at immortality. When... Read more

The Swans of Fifth Avenue

By: Melanie Benjamin

Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell & Paul Boehmer

Length: 12 hours 45 minutes

Abridged: No

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The author of The Aviator’s Wife returns with a triumphant new novel about New York’s “Swans” of the 1950s—and the scandalous, headline-making, and enthralling friendship between literary legend Truman Capote and peerless socialite Babe Paley.

People’s Book of the Week • USA Today’s #1 “New and Noteworthy” Book... Read more