Top Ten Tuesday: Reasons Why I Love Historical Fiction

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

I haven't done a Top Ten Tuesday for a while now. I often look at the topic and think I couldn't think of ten things about that topic and then as I see the posts as I check out people's blogs and think well of course I could have!!

This week the topic is Reasons Why I Love......and we can pick our own topic, and I have chosen to post about all things historical fiction - or at least ten things historical fiction. I will admit I did struggle to limit this to just ten.

Jean Plaidy - My love of historical fiction started very early and continues on even now. In early high school I read every Jean Plaidy book that my school library had.She also wrote under a couple of other names including Victoria Holt, Eleanor Burford and more. And with covers like these, why wouldn't you!

Dual timelines - I am a sucker for a dual timelines and there are so many choices for the books. Even if I just want to limit it to Australian authors there are authors like Hannah Richell, Kate Morton but I have to include Canadian author Susanna Kearsley. One of my favourite books ever is The Winter Sea!

Brave knights and powerful men - If you want to read about handsome kings, brave knights, paupers rising through society, poor boys who turn out to be the secret son of some rich and powerful lord, then historical fiction has the stories for you.

Beautiful and powerful women - And for all those handsome brave knights, there has to be the irresistibly beautiful women! who they fall in love with. Many times those women wield huge political power. The books of Susan Holloway Scott introduced us to the mistresses of Charles II, or if you want an old school rollicking adventure try the Angelique books by Sergeann Golon

Fascinating stories based on historical figures - One of the first books I read by Australian author Kate Forsyth was the exceptional Bitter Greens. It's a fairy tale retelling of Rapunzel set in Italy but also featuring Charlotte -Rose Caumont de La Force who wrote the original story that was then adapted by the Grimm brothers. See.... just one example of a fascinating story! Sometimes we think that we know about the historical figure or some times we have never heard of them. Either way can be fascinating.

Well known stories - Sometimes it is possible to read too many books about one subject to the point of not wanting to read it again. For me, I overdosed on Tudor stories years ago, but there are still occasions when I can be tempted into the Tudor world for an exceptional story. An example of this would be Legacy by Susan Kay which was so good. I have also seen people mention that they are started to get a bit of WWII fatigue but I am not there yet, not while there are excellent books like The Nightingale coming out.

Little known stories - For all the well known stories, there are lesser known stories that can be discovered. I had read plenty of historical fiction about the Roman Empire, but I didn't know a lot about the Etruscan civilisation which was located very close to Rome. And then there are the authors who take something that we know about like a famous painting and then add colour and depth to it such as Susan Vreeland's books or a story set against Catherine Medici's reign in France which provides the context of the story in books like The Dark Queen by Susan Carroll.

Stories set against adversity in war - My love of big books set against war started early. I was a teenager when my auntie introduced me to the writing of Noel Barber and I couldn't get enough. i suspect if I was to reread them now they might be a bit problematic but they still have pride of place on my bookshelves.

That fascination continues now - I mentioned people overdosing on WWII fiction, but I can't see that happening for me any time soon. There are so many aspects still to be explored. We could be reading about people in war zones such as All the Light You Cannot See which is set in France but there is also the Pacific theatre of war and also stories about what is happening on the home front such as The Land Girls by Victoria Purman. And that's only talking about WWII. There are so many other conflicts out there where we can read about the triumph of human spirit in the face of adversity!

Big sagas - I love a big book, and there was time where that was actually how I chose which book to buy. If there was a big book and a normal size book I would reach for the big one every time. I also love a series that follows characters through time. There are classic series such as The Morland Dynasty books by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles or new series such as the excellent Seven Sisters series by Lucinda Riley.

As I finish this posts I am looking at the covers thinking I should have  chosen this book or that books. I haven't mentioned some of my very favourite authors or books. There are just so many great options out there!