8 Gripping Historical Fiction Books Based on True Stories

Based on the true story of Britain's first female crime syndicate, Queens of London is set in 1925. The ambitious Alice Diamond is elected the Queen of the Forty Elephants and immediately starts hatching an audacious plan to pull off the group’s first large-scale heist. Meanwhile, one of the first female detectives at Scotland Yard begins to unravel the case, hoping to prove herself to skeptical colleagues. 

A game of cat-and-mouse ensues in this “page-turning historical work” that “speaks to the challenges that women faced in the 1920s and the fortitude they needed in order to succeed in society led by men” (Booklist).

Cussy Mary isn’t like most people in the Appalachians. She’s a packhorse librarian, delivering books to geographically isolated areas—and she’s also the last of her kind, a blue-skinned person due to a genetic condition. In order to share her love of reading with the community, she’ll have to confront prejudice that’s been passed down for generations. 

Based on the true story of the Pack Horse Library Project and the Blue People of Kentucky, this New York Times bestseller is “a powerful yet heartfelt story that gives readers a privileged glimpse into an impoverished yet rigidly hierarchical society” (Historical Novel Society).

Inspired by a true story, this novel was adapted into the classic film The King and I. Newly widowed and in need of income, British teacher Anna Leonowens accepts a position in Siam (present-day Thailand) as governess to the king’s children. Although her modern ideals clash with the king’s more traditional values, her teachings influence young Prince Chulalongkorn to embrace democratic reforms. Using Siamese court records and Anna’s own writings, author Margaret Landon skillfully illustrates 19th-century Siam and the passionate people at the heart of this story.

In 1879, USS Jeannette and her crew set off on a mission to discover a new route to reach the North Pole. Envisioning glory, the crew’s fate was in fact much bleaker: Jeannette would become trapped in ice and drift along for two years, before a dangerous escape attempt left 20 people dead. Based on this harrowing true story, Hell on Ice is a riveting and well-researched novelization of the daring and tragic voyage.

It took Margaret Walker 30 years of research to write this novel that is based on the true story of her great-grandmother’s life. A biracial child born to a slave mother and a plantation owner father, Vyry witnesses the brutality of the antebellum South, the Civil War years, and Reconstruction. The result is a tour de force novel that “chronicles the triumph of a free spirit over many kinds of bondage” (The New York Times Book Review).

This novel was inspired by the true story of Melita Norwood, the KGB’s longest-serving British spy whose identity was finally cracked in 1999. On the eve of World War II, Cambridge medical student Joan Stanley grows closer to a young woman named Sonya and her mysterious cousin Leo. The duo turns out to be Communist sympathizers, and Joan soon finds herself caught up in a complex web of lies and foreign allegiances. 

Written by “a novelist at home with life’s ambiguities” (The Telegraph), this reimagining of an ordinary woman’s unlikely pivot into treasonous intelligence work makes for “an exciting and intelligent novel” (The Times).

When the viceroy of Spanish-controlled Sicily names his wife Doña Eleonora as his successor, his death upends the established order of the 17th-century state. Eleonora manages to swiftly pass startling reforms aimed at helping the common people before she’s ousted in just 27 days by the city fathers and the Church. This reimagining of her short-lived stint in the seat of power will appeal to those interested in early modern Europe and the religious tensions that characterized the age.

A “damn near irresistible” novel, Early One Morning details a love triangle between two rival race-car drivers on the Bugatti team, one British and one French, and the woman whose heart they competed to win (Time Out London). When World War II sweeps Europe, the men traverse Occupied France on intelligence missions for the SOE. In this dangerous atmosphere, even seemingly inconsequential choices can determine their fates.