Category Archives: Historical Fiction

The Rogue Not Taken by Sarah MacLean

The youngest of the infamous Talbot sisters scandalized society at the Liverpool Summer Soiree, striking her sister’s notoriously philandering husband and landing him backside-first in a goldfish pond. And we thought Sophie was the quiet one… When she finds herself the target of very public aristocratic scorn, Sophie Talbot does what she must to escape the city and its judgment—she flees on the back of a carriage, vowing never to return to London…or to society. But the carriage isn’t saving her from ruin. It’s filled with it. The marquess of Eversley was espied desc… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Period-typical slut-shaming
  • Physical child abuse recounted
  • Cheating (secondary characters)
  • Death of a partner in a coach accident
  • Gun violence

The Day of the Duchess by Sarah MacLean

The one woman he will never forget… Malcolm Bevingstoke, Duke of Haven, has lived the last three years in self-imposed solitude, paying the price for a mistake he can never reverse and a love he lost forever. The dukedom does not wait, however, and Haven requires an heir, which means he must find himself a wife by summer’s end. There is only one problem—he already has one. The one man she will never forgive…
After years in exile, Seraphina, Duchess of Haven, returns to London with a single goal—to reclaim the life she left and find happiness, unencumbered by the man who broke her heart. Haven offers her a… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Period-typical slut-shaming
  • Infidelity recounted
  • Miscarriage (on-page)
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of an infant recounted

Context : The male protagonist slept with another woman as ‘revenge’ when he found out his shunned wife was pregnant and hadn’t told him. It is implied the wife caught him with the other woman.

Even Though I Knew the End by C.L. Polk

A magical detective dives into the affairs of Chicago’s divine monsters to secure a future with the love of her life. This sapphic period piece will dazzle anyone looking for mystery, intrigue, romance, magic, or all of the above. An exiled auspex who sold her soul to save her brother’s life is offered one last job before serving an eternity in hell. When she turns it down, her client sweetens the pot by offering up the one payment she can’t resist―the chance to have a future where she grows old with the woman she loves. To succeed, she is given three days to track down the White City Vampire, Chicago’s most notorious serial killer. If… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Period-typical homophobia, specifically lesbophobia, & misogyny, including incarceration, institutionalisation of disabled and queer women, and mentions of electroshock therapy (as conversion therapy)
  • Graphic alcohol consumption & smoking (on-page)
  • Blood & gore depiction and mentions of emesis
  • Death of parents in a car accident recounted
  • Murder & mentions of human sacrifice
  • Gun violence
  • Loss of autonomy (possession)

War Games by Alan Gratz

War Games by Alan Gratz

Evie can’t believe she’s made it to the 1936 Berlin Olympics. After fleeing the Oklahoma Dust Bowl, Evie’s family is still poor and reeling from devastating losses. She could have never guessed that the sport she took up to escape her reality would lead to this. Now, she’s competing in gymnastics on Team USA, with some of the greatest athletes in the world like track and field star Jesse Owens. But all is not as it seems in Berlin, a city now ruled by the Nazis and their tyrannical leader, Adolf Hitler. And Evie has secrets of her own. With two other Olympic athletes, who each have their own reasons for despising the Nazis, Evie has… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Period-typical antisemitism, racism, homophobia, ableism & Nazism
  • Gun & knife violence
  • World War II including discussions of genocide, concentration camps and forced sterilization of disabled people (theme)
  • Homelessness & poverty (protagonist)

Coach by Jason Reynolds

Coach by Jason Reynolds

Before Coach was the man who gave caring yet firm-handed guidance to Ghost, Lu, Patina, and Sunny on the Defenders track team, he was little Otie Brody, who was obsessed with Mr. 9.99 (a.k.a. Carl Lewis) and Marty McFly from Back to the Future. Like Mr. 9.99—and his own dad—Otie is a sprinter. Sprint free or die is practically his motto. Then his dad, who is always away on business trips, comes home with a pair of Jordans. JORDANS. Fine as fine can be. Otie puts them on and feels like he can leap to the moon…maybe even leap like Mr. 9.99 when he won the Olympic… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Minor blood depiction & injuries (bloodied nose, cuts)
  • Drug use & alcohol consumption mentioned (secondary characters)
  • Car accident mentioned
  • Bullying, including fistfights and intimidation tactics (threatening with clippers, throwing students into lockers)

The Chemistry of Familiar Objects by Alexandra Vasti

57 Gresham Street is the most incendiary building in London. Upstairs, unconventional chemist Emmeline Starling uses combustion to solve scientific mysteries. Downstairs, buttoned-up children’s book printer Robert Vane tries very hard not to panic when the ceiling catches on fire. And when these two opposing forces are contained within one small building? Explosions are just the beginning. After two years of putting up with Robert Vane’s scowls, his precious rules, and the infuriating cleft in his chin, Emmeline has seized upon a solution to the problem of sharing 57 Gresham: she’s… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Death of a parent recounted
  • Gun violence
  • War themes

In Which Winnie Halifax Is Utterly Ruined by Alexandra Vasti

In 1811, Winifred Wallace told one tiny lie. To secure her future as an independent sheep farmer, she invented an estranged husband named Mr. Spencer Halifax and forged their marriage record. Ten years later, her deception catches up with her: in the form of the disturbingly real, distressingly attractive earl on her doorstep. Spencer Halifax wants to set a good example for his beloved hellion sisters. Ever since their father’s death, he’s tried to play the role of steady, sensible earl—and involving himself with a moderately felonious sheep farmer is decidedly not sensible. But Winnie’s unfettered passion and fierce self-reliance… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment recounted
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of parents recounted
  • Incarceration

In Which Matilda Halifax Learns the Value of Restraint by Alexandra Vasti

For seven years, Matilda Halifax and her twin have been the most scandalous ladies in London. But when Matilda accidentally sells erotic drawings of the brooding, reclusive Marquess of Ashford, she has—perhaps—gone a bit too far. Christian de Bord, Lord Ashford, knows what it’s like to be notorious. Ever since he was accused of murdering his wife, prurient gossip has kept him isolated from society, alone and determined to protect his adolescent sister Bea. But when Matilda Halifax’s salacious pamphlet appears—featuring his own damned face!—he’s thrust back into the storm of… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Attempted sexual assault recounted
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of parents recounted
  • Death of a spouse recounted

In Which Margo Halifax Earns Her Shocking Reputation by Alexandra Vasti

The Halifax Hellions are the most scandalous, outrageous, ungovernable ladies in London. From the day of their debut—in which Matilda smoked a cheroot and Margo tied a cherry stem in a knot with her tongue—they’ve turned the ton upside down. But when Matilda elopes with a dangerous aristocrat, Margo must stop her twin before this new misadventure becomes a permanent marriage. For help, Margo turns to her brother’s best friend—because if anyone can get them to Scotland in time, it’s starchy solicitor Henry Mortimer. Henry Mortimer has precisely… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Carriage accident

Ne’er Duke Well by Alexandra Vasti

Peter Kent―newly inherited Duke of Stanhope and recently of New Orleans, Louisiana―must become respectable. Between his radical politics and the time he interrupted a minor royal wedding with a flock of sheep―not his fault!―he’s developed a scandalous reputation at odds with his goal of becoming guardian to his half siblings. For help, he turns to the cleverest and most managing woman of his acquaintance, Lady Selina Ravenscroft. Selina is society’s most proper debutante, save one tiny secret: she runs an erotic circulating library for women. When Peter… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Period-typical misogyny
  • Parental abandonment recounted
  • Child with near-fatal illness (on-page)
  • Death of a parent & sibling recounted