 Hi everyone, welcome back to my channel. I hope you're all doing really well. Today we're going to be doing another five book recommendations video because you like them, I like them, everyone's happy. Today I'm going to be giving you five historical fiction recommendations. This is actually part two. I've already done a five book recommendations on historical fiction before, so if you want to know what I recommended last time then just check down in the description box and you'll find the video there. Today we have a mix of books that include a chunky historical novel, a more easy reading historical novel, a YA historical novel, a more literary historical novel. We have a mix of cultures and some magic, a lot of death. Here we go. So we're going to start off with a massive well-loved modern classic of a historical novel and that is Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantell. This is the first novel in a promised trilogy of novels that tells the story of Thomas Cromwell from the year 1500 when he was just the poor son of a blacksmith up until the point when he was the most powerful of King Henry VIII's courtiers and basically one of the most influential men in all of England. An incredible amount of time and research and care went into making this book. Hilary Mantell spent years I believe doing a lot of research to craft this novel and you really do get a sense of Thomas Cromwell's life. She was trying to give as accurate an account as she could of his life and you do really feel as though you get to know this really interesting man while you're reading the novel as well as just learning about the Tudor time generally, especially in the more privileged court settings. As well as being really factually interesting this book does have all of the drama and intrigue that you would hope and expect it would. The Tudor time was brutal and opulent and just fascinating and you really get the sense of that while you're reading this novel. The plot is very addictive and Hilary Mantell's writing is as good as everyone says it is. It is so detailed and rich and layered and clever. There are definitely passages in here that you will want to reread over and over again because they are so impressive. If you want a historical novel that is dense and all-consuming, something that you can really get your teeth stuck into, then Wolf Hall is perfect. The next one I'm going to recommend, I don't actually have here with me so I'm going to insert a picture and that is A Skinful of Shadows by Francis Hardinge. This is a YA historical fantasy novel I'd say and it follows a young girl who lives in London in the 1600s. This young girl is capable of housing spirits in her body so she's kind of like a vessel for spirits and through the novel there's some intrigue with her family and her ancestors and there's also a war going on between the king and the parliament. There are a lot of really cool things happening in this novel. The central idea behind it is so awesome. I love the idea of a person being able to house a spirit in their body and in this novel of course our protagonist does have a spirit come and live in her body. I'm not going to tell you what the spirit is because that's kind of a fun thing in the novel but throughout the novel you get to see her relationship with the spirit develop and we get to see them learn how to live alongside each other and share the responsibility over the body and it's so interesting. The setting in this novel is so good. It is so unique and interesting. I love the time in which it's set. The politics of the time plays a massive role in the story and there's a lot of descriptions of the food they eat and the clothes they wear and the atmosphere in this novel is so good as well. It's very dark and suspenseful and rich and almost gothic. It's lush. I just like a lot of the things that this novel has going on. It's by no means perfect but I think it's a really good read. I think what it does particularly well is it strikes a really great balance between being historical and fantastical. It doesn't just feel like a fantasy novel set in historical time period which I really like. So yes I would highly recommend. The next book that I'm going to recommend is Days Without End by Sebastian Barry. This novel follows our protagonist Thomas who is only 17 years old when he flees Ireland and the Great Famine in the 1850s which has killed his family. He then arrives in America and meets John Cole who is his would-be life companion and the two men sign up for the US cavalry and end up fighting in the Indian wars and ultimately the civil war as well. So this is the one that is for you literary fiction lovers out there who might like something that's a little bit more experimentally written. I will say that this novel isn't the easiest thing to read but it definitely does become easier once you get into the rhythm of the writing. The narrative voice in this novel is so strong. It's the voice of Thomas and it's very colloquial and you really get the sense that he is a real person and that you're in his head and that you're experiencing all of these things with him and the things that he experiences are often very horrible. You get to witness the horrors that Thomas witnesses as he's fighting in these wars and you also get to see how this directly affects his mentality and that is very powerful. Another main thread that runs through this story is that of John Cole and Thomas as they build their own relationship and life together and create their own family as they adopt a young Indian girl called Winona and that is such a great storyline. As well as the themes of war and grief and relationships and parenthood that are explored in this novel, the themes of sexuality and gender identity are explored in here as well really, really perceptively. They're not made a massive kind of obvious point of discussion in the novel if you know what I mean. They're just explored very naturally through the characters and it is very, very well done. This novel is incredibly unique, it's very special and I definitely recommend it if you want something a little bit different in your historical fiction. The fourth book that I'm going to be recommending in this video is The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Steadman. This novel takes place in the early 1900s and tells the story of Tom and his wife Izzy who are lighthouse keepers and who solely inhabit an island off the shore of Australia. One day a boat washes up on shore and it's carrying a baby and the baby's dead father and Tom and Izzy have to make a very big decision. So this is the more easy going novel that I mentioned at the beginning of this video and I mean that in the sense that the writing in this novel is so lovely and simple and readable and it has a really traditional story like structure to the novel with highs and lows and so it just feels so consumable. I really loved following the story in this novel when I read it. It's very engrossing, very immersive. I really liked seeing the way that the consequences of the decision that Izzy and Tom made managed to grow throughout the novel. Its effects reverberated all the way through the story. This novel really depicts well how one decision significance can grow and grow over time and become really difficult to undo. This novel explores themes of love, loss, despair, parenthood, grief and you will care for all of the characters in this novel, all of them on both sides of the kind of central debate that's going on in the novel everything is so believable and touching and confusing and you will feel torn. It's also a surprisingly thought-provoking novel I found. You will question all of the actions and judgments of all the characters in this novel and that in turn makes you question your own morals and what you would do in certain situations. This is a lovely historical novel that is at once so readable and so enjoyable but it also has no shortage of moral dilemmas and more emotional heart-wrenching passages. I really like this. And the last book that I'm going to recommend today is one that I'm sure all of you have already heard about. It received a lot of praise last year and the year before but I think it deserves all of the hype that it got and that is Homegoing by Yaga Yasi. The beginning of this novel is set in 18th century Ghana and looks at two sisters, Essie and Ethia, who go down very different paths. One of them is sold into slavery and is shipped off to America and the other one actually marries a slave-owning Englishman. The novel then forks off in these two different directions and follows the family trees of both of these sisters from this time up until present day. This is another literary historical novel and it has one of the most memorable structures that I have ever read in a book. So the structure is that each chapter goes down a generation but at the same time the chapters are alternating between the two sisters, different family trees, if that makes sense. So this means that the book is largely character focused which, as you all know by now, is like my favorite thing. You get to see so many different characters living different lives in different circumstances in different time periods and you get to see how loads of different factors have shaped their lives. So fascinating. All of the characters in this novel are so good, so interesting and complex and unique. You might worry like I did that you won't get to know the characters in this novel very well because each chapter it switches onto a new character but this wasn't the experience that I had at all when I was reading. It was actually really impressive how Yasi managed to make me feel as though I knew so many different characters. I just love all of the different things you get to witness in this novel through its massive geographical scope and timescale. You get to learn about Ghanaian culture from hundreds of years ago till today. You get to witness slave plantations in the south of America. You get to see coal mines in Alabama and dope houses in Harlem. This book is so epic and it's hard-hitting and beautiful and I recommend it to everyone. I think so many people would love this novel. So those are five more of my historical fiction recommendations. I hope you all enjoyed hearing about them. I would love to know your thoughts on any of these books. Have you read them? Did you like them? Didn't you like them? Are you really excited to read any of them? And of course I'm always up for hearing more of your guys' recommendations. If you have any historical novels that you love and you don't think I've read then please let me know. Thank you very much for watching everyone. I hope you're all well again. I hope you're all having nice weeks and I will talk to you soon in the comments and see you next week with my next video. Bye everyone.