It’s quite simple, I just love history. I particularly like the dual timeline format because it’s a reminder that what has happened in the past remains relevant to the present. The narratives might be set hundreds of years apart, but there are common themes that continue to shape our lives and define us as human beings–some of them good and others that are potentially more destructive. I now write this sort of fiction, and I continue to devour it as a reader. I hope you enjoy the books on this list as much as I have.
I’m so glad that I didn’t have a lot of big deadlines looming when I started reading this epic story, because I would have failed to meet them. I couldn’t put it down–all 757 pages of it!
I’ve since visited many of the places and some of the castles that feature in Matilda’s story, and I’ve walked in her footsteps with her voice still ringing inside my head. I found the sinister re-telling in the modern-day story of cynical journalist Jo Clifford equally gripping.
As the past starts to manifest in the present, it becomes a psychological thriller to rival the best of that genre. It is simply a masterpiece of dual-timeline fiction.
A story spanning centuries. A long awaited revenge.
In London, journalist Jo Clifford plans to debunk the belief in past-lives in a hard-hitting magazine piece. But her scepticism is shaken when a hypnotist forces her to relive the experiences of Matilda, Lady of Hay, a noblewoman during the reign of King John.
She learns of Matilda's unhappy marriage, her love for the handsome Richard de Clare, and the brutal death threats handed out by King John, before it becomes clear that Jo's past and present are inevitably entwined. She realises that eight hundred years on, Matilda's story of secret passion…
At the time of writing, this is the last book I read, in the couple of weeks before the 80th anniversary of VE Day. Powerful is the only way to describe it.
I think it’s the ordinariness of the characters, particularly the main protagonists, that makes it so powerful. None of them had any training or expertise that would have helped them to ‘fight’ back, to resist; they are just ordinary people doing extraordinary things, which is what happened during the Second World War, particularly in occupied France.
It’s a reminder that we should never forget our history—even when it isn’t very palatable—and hope that one day we might start to learn from it.
Soon to be a major motion picture, The Nightingale is a multi-million copy bestseller across the world. It is a heart-breakingly beautiful novel that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and the endurance of women.
This story is about what it was like to be a woman during World War II when women's stories were all too often forgotten or overlooked . . . Vianne and Isabelle Mauriac are two sisters, separated by years and experience, by ideals and passion and circumstance, each embarking on her own dangerous path towards survival, love and freedom in war-torn France.
Lenore James, a woman of independent means who has outlived three husbands, is determined to disentangle her brother Gilbert from the beguiling Charlotte Eden. Chafing against misogyny and racism in the post-Civil War South, Lenore learns that Charlotte’s husband is enmeshed in the re-enslavement schemes of a powerful judge, and…
This was the first book by Diane Setterfield that I read, and I’ve since been back for more and more. I love the characters and the way the story unfolds—that ‘story within a story’ device drew me in immediately and kept me hooked.
It’s a gothic ghost story and Vida is a deliciously unreliable narrator—I make no apology for using that phrase even though it is often criticised as belonging on a 1980s degree course, because that’s when I did my degree in English Language & Literature, so it makes perfect sense to me!
It both directs and misleads at every step, so that when everything twists at the end, I didn’t see it coming. Wonderful and enchanting.
'Simply brilliant' Kate Mosse, international bestselling author of Labyrinth
***
Everybody has a story...
Angelfield House stands abandoned and forgotten.
It was once home to the March family: fascinating, manipulative Isabelle; brutal, dangerous Charlie; and the wild, untamed twins, Emmeline and Adeline. But the house hides a chilling secret which strikes at the very heart of each of them, tearing their lives apart...
Now Margaret Lea is investigating Angelfield's past, and its mysterious connection to the enigmatic writer Vida Winter. Vida's history is mesmering - a tale of ghosts, governesses, and gothic strangeness. But as Margaret succumbs to the power…
I love a dramatic setting. This is the first in Kate Mosse's Languedoc trilogy (the second is also dual-timeline). From the very beginning, I felt as if she had picked me up and dropped me in the heart of the fortified city of Carcassonne, which has a history as dramatic as its setting.
I’m also quite interested in archaeology, so moving between a modern narrative that takes place on an archaeological dig and an 800-year-old crusade in what is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site was a perfect combination.
July 2005. In the Pyrenees mountains near Carcassonne, Alice, a volunteer at an archaeological dig, stumbles into a cave and makes a startling discovery-two crumbling skeletons, strange writings on the walls, and the pattern of a labyrinth.
Eight hundred years earlier, on the eve of a brutal crusade that will rip apart southern France, a young woman named Alais is given a ring and a mysterious book for safekeeping by her father. The book, he says, contains the secret of the true Grail, and the ring, inscribed with a labyrinth, will identify a guardian of the Grail. Now, as crusading…
Magnolia Merryweather, a horse breeder, is eager to celebrate Christmas for the first time after the Civil War ended even as she grows her business. She envisions a calm, prosperous life ahead after the terror of the past four years. Only, all of her plans are thrown into disarray when…
I love being taken back to the Tudor era. This book adopts a different approach to the norm, with the heroine living a quiet life in the country whilst her husband is at court. I found Eleanor’s story enjoyable, a strong woman who manages to balance being a wife and mother with creating something for herself—it was interesting to read about growing saffron.
Although the initial connection between the past and present lies in the location—the hall—I like that there’s an extra element that links the two–Amber’s discovery of the prayer book—and the similarities in the storyline of the heroines in each timeline that resonate across the centuries.
Two women. Five centuries apart. One life-changing secret about to be unearthed...
1538 New bride Eleanor impresses her husband by growing saffron, a spice more valuable than gold. His reputation in Henry VIII's court soars - but fame and fortune come at a price, for the king's favour will not last forever...
2019 When Amber discovers an ancient book in her grandfather's home at Saffron Hall, the contents reveal a dark secret from the past. As she investigates, so unravels a forgotten tragic story and a truth that lies much closer to home than she could have imagined...
This book is a dual timeline novel set in the Oxfordshire village of Islip. The historical narrative takes the reader back to 1645, when the village was the site of a battle between Royalists and Oliver Cromwell’s New Model Army during the English Civil War. Set in the days leading up to the battle, the reader meets Catherine, a poor widow who is given a ring as a talisman for good luck by a wealthy Royalist and admirer.
In 2019, Hannah finds the ring in her garden, where it has lain buried for centuries. She is intrigued when the ring gives her a physical shock and sets out to discover who had once owned it and how they had lost it.
Magnolia Merryweather, a horse breeder, is eager to celebrate Christmas for the first time after the Civil War ended even as she grows her business. She envisions a calm, prosperous life ahead after the terror of the past four years. Only, all of her plans are thrown into disarray when…
It's 1943, and World War II has gripped the nation, including the Stilwell family in Jacksonville, Alabama. Rationing, bomb drills, patriotism, and a changing South barrage their way of life. Neighboring Fort McClellan has brought the world to their doorstep in the form of young soldiers from all over the…
