Here are 100 books that 355 fans have personally recommended if you like
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I became fascinated with history when I moved to Gloucester in the nineties. The city is hugely historical from the early Roman settlers through to the industrial age of the nineteenth century. What is more fascinating is that many of the streets and buildings I write about still exist in the city today. I carried out extensive research when writing my first historical fiction novel to immerse myself in the medieval city as it would have been in 1497. When I came to write my second novel, listed below, the first book in the Hebraica Trilogy, I already had a good idea of the layout of the city.
I loved this book because it is another time-slip novel, but mostly because of the characters that Gabaldon has created. Claire is a strong woman both in the present time zone–post-war Britain–and the Scottish Highland time zone of the seventeenth century and the uprising. You sense immediately that she is in danger as the story is told from her point of view.
I loved learning about the lives of the Scottish highlanders, how the story moves from one-time zone to another, and how the characters overlap.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The first book in Diana Gabaldon’s acclaimed Outlander saga, the basis for the Starz original series.
One of the top ten best-loved novels in America, as seen on PBS’s The Great American Read!
Unrivaled storytelling. Unforgettable characters. Rich historical detail. These are the hallmarks of Diana Gabaldon’s work. Her New York Times bestselling Outlander novels have earned the praise of critics and captured the hearts of millions of fans. Here is the story that started it all, introducing two remarkable characters, Claire Beauchamp Randall and Jamie Fraser, in a spellbinding novel of passion…
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
Like many others, and perhaps mostly the dreamers, I’ve had a lifelong fascination with time travel, along as many others, always wondering, what if? Plus, I have a passion for American history, mostly American Revolution history, always thinking, what if you could time travel back in time to witness history in the making, or travel to the future and witness the results of decisions made today. Plus, I have an obsession with a good mystery, mainly murder mysteries. I thoroughly enjoy a good murder mystery that has (I didn’t see that coming) twists, turns, and a few good red herrings. Which you can see by the books on my list.
I was captivated by this author and what many historians have long believed to be the push for Benedict Arnold to become the infamous traditor, his second wife, Peggy Shippen Arnold.
I’ve always been intrigued by history’s mysteries; this is one of the most intriguing of them all. Was she the real mastermind behind America’s most infamous act of treason? this book will invoke your suspicions, did his history get it right? 243 years later Benedict Arnold remains a household name.
A riveting historical novel about Peggy Shippen Arnold, the cunning wife of Benedict Arnold and mastermind behind America’s most infamous act of treason...
Everyone knows Benedict Arnold—the Revolutionary War general who betrayed America and fled to the British—as history’s most notorious turncoat. Many know Arnold’s co-conspirator, Major John André, who was apprehended with Arnold’s documents in his boots and hanged at the orders of General George Washington. But few know of the integral third character in the plot: a charming young woman who not only contributed to the betrayal but orchestrated it.
Socialite Peggy Shippen is half Benedict Arnold’s…
Like many others, and perhaps mostly the dreamers, I’ve had a lifelong fascination with time travel, along as many others, always wondering, what if? Plus, I have a passion for American history, mostly American Revolution history, always thinking, what if you could time travel back in time to witness history in the making, or travel to the future and witness the results of decisions made today. Plus, I have an obsession with a good mystery, mainly murder mysteries. I thoroughly enjoy a good murder mystery that has (I didn’t see that coming) twists, turns, and a few good red herrings. Which you can see by the books on my list.
This is one of the better time travel adventures that could make anyone a believer! Or at least make you wonder, at least it did for me. And I’m a real fan for a good time travel mystery.
If you’re a history buff, you’ll love the science of time travel mixing with the method of travel, as your sent back to the start of the American Revolution in Massachusetts. One spark to this intriguing story was the main characters are thrown off their initial course of testing their time-ship, hoping to travel just a couple years into the future only to find themselves over 200 years in the past. It’s a great adventure read.
A time-travel adventure that just might make you a believer. The Time Machine by H. G. Wells was fun, as was the enjoyable A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle and Jack Finney's delightful Time and Again. If you enjoyed these books, you’ll definitely want to read Mission in Time. However, after reading Mission in Time, this might be the first time you actually find yourself believing in time travel. Imagine being sent on a time-travel mission expecting to arrive in a certain period of time and finding yourself in a very different era—a major period in the history of…
AcClaim is a dark, high-society romance about Beatrix Winslow-Hale, a successful romance author who believes desire can be negotiated and controlled—until enigmatic billionaire Dorian Wolker crosses the line between consensual surrender and violation. Publicly humiliated and emotionally shattered, Beatrix turns to Manon de Rochemaure, her fiercely loyal best friend and…
The beauty of time travel stories is that under the tech, or the supernatural, they can be anything. And for me, they are everything. Paradoxes, puzzles, that oh-so-delicate space-time continuum: an infinite blank canvas for exploring human emotion, psychology, and choices. Just like everyone else, I have regrets, big and small, things that I wish I could change, sliding doors that may have taken me down the wrong fork in the road. With these books, each deeply personal and therapeutic in their own way, you may be able to see your own life choices anew, just like I did. Enjoy!
The power of The Psychology of Time Travel is right there in the title.
Instead of dwelling on technology, mechanics, or paradoxes, I love that the novel immediately delves into the emotional and psychological toll of time travel on the individuals who experience it. Framed around a mysterious death, it blends science fiction, mystery, and psychological thriller in a way that remains deeply character-driven. And nearly all of those characters are women—scientists, lovers, rivals—which I found to be a much-needed and refreshing perspective.
'An astonishing debut... Breathtakingly tender and wryly understated' NEW YORK TIMES. 'Genre-defying... Witty and inventive' GUARDIAN. 1967. Four female scientists invent a time travel machine. But then one of them suffers a breakdown and puts the whole project in peril... 2017. Ruby knows her Granny Bee was the scientist who went mad, but they never talk about it. Until they receive a message from the future, warning of an elderly woman's violent death... 2018. Odette found the dead women at work - shot in the head, door bolted from the inside. Now she can't get her out of her mind.…
I am a 35-year veteran of the U.S. Army Special Forces and the CIA with more than 20 years experience in “interesting” places around the world. That experience (and a graduate degree) gave me the background and tools to write about special operations and espionage history. I am also a conflict archaeologist and have conducted battlefield and campaign studies on three continents. I know and love these stories because they have been part of my life, and know readers will also love them.
I love this book because it details the story of America’s first spy ring, the Culper Spy Ring, set up by George Washington in 1778.
Author Bill Bleyer “turns” much of the TV misinformation around and corrects the record while giving us a succinct history and guide to the still-existing Revolutionary War sites on Manhattan and Long Island.
He sets the stage with Washington’s retreat from Long Island and then fills the book with historical notes, maps, and diagrams, including a very good history of the doomed spy Nathan Hale and what Washington did to avenge his execution.
The author provides much detail on the what, where, when, and how of Washington’s spies and how the visitor can find what remains today.
In 1778, two years after the British forced the Continental Army out of New York City, George Washington and his subordinates organized a secret spy network to gather intelligence in Manhattan and Long Island. Known today as the “Culper Spy Ring,” Patriots like Abraham Woodhull and Robert Townsend risked their lives to report on British military operations in the region. Vital reports clandestinely traveled from New York City across the East River to Setauket and were rowed on whaleboats across the Long Island Sound to the Connecticut shore. Using ciphers, codes and invisible ink, the spy ring exposed British plans…
Loyalty and betrayal—and spies—are at the heart of some of the greatest stories ever told. Some years ago, I wrote a book about treason in the early United States, and that’s how I found what little is known about the secret mission to capture Arnold. My background as a historian gave me the tools to fill in the missing pieces. I read everything there is about Arnold and espionage during the Revolution, from 250-year-old journals to the latest scholarship, and retraced Arnold’s footsteps in cities, towns, and battlefields. Only then could I imagine how the history really felt, and I put it all together into my book.
I love a good spy story, and there are lots of them in this book—all focused on the cabal of spies in British-occupied New York that delivered intelligence to Washington. Here are Hercules Mulligan, the tailor; James Rivington, the printer; the ill-fated Nathan Hale; and a bounty of others.
But my favorite is John Champe, a sergeant-major from Virginia who is recruited for a mission to capture Benedict Arnold and deliver him to the Continental Army for trial (and the inevitable gallows). Rose reveals the intrigue and deception of Revolutionary New York, into which Arnold fled after his treason, and the characters who carried it out.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Turn: Washington’s Spies, now an original series on AMC
Based on remarkable new research, acclaimed historian Alexander Rose brings to life the true story of the spy ring that helped America win the Revolutionary War. For the first time, Rose takes us beyond the battlefront and deep into the shadowy underworld of double agents and triple crosses, covert operations and code breaking, and unmasks the courageous, flawed men who inhabited this wilderness of mirrors—including the spymaster at the heart of it all.
In the summer of 1778, with the war poised to turn in his…
"A profound and often affecting story of resilience." —Kirkus Reviews
The Silent Women, an extraordinary novel inspired by the real women of Oak Ridge, Tennessee—the Manhattan Project’s “Secret City," where thousands kept the deadliest secret of World War II—is a sweeping, absorbing, and deeply human story about chosen…
I have been passionate about the world of espionage ever since I saw James Bond for the first time on the silver screen. I read Ian Fleming’s books in those early Pan editions and entered the exotic world of devious enemies, exotic locations, fast cars, and women. After service in the Royal Marine Commandos, I began writing in 1984. To date, I have written sixteen books and over 200 articles. Eight of the books are espionage-themed. The rest are military history and historical novels.
Ever since I heard the words how a long knife had ‘skewered’ Scudder to the floor, I was hooked on Buchan’s classic story and became a devote of Richard Hannay. When I say I heard it, it is because a teacher read it to us at school when they used to do things like that. The chase around the Highlands of Scotland remains one of the greatest pieces of spy writing. You can feel the ingenuity and sheer effort Hannay has to put into his quest to avoid capture and find the 39 Steps.
I have read the book many times since, and it has stood the test of time with flying colors. In many respects, it should be the starting point for the aspiring espionage writer.
From the Movie by Alfred Hitchcock, Licensed by ITV Global Entertainment Limited and an original concept by Simon Corble and Nobby Dimon Characters: 3m, 1f Comedy WINNER! 2 Tony® and Drama Desk Awards, 2008 WINNER! BEST NEW COMEDY Laurence Olivier Award, 2007 The 39 Steps, is Broadway's longest running comedy, playing its 500th performance on Broadway, May 19th, 2009! Mix a Hitchcock masterpiece with a juicy spy novel, add a dash of Monty Python and you have The 39 Steps, a fast-paced who
I am an author and veteran journalist who reported for The Washington Post for more than two decades, and I write frequently about military history and intelligence. My father worked for the CIA, and I was born in Berlin when he was stationed there as a case officer. Later I was based in Germany as a foreign correspondent when the Berlin Wall came down. So it’s not too surprising that I am interested in Cold War espionage and history. As a reporter, author, and reader, I’ve always been attracted to stories off the beaten track, the ones that most people know little or nothing about.
Sandy Grimes and Jeanne Verterfeuille were part of the CIA team that identified Aldrich Ames, perhaps the most damaging spy in the agency’s history. Not only is the book a riveting account of the detective work that went into Ames’ arrest, it provides a wealth of information about the valuable agents and operations that he betrayed, and the incalculable damage he caused, including the loss of GRU General Dmitriy Polyakov, the highest-ranking spy run by the U.S. during the Cold War.
While there have been other books about Aldrich Ames, Circle of Treason is the first account written by CIA agents who were key members of the CIA team that conducted the intense "Ames Mole Hunt." Sandra Grimes and Jeanne Vertefeuille were two of the five principals of the CIA team tasked with hunting one of their own and were directly responsible for identifying Ames as the mole, leading to his arrest and conviction.
One of the most destructive traitors in American history, CIA officer Aldrich Ames provided information to the Soviet Union that contributed to the deaths of at least…
After college I joined the CIA. They assigned me to the Iran-Iraq military account so I had a front-row seat for the Persian Gulf War. I went on to do two tours at the NSC and a quick stop at DoD in between, all working on Middle East political and security issues. I was unexpectedly thrown out by Bush II in 2001 and so had to flee to the think tank world. I’ve since written ten books on the political-military affairs of the Middle East and am now working on my eleventh, a history of the U.S. and Iraq since 1979 titledThe Iraq Wars.
David Crist is the historian of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff—and the son of former CENTCOM Commander, General George B. Crist. He knows this subject backwards and forwards and brings to light any number of topics that I had only ever seen discussed in the classified world. But he does so with the perspicacity of a military historian and the insight of a superb military analyst. Most people simply do not know about the many close calls and bloody clashes there were between the U.S. and Iran during this era, and Crist’s book fills that important gap. Moreover, this is a fascinating example of a protracted, low-intensity or “hybrid” conflict with a canny and determined foe and so it has no end of lessons to teach.
The dramatic secret history of our undeclared thirty-year conflict with Iran, revealing newsbreaking episodes of covert and deadly operations that brought the two nations to the brink of open war
For three decades, the United States and Iran have engaged in a secret war. It is a conflict that has never been acknowledged and a story that has never been told.
This surreptitious war began with the Iranian revolution and simmers today inside Iraq and in the Persian Gulf. Fights rage in the shadows, between the CIA and its network of spies and Iran's intelligence agency. Battles are fought at…
Broken Boots, Redeemed Soul: A Veteran’s War with Sin and Salvation
by
Brian Lofton,
Broken Boots, Redeemed Soul: A Veteran’s War with Sin and Salvation, is a raw and faith-centered memoir about life after military service—and the internal battles many never see. Brian Lofton shares his journey through addiction, shame, identity loss, and spiritual distance, revealing how the hardest struggles often begin after…
I readTinker Tailor Soldier Spyfor the first time many years ago, while traveling aboard a Canadian National Railway train from Montreal to British Columbia. Something about the contrast between the majestic Canadian Rockies and the dark alleys of John Le Carré’s Berlin brought the Cold War fully to life and set me on the path to writing a novel of my own set during that time. (Living through some of those tense years of superpower stand-offs didn’t hurt.) Tinker Tailor Soldier Spyis told in third-person, but many Cold War novels written in the first person do a masterful job of evoking that troubled era.
John Banville is a famously prolific author, but his 1997 novel, The Untouchable, is unique in that it’s based on a real-life figure.
Anthony Blunt—who would later be exposed as one of the notorious Cambridge spies—rose to become an art expert to the Queen, even as he funneled purloined secrets to the highest reaches of the Kremlin.
In The Untouchable, we follow Blunt’s fictional counterpart, Victor Maskell, from his poor Irish upbringing and conversion to Marxism at Cambridge, to his efforts on behalf of the Soviet Union well into the Cold War.
Victor’s first-person account—a miracle of authorly ventriloquism for a character bordering on the sociopathic—is rendered in Banville’s silky prose, a pure delight to read. For me, The Untouchable is a novel for the ages.
'The Untouchable is an engrossing, exquisitely written and almost bewilderingly smart book . . . It's the fullest book I've read in a very long time, utterly accomplished, thoroughly readable, written by a novelist of vast talent' Richard Ford
Victor Maskell has been betrayed. After the announcement in the Commons and the hasty revelation of his double life of wartime espionage, his disgrace is public, his knighthood revoked, his position as curator of the Queen's pictures terminated. There are questions to be answered. For whom has he been sacrificed? To what has he sacrificed his life?
