Here is my top 25.  In no particular order (though most of them are series).

 

1. The Count St. Germain Series by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

 

Yarbro's series is about the Count St Germain, who in her series is a vampire, and his adventures throughout history.  The original five are Hotel Transylvania, The Place, Blood Games, Path of the Eclipse, and Tempting Fate.  Other stand outs in the series, imo, include Blood Roses, Better in the Dark,  and the three Olivia novels.  The series can be read out of order, and the historical period tends to be different per book.

 

2. The Sunne in Splendour by Sharon Kay Penman

 

Moonight is completely right about Penman, and this is book is just great.  If you have read Daughter of Time and not this one, something is wrong with you.

 

3. The Egyptian historical books by Pauline Gedge 

 

 

Gedge has written other historical than her ancient Egypt books, but they are the best.  There are two trilogies' (The King's Man and Lord of Two Lands), a duology (House of) and three stand alones.  She has a book about the Roman conquest of Britain.

 

4. Benjamin January Series by Barbara Hambly

 

Hambly's long lasting mystery series follows Ben, a freed slave who has trained as a doctor in Paris.  He returns to New Orleans shortly after the purchase where he is only seen as a piano player.

 

5.The Accursed Kings by Maurice Droun (at least 1-3)

 

Apparently this series inspired George R R Martin.  It traces the fall of the Valois dynasty.

 

6.The True Story of Hansel and Gretel by Louise Murphy

 

It isn't really the true Hansel and Gretel, but the fairy tale set in WWII Poland.  The best part is what Murphy does with the Stepmother and witch characters.

 

7. Robert Lawson's Ben and Me as well as Mr Revere and I

 

Lawson wrote quite a few children's books about animals.  Ben and Me is about Ben Franklin told by a mouse, and Mr Revere and I is the famous ride retold by the mare that Revere rode.

 

8. The Eleanor of Aquitane novels by Elizabeth Chidwick

 

It's true that Chadwick seems a bit centered on William the Marshall, but her books about Eleanor are superior.

 

9. Joplin's Ghost  by Tananrive Due

 

 

This is one of those alternate time novels.  Part of the novel concerns Scott Joplin, the other part the girl who has his cursed piano.  Its really, really good.

 

10. A  Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel

 

This doorstopper is set during the French Revolution/Terror.  You can smell Paris.

 

11. Wildflowers of Terezin by Robert Elmer

 

This book is set in Nazi occupied Copenhagen and is about a pastor and a Jewish woman making it though the war and falling in over.

 

12. Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

 

Wein's book is told by two young women who are part of the British SOE group sent into occupied France.  

 

13. The Three Musketeers by Dumas

 

I mean, is there a book that has been filmed more?

 

14. The Light Bearer by Donna Gillespie

 

The story of a girl from the Germanic tribes as they resist Rome.  The ending fight in  the arena is kick ass.

 

15. The Collaborators by Reginald Hill

 

This novel follows the lives of several people in Occupied Paris.

 

16. An Instance at the Fingerpost by Iain Pear

 

A mystery told in four different points of view.  

 

17. Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

 

Takes the gothic, adds the history and lesbians.

 

18. The Hound and the Falcon by Judith Tarr

 

Tarr's series is set during the Crusades and follows a young priest who may be able to do magic.

 

19. The Terror by Dan Simmons

 

The basis for the AMC series.  The novel reveals what really happened to the Franklin expedition to find the Northwest passage.  It is a slow book, but that's part of the point.

 

20. The Lambs of London by Peter Ackroyd

 

Ackroyd's book imagines what might have happened if Charles and Mary Lamb (she killed their mother in a fit of maddness) had met William-Henry Ireland (the men behind the Shakespeare fraud).

 

21. Cassandra Princess of Troy by Hilary Bailey

 

Epic retelling of Troy.

 

22. Segu by Maryse Conde

 

Set in Africa as Islam and transatlantic slavery invade, the novel chronciles the lives of a family.

 

23. Autobiography of Henry VIII by Margaret George

 

George's novel set some critics off because she has Henry contend that Kat of A was lying.  But it is told in Henry's pov, so well, duh.  If anyone captured his voice, she did.  I just people would stop putting the book in the history section.

 

24. The Memory Man by Lisa Appignanesi

 

One of the best books about WW II.

 

25. David Ashton's McLevy

 

This series started as series on BBC radio.  It is based on the real McLevy who patrolled Edinburgh during the reign of Queen Victoria and published his memoirs.  In addition to the radio programs, there are a series of books.  Well worth a read.

 

 

The True Story of Hansel and Gretel

Louise Murphy

This one.  Students love this one. 

Best Parents - the parents, all of them, in the True Story of Hansel and Gretel.  The choices that the parents in that book make to save thier chidren, heart wrenching.

 

Worst Parents - Pick almost any tale in Grimm.  Parents want to eat thier children, want to sell children to the devil, molest their children and so on.

NO SPOILERS!!!

Look at the title of this book. It tells exactly what you will get from this book! Hansel and Gretel is a fairy tale, this is that fairy tale rewritten for adults. I had been warned by reading numerous reviews that this would be a dark tale. I had no idea it would be so very dark. Don't take my words lightly, I warned you! Some reviewers state that the evil is too gruesome, too overboard. I do not make this criticism. Why? Well, because as a child, when we are told fairy tales, we are petrified. Now this is a fairy tale for adults. Shouldn't we be truly scared? Shouldn't we be shocked? And yet it has all the ingredients of a fairy tale; there is evil and there is goodness. And how do fairy tales end? The very juxtaposition of the brutal, horrible evil next to the wonderful truly feels like a fairy tale. The author has fulfilled her goal perfectly!

I will give you and example of beauty and wonder alongside brutality and horror:

The sleet covering the forest had frozen into ice on everything she saw.

She walked toward the creek carrying the bucket. The snow was covered with a thick crust of ice that crackled under each footstep. Her foot sunk a few inches, but the snow was so frozen and her weight so slight that she walked over the deep snow as if she had on snow-shoes…..

Standing up, she broke off a twig from a limb and stared at it. The black of the twig was enclosed in a thick layer of transparent ice. She sucked it and the hardness of the ice grew even smoother in the warmth of her mouth. Every branch, every twig, was coated in a thin layer of pure; clear ice. The entire world was diamond-coated. There was an occasional rainbow high up in the trees or in the snow, a patch of color, the sun caught in the ice as in a prism. (43% of the book)

Gretel and her brother Hansel have lost their father and step-mother. They have found their witch in the Polish forests. They have escaped the Bialystok ghetto, but they are so hungry. They are so thin and cold. This is what is referred to when in the quote above where it is said she is "slight". When Hansel dropped the bread crumbs, in the hope that these crumbs would lead their parents back to them, these are not just any crumbs. These crumbs were their sole food. You feel all of this when you read the above sentences. The starving children and the beautiful, glorious forest after an ice storm are juxtaposed. It would be a spoiler if I were to tell you what happens after this glorious ice storm. All throughout the tale beauty and horror nudge each other.

All the historical facts of a biography about Polish children during WW2 are present: the Poles hatred of the Germans and their fear of the Russians. It is not only the Jews who are discriminated against; don't forget the plight of the gypsies. There are rebels hiding in the Bialowieza Forest. So this fairy tale for adults also gives a correct portrayal of Polish events.

The way the story is told, the words the author chooses makes you recognize the tone of a fairy tale. The children remain children, one minute twirling with the abandon of a child and the next revealing the imprint the war has left on them. This is a very moving, well told story. Just as most fairy tales have an important truth to tell; this one does too.

To determine if you should read this book, ask yourself if you really are up to an adult fairy tale……..