11 New Historical Fiction Novels Releasing This Fall (2023)

Step into the past and embark on a riveting journey through time with these latest historical fiction novels releasing this fall. From ancient civilizations to significant events in recent history, these books promise to transport you to different eras, capturing the essence of bygone times and bringing historical figures to life.

Each of these books offers a captivating narrative, rich with detailed settings, complex characters, and meticulous research. Through these stories, you’ll gain a deeper understanding of the challenges, triumphs, and human experiences that shape our shared history.

Whether you’re intrigued by World War II dramas, fascinated by tales of royalty and scandal, or captivated by stories of cultural exchange, there’s a historical fiction book on our list that will pique your interest. These novels combine factual accuracy with the art of storytelling, allowing you to learn while being thoroughly entertained.

11 New Historical Fiction Novels Releasing This Fall (2023)

Nineteen Steps

by Millie Bobby Brown
Release Date: September 12, 2023
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About The Book:
It’s 1942, and London remains under constant threat of enemy attack as the second world war rages on. Three years into the war, Nellie Morris is grateful to hold onto remnants of normalcy, but after a chance encounter with Ray, an American airman stationed nearby, Nellie becomes enchanted with the idea of a broader world.

Just when Nellie begins to embrace an exciting new life with Ray, a terrible incident occurs during an air raid one evening, and the consequences are catastrophic. As the truth about that night is revealed, Nellie’s world is torn apart. When it seems all hope is lost, Nellie finds that, against all odds, love and happiness can triumph.

The Vaster Wilds

by Lauren Gross
Release Date: September 12, 2023
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About The Book:
A servant girl escapes from a colonial settlement in the wilderness. She carries nothing with her but her wits, a few possessions, and the spark of god that burns hot within her. What she finds in this terra incognita is beyond the limits of her imagination and will bend her belief in everything that her own civilization has taught her.

The Royal Windsor Secret

by Christine Wells
Release Date: September 12, 2023
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About The Book:
Cleo Davenport has heard the whispers: the murmured conversations that end abruptly the second she walks into a room. Told she was an orphan, she knows the rumor—that her father is none other than the heir to the British throne. And at her childhood home, where royals, rulers, and the wealthy live, they even called her “The Princess.”

But her life is turned upside down when she turns seventeen. Sent to London under the chaperonage of her very proper aunt, she’s told it’s time to learn manners and make her debut. But Cleo longs for independence and a career as a jewelry designer for Cartier, but she cannot move forward until she finds out about her past.

All You Have to Do Is Call

by Kerri Maher
Release Date: September 19, 2023
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About The Book:
The best-known secret in the city, Jane is a women’s health organization composed entirely of women helping women, freeing them from the expectations of society and family. Veronica, Jane’s founder, prides herself on the services she has provided to thousands of women, yet the price of others’ freedom is that she leads a double life.

Margaret, a young professor, secretly volunteers at Jane as she falls in love with a man whose attitude toward his ex-wife increasingly disturbs her. Patty, a devoted wife and mother, has begun to sense that something essential is missing from her life. When her runaway younger sister Eliza shows up unexpectedly, Patty is forced to come to terms with what it really means to love and support a sister.

11 New Historical Fiction Novels Releasing This Fall (2023)

Devil Makes Three

by Ben Fountain
Release Date: September 26, 2023
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About The Book:
Haiti, 1991. When a violent coup d’état leads to the fall of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, American expat Matt Amaker is forced to abandon his idyllic, beachfront scuba business.

Desperate for money―and survival―Matt teams up with his best friend and business partner Alix Variel, the adventurous only son of a socially prominent Haitian family. They set their sights on legendary shipwrecks that have been rumored to contain priceless treasures off a remote section of Haiti’s southern coast.

The Woman at the Wheel

by Penny Haw
Release Date: October 3, 2023
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About The Book:
Bertha meets Carl Benz and falls in love—with him and his extraordinary dream of building a horseless carriage. Bertha has such faith in him that she invests her dowry in his plans. When Carl’s partners threaten to withdraw their support, he’s ready to cut ties.

Ignoring the cynics, she takes matters into her own hands, secretly planning a scheme that will either hasten the family’s passage to absolute derision or prove their genius. What Bertha doesn’t know is that Carl is on the cusp of making a deal with their nemesis. She’s not only risking her marriage and their life’s work, but is also up against the patriarchy, Carl’s own self-doubt, and the clock.

The Roaring Days of Zora Lily

by Noelle Salazar
Release Date: October 3, 2023
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About The Book:
2023, A costume conservator is preparing an exhibition featuring movie costumes from the 1920s to present day. As she gingerly places a gown once worn by Greta Garbo on a mannequin, she discovers another name hidden beneath the designer’s label, leaving her to wonder—who is Zora Lily?

1924, Poverty-stricken Zora Hough spends her days looking after her younger siblings while sewing up holes and fixing hems for clients to bring in extra money, working her fingers to the bone just to survive.

When her best friend gets a job dancing in a club downtown, Zora is lured in to a world she has only ever imagined, and one with connections that could lead her to the life she’s always dreamed of.

What We Kept to Ourselves

by Nancy Jooyoun Kim
Release Date: October 10, 2023
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About The Book:
1999: The Kim family is struggling to move on after their mother, Sunny, vanished a year ago. But one evening, their fragile lives are further upended when they find the body of a stranger in the backyard, carrying a letter to Sunny, leaving the family with more questions than ever about the stranger’s history and possible connections to their mother.

1977: Sunny is pregnant and has just moved to Los Angeles from Korea with her aloof and often-absent husband. America is not turning out the way she had dreamed it to be, and the loneliness and isolation are broken only by a fateful encounter at a bus stop. The unexpected connection spans the decades and echoes into the family’s lives in the present as they uncover devastating secrets that put not only everything they thought they knew about their mother but their very lives at risk.

11 New Historical Fiction Novels Releasing This Fall (2023)

Sisters Under the Rising Sun

by Heather Morris
Release Date: October 24, 2023
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About The Book:
Sister Nesta James, a Welsh Australian nurse, has enlisted to tend to Allied troops. But as Singapore falls to the Japanese she joins the terrified cargo of people, including the heartbroken Norah, an English musician, crammed aboard a merchant ship. Only two days later, they are bombarded from the air and in a matter of hours, the ship lies broken on the seabed.

After surviving a brutal 24 hours in the sea, Nesta and Norah reach the beaches of a remote island, only to be captured by the Japanese and held in one of their notorious POW camps. Sisters in arms, Norah and Nesta fight side by side every day, helping whoever they can, and discovering in themselves and each other extraordinary reserves of courage, resourcefulness and determination.

What Wild Women Do

by Karma Brown
Release Date: October 24, 2023
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About The Book:
Rowan is stuck. Her dreams of becoming a screenwriter are stalled, along with her bank account, as she and her fiancé, Seth, try to make sense of what’s next for them after leaving LA. But when the couple takes a trip to a cabin in the Adirondacks, hoping the change will provide inspiration for Seth’s novel-in-progress, Rowan finds herself drawn into a story greater than her own–that of socialite-turned-feminist-crusader Eddie Calloway, who vanished one day in 1975 and was never found or heard from again. In a handbook left behind in the abandoned ruins of a once-great camp, Rowan learns more about the enigmatic Eddie, and clues as to what happened to her.

The Prospectors

by Ariel Djanikian
Release Date: October 31, 2023
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About The Book:
The middle daughter of struggling California fruit farmers, Alice Bush is accustomed to feeling inferior and destitute. But when her elder sister’s husband strikes a vein of gold in the Yukon Territory, Alice finally seizes control of her destiny by joining a wave of white settlers making the dangerous trek to the Klondike.

One hundred years later, in 2015, Alice’s great-great-granddaughter Anna must grapple with moral conflict and questions of justice as she travels to the Klondike to bequeath her would-be inheritance to the First Nations peoples who paid the price for its creation.

If you’re looking for even more to read check out our Fall Thrillers Recommendations or the most exciting September Releases covering all genres!

Happy Reading!!
~Alison

11 New Historical Fiction Novels Releasing This Fall (2023)

Hi there! I’m Alison in Libraryland, and I’ll be here for all your book related needs. Many of you know me as the girl with the book recommendations. Don’t be shy! Ask me! If you’re looking for a good book or movie adaptation, let me help you find it. I’ll be here for all your literary needs. This is a book blog run on an obsession for shiny new books worn-through old classics, just like these 11 New Historical Fiction Novels Releasing This Fall (2023).