If you’re anything like me, history wasn’t your favorite subject in school. The word brings to mind a dusty chalkboard, a droning professor, and a comically large textbook with ridiculously small font.
But historical fiction is a whole different ballpark. Whether they’re speculative stories about the lives of real people, or fictional characters living through real world events, different perspectives can make an old topic feel brand new. Many also spotlight moments in history that are overlooked or left out of textbooks altogether.
Audiobooks are a great way to discover historical tales that are right for you. A powerful narrator can bring characters of the past to life, and make you feel like you’ve traveled through time.
Here’s a list of 16 great historical fiction audiobooks to explore, as selected by our bookselling partners at over 4,000 indie bookshops across the globe.
Hamnet
“In this acclaimed new novel, author Maggie O’Farrell takes one small detail from the life of William Shakespeare and spins it into a complex and wonderful love story and family saga, set during an outbreak of the bubonic plague in 1590’s England. Ell Potter’s audiobook performance brings these characters to life, adding a layered intimacy to the experience of this subtle and beautifully written story.”
— Noelle • Oblong Books
View the audiobook
James
“This is the story of Huck Finn – from Jim’s point of view. It is Jim’s story, and the eruption of its publication will be understood as the formidable and inescapable completion of Twain’s American trilogy. Not just highly recommended: mandatory.”
— Meghan • Subterranean Books
View the audiobook
The Lilac People
“Focusing on the experiences of queer and trans people during World War II, Milo Todd tells stories of suffering, survival, and resilience without leaning into unnecessary trauma. A timely and powerful novel.”
— Hezekiah Olorode • Old Town Books
View the audiobookThe Lilac People was a 2025 Bookseller Choice Award winner! See all the winners.
Bog Queen
“History and ecology collide in this gripping, time-bending tale. When a perfectly preserved Iron Age woman is found in a bog, anthropologist Agnes must uncover her past while caught in a clash of science, capitalism, and climate politics, while the moss keeps silent witness across the ages.”
— Erica • Authors Note
View the audiobook
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
“Brilliant! A skeleton found in 1972 sets the stage for a story 40 years earlier among the immigrant Eastern European Jews and African Americans in the Chicken Hill neighborhood of Potsdam, PA, who all lived on the fringes of society and were discriminated against. There are many truths about race and prejudice, but also much humor and hope in this exuberant story.”
— Anne • Newtonville Books
View the audiobook
Ladies in Hating
“In a twist on the gothic romance, popular Gothic author Lady Georgiana, driven by professional jealousy, stalks her rival, Lady Darling. But being trapped in a haunted house together is just the beginning of a mystery where there may be a body or two in the garden and a fire is kindled in the blood of the authors.”
— Cheryl • Last Chance Bookstore
View the audiobook
Harlem Rhapsody
“The audiobook narrator is amazing! This is historical fiction at its best. This story drew me in from the beginning. I love the time period, I love the setting (1919 Harlem, New York), and the story is that of the woman who ran The Crisis magazine for W.E.B. Du Bois, finding the voices everyone recognizes now as important voices in history – Langston Hughes, Nella Larsen and more. There is seduction, jealousy, hard work, and great accomplishment. This book has it all, including a letter by the author explaining some of the literary liberties she took.”
— Sarah • Commonplace Books
View the audiobook
The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion Vol. 1
“Utterly charming, feeling like Jane Austen wrapped in Enola Holmes. I can’t wait to read more about this plucky young Emma and her quirky little corner of London. Short and sweet.”
— Sky • Elm Street Books
View the audiobook
Trust
“Who can you trust in the end? This ‘brilliant literary puzzle’ tells the story of the legendary Wall Street Tycoon Andrew Bevel and his enigmatic wife Mildred. Told in four interlocking parts, Trust is a novel within a novel, the fragmented notes for a ghostwritten memoir that Andrew hopes will set the record straight, the ghostwriter’s own memoir and finally the private journal of the long silent wife, Mildred. Spellbinding!”
— Samantha • A Great Good Place for Books
View the audiobook
Pachinko
In the early 1900s, teenaged Sunja, the adored daughter of a crippled fisherman, falls for a wealthy stranger. When she discovers she is pregnant–and that her lover is married–she accepts an offer of marriage from a gentle, sickly minister passing through on his way to Japan. But her decision to abandon her home, and to reject her son’s powerful father, sets off a dramatic saga that will echo down through the generations.
View the audiobook
A Gentleman’s Gentleman
The notoriously eccentric Lord Christopher Eden’s pleasant, if occasionally lonely life is upended when he receives word that he must find a wife by the end of the Season if he intends to keep his family’s fortune and the Eden estate. As he isn’t attracted to women, his chances of making a wife happy are slim. Enter James Harding, Christopher’s new, distractingly handsome—if rigidly traditional—valet. With its heady combination of dry wit, slow-burn romance, and a nuanced portrait of trans identity, A Gentleman’s Gentleman stands to transform the historical romance genre as we know it.
View the audiobook
Let’s Call Her Barbie
“I absolutely loved this behind the scenes, history of the story of Barbie creation. It was clever, funny, inspiring and entertaining. You felt like you really knew these people and were there in the trenches with them. So creative, cool and fun! Ruth would be proud! I really loved it!”
— Kimberly • Volumes Bookcafe
View the audiobook
Happy Land
“A beautifully written and narrated story of love, loss, and the importance of family legacy. This is a story of the strength it took to maintain land ownership of one family’s Intentional Community, established after the Emancipation Proclamation, in North Carolina’s Appalachian mountains.”
— Patti S • Belleville Books
View the audiobook
The Safekeep
“A simmering novel of obsession, desire, and hidden secrets. Set 20 years after WWII, The Safekeep explores the unsettling tension between Isabel, who meticulously maintains her childhood home in the Dutch countryside, and her aloof soon-to-be sister-in-law, who arrives for the summer. As the obsession between the two deepens, an exhilarating and twisted history unfolds, unraveling both the women and everything we’ve come to expect a ‘home’ to represent.”
— Magnolia • Bookshop Santa Cruz
View the audiobook
The Frozen River
“The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon is a historical fiction novel set in 1789 Maine, following midwife Martha Ballard as she investigates a murder after a man is found dead in the frozen Kennebec River, uncovering a scandal and a rape trial that implicates those she loves. Just started this one myself and I was hooked after the first page! So good so far!”
— Joy • Stardust Books
View the audiobook
The Reformatory
“What could be filled with more horror than The Jim Crow Era? Based on true accounts of The Dozier School for Boys, this is a story about survival against all odds for both the living and the dead. The ghosts of The Reformatory will permanently settle in your body long after you’ve finished reading.”
— Jenny • E. Shaver, bookseller
View the audiobookWhether you’re a bona-fide historical fiction fan or the type to sleep through a lecture, we hope these titles can help wake up the history lover in you. With so many creative takes on the past, everyone can find something to enjoy!