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Seeking historical fiction recommendation

It was indeed the minutiae that did for her. She read me a passage which had me in stitches by the time she reached the end, so full was it off jargon and banality ( taken out of context of course). It reminded me of Harrison ford complaining of his part on star wars and saying that you can write this shit but try saying it!

Yes they could be quite good stories but the dialogue was diabolically bad!

I'd forgotten Ken Follet... He's never going to win literary prizes, but the scale and epic sweep of the Pillars of the Earth series are very impressive and I enjoyed them a lot.
 
James Ellroy "The Cold Six Thousand" is a tale of JFK's assassination along with CIA and Mafia involvement in Vietnam and Vegas. A mix of real and imagined (maybe) events

Second this and also ISTR that this was one part of a trllogy.

Somewhat left field I would suggest Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series. Originally a trilogy but expanded over time to a septet. The human and not human condition writ large, spatially and temporally. I’d start with the original trilogy though.
 
Joseph O’Connor ‘Star Of The Sea’

Set in the winter of 1847, it chronicles the transatlantic voyage of a ship of refugees striving to escape Ireland's potato famine by migrating to the United States.

wonderful, read it twice.

Joan Brady ‘Theory Of War’

synopsis here
https://www.joanbrady.co.uk/theoryofwar.htm

read it at least twice. Gripping.
 
Bernard Cornwell is one of my favourites. The Arthur series is absolutely brilliant. The battle sequences are very compelling as is the presence of Arthur who is truly a force to be reconkoned with. The Celtic religious depiction is both really frightening and ingeniously political.
 
What about Patrick O'Brian? A bit masculine, perhaps....but if she gets hooked its 20-odd books.
 
Not fiction either, but Simon Winder's books 'Germania' and 'Danubia' are funny, well-written, and better than any historical fiction I've read. (There's a third volume 'Lotharingia', but that's not much cop).
 


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