Rachel is a writer from Arkansas, most at home surrounded by forests and animals much like a Disney Princess. She spends most of her time writing stories and playing around in imaginary worlds. You can follow her writing at rachelbrittain.com. Socials: @rachelsbrittain
Determining the best books of the year is always an incredibly difficult challenge. How can you possibly narrow down hundreds of incredible releases into one, succinct list? Well, this year I did it with the help of my fellow Book Riot writers in our big Best Books of 2025 list, and I’m using their opinions again here to put together a shorter list of 2025’s best historical fiction. I may not be able to read every book out there, but between all of us, we do a pretty darn good job of narrowing that margin down some.
So, these five titles are the best historical fiction books of the year, and that’s not just my opinion. At least three other Riot writers agree with me!
My Favorites
The Hounding by Xenobe Purvis
When the townspeople of an eighteenth-century English village decide that a quiet, reclusive family of five sisters is hiding a magical secret, their fervor ignites into a terrifying fury. What gives them the right, and, moreover, what are the townspeople going to do about it? The Hounding is an incisive exploration of how hard times and herd mentality can transform prejudice and small-town gossip into real-life violence. What could happen then still happens now. Consider Pruvis’s haunting novel a primer on how not to treat your neighbor.
Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid
If Daisy Jones brought you to Taylor Jenkins Reid and Evelyn Hugo made you love her, then Atmosphere can only be described as Taylor Jenkins Reid at her very best. It’s a romance and a character study, exploring what life was like during a particular moment for a very particular set of people: queer women working on the space shuttle program at NASA in the 1970s and 80s. It’s beautiful, moving, and, at times, heart-stopping. Whether describing moments of Joan’s life in triumph or disaster, Reid will have you wrapped around her finger. You won’t be able to look away—and you’d never want to. —Rachel Brittain
Past Tense
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Rioter Favorites
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones
On the third day of reading Jones’ latest horror novel, I had a nightmare, but it might not be why you think. The monsters here are supernatural and all-consuming, but the true horror is the very real story that’s told of the Marias Massacre, where around 200 Blackfeet were murdered in the dead of winter. The story is told through a journal found in 2012, which was written in 1912 by a Lutheran pastor. The pastor records his time with a Blackfeet man named Good Stab, a man with peculiar eating habits and seemingly superhuman abilities… and revenge on his mind. —Erica Ezeifedi
Harlem Rhapsody by Victoria Christopher Murray
This Harlem-set, Jazz Age historical novel tells the story of the nearly forgotten Jessie Redmon Fauset, who changed the course of Black American literature and American literature as a whole. She made history as the first Black woman Editor of The Crisis, the oldest Black magazine in the world, and became known as “The Midwife of the Harlem Renaissance” because of her discovery and mentoring of writers like Langston Hughes and Nella Larsen. She wasn’t without her drama, though—it was well-known that she and her very married boss, W.E.B. Du Bois, were carrying on in the Biblical sense. And this book dives headfirst into the mess. —Erica Ezeifedi
We Do Not Part by Han Kang, translated by E. Yaewon
and Paige Aniyah Morris
Literary fiction of the highest order from a Nobel Prize-winning novelist. Not much happens in this quiet, dream-like novel that asks rich questions about history, memory, connection, and pain. It’s the rare book that can be equally subtle and unsettling, and that’s evidence of a masterful writer working at the height of her powers. You always know you’re in good hands with Kang, and that makes it a pleasure to follow her wherever she wants to go. —Rebecca Joines Schinsky
English (US) · 