Historical Fiction audiobooks

A Long Petal of the Sea

By: Isabel Allende

Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini

Length: 9 hours 46 minutes

Abridged: No

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of The House of the Spirits, this epic novel spanning decades and crossing continents follows two young people as they flee the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War in search of a place to call home.

“One of the most richly imagined portrayals of the Spanish Civil War to date, and one of the strongest and... Read more

Thud!

By: Terry Pratchett

Narrated by: Jon Culshaw, Peter Serafinowicz & Bill Nighy

Length: 12 hours 28 minutes

Abridged: No

“Start with Douglas Adams’s comic science fiction (A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) and J.R.R. Tolkien’s alternative worlds, mix in James Ellroy’s gritty realism and Jonathan Swift’s unflinching satire and, if you’re lucky, you’ll get something like Terry Pratchett’s Thud!” —Wall Street JournalCity Watch Commander Sam Vimes must solve the... Read more

The Good Lord Bird (National Book Award Winner)

By: James McBride

Narrated by: Michael Boatman

Length: 14 hours 34 minutes

Abridged: No

Now a Showtime limited series starring Ethan Hawke and Daveed Diggs

Winner of the National Book Award for Fiction

From the bestselling author of The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, Deacon King Kong (an Oprah Book Club pick) and The Color of Water comes the story of a young boy born a slave who joins John Brown’s antislavery crusade—and who... Read more

The Secret Service of Tea and Treason

By: India Holton

Narrated by: Elizabeth Knowelden

Length: 10 hours 14 minutes

Abridged: No

An International Bestseller!

One of...
Library Journal's Best Romances of the Year
Amazon's Best Romances of April
Buzzfeed's Romance Books To Look Out For In 2023

Two rival spies must brave pirates, witches, and fake matrimony to save the Queen.

Known as Agent A, Alice is the top operative within the Agency of Undercover Note Takers, a secret... Read more

Clytemnestra

By: Costanza Casati

Narrated by: Olivia Vinall

Length: 14 hours 54 minutes

Abridged: No

Monarch. Mother. Murderer. Magnificent.You were born to a king, but you marry a tyrant. You stand by helplessly as he sacrifices your child to placate the gods. You watch him wage war on a foreign shore, and you comfort yourself with violent thoughts of your own. Because this was not the first offense against you. This was not the life you ever... Read more

Cloud Atlas

By: David Mitchell

Narrated by: Scott Brick, Cassandra Campbell, Kim Mai Guest,...

Length: 19 hours 50 minutes

Abridged: No

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A timeless, structure-bending classic that explores how actions of individual lives impact the past, present and future—from a postmodern visionary and one of the leading voices in fiction
 
One of the New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century • Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize
 
Cloud Atlas... Read more

The Nature of Fragile Things

By: Susan Meissner

Narrated by: Alana Kerr Collins & Jason Culp

Length: 10 hours 39 minutes

Abridged: No

April 18, 1906: A massive earthquake rocks San Francisco just before daybreak, igniting a devouring inferno. Lives are lost, lives are shattered, but some rise from the ashes forever changed.

Sophie Whalen is a young Irish immigrant so desperate to get out of a New York tenement that she answers a mail-order bride ad and agrees to marry a man... Read more

Finding Dorothy

By: Elizabeth Letts

Narrated by: Ann Marie Lee & Elizabeth Letts

Length: 13 hours 57 minutes

Abridged: No

Discover the story behind The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the book that inspired the iconic film, through the eyes of author L. Frank Baum’s intrepid wife, Maud, in this richly imagined novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Eighty-Dollar Champion and The Perfect Horse.

“A breathtaking read that will transport you over the rainbow... Read more

Medea

By: Eilish Quin

Narrated by: Gail Shalan

Length: 11 hours 35 minutes

Abridged: No

Discover the full story of the sorceress Medea, one of the most reviled and maligned women of Greek antiquity, in this “haunting, deeply moving” (Claire Legrand, New York Times bestselling author) debut in the tradition of Circe, Elektra, and Stone Blind.

Among the women of Greek mythology, the witch Medea may be the most despised. Known for the... Read more

Eleanore of Avignon

By: Elizabeth DeLozier

Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld

Length: 9 hours 34 minutes

Abridged: No

A Library Reads Pick! 

An Amazon Best Book of the Month!

An Aardvark Book Club Pick! 

Rich with unforgettable characters, gorgeously drawn, and full of captivating historical drama, Eleanore of Avignon is the story of a healer who risks her life, her freedom, and everything she holds dear to protect her beloved city from the encroaching Black Death

... Read more

Code Name Hélène

By: Ariel Lawhon

Narrated by: Barrie Kreinik & Peter Ganim

Length: 17 hours 17 minutes

Abridged: No

Based on the thrilling real-life story of a socialite spy and astonishing woman who killed a Nazi with her bare hands and went on to become one of the most decorated women in WWII—from the New York Times bestselling author of I Was Anastasia and The Frozen River.

"Will fascinate readers of World War II history and thrill fans of fierce, brash,... Read more

Empire of Ivory

By: Naomi Novik

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Length: 11 hours 5 minutes

Abridged: No

Temeraire * Book 4

Tragedy has struck His Majesty’s Aerial Corps, whose magnificent fleet of fighting dragons and their human captains valiantly defend England’s shores against the encroaching armies of Napoleon Bonaparte. An epidemic of unknown origin and no known cure is decimating the noble dragons’ ranks–forcing the hopelessly stricken into... Read more

The Henna Artist

By: Alka Joshi

Narrated by: Sneha Mathan

Length: 10 hours 55 minutes

Abridged: No

A NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER

A REESE WITHERSPOON x HELLO SUNSHINE BOOK CLUB PICK

"Captivated me from the first chapter to the final page."—Reese Witherspoon

Vivid and compelling in its portrait of one woman’s struggle for fulfillment in a society pivoting between the traditional and the modern, The Henna Artist opens a door into a world that is at... Read more

The Known World

By: Edward P. Jones

Narrated by: Kevin R. Free

Length: 14 hours 17 minutes

Abridged: No

In one of the most acclaimed novels in recent memory, Edward P. Jones, two-time National Book Award finalist, tells the story of Henry Townsend, a black farmer and former slave who falls under the tutelage of William Robbins, the most powerful man in Manchester County, Virginia. Making certain he never circumvents the law, Townsend runs his... Read more

The Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies

By: Alison Goodman

Narrated by: Kristin Atherton

Length: 15 hours 33 minutes

Abridged: No

A Washington Post Best Mystery Novel of 2023

A high society amateur detective at the heart of Regency London uses her wits and invisibility as an ‘old maid’ to protect other women in a new and fiercely feminist historical mystery series from New York Times bestselling author Alison Goodman.

Lady Augusta Colebrook, “Gus,” is determinedly... Read more

Did You Hear About Kitty Karr?

By: Crystal Smith Paul

Narrated by: Ariel Blake, Kineta Kunutu & Lynnette Nicholas

Length: 13 hours 10 minutes

Abridged: No

REESE'S BOOK CLUB MAY 2023 PICK

A multigenerational saga that traverses the glamour of old Hollywood and the seductive draw of modern-day showbiz

When Kitty Karr Tate, a White icon of the silver screen, dies and bequeaths her multimillion-dollar estate to the St. John sisters, three young, wealthy Black women, it prompts questions. Lots of... Read more

Ten Thousand Stitches

By: Olivia Atwater

Narrated by: Madeleine Leslay

Length: 9 hours 1 minute

Abridged: No

A housemaid needs some magical help when she falls for a high-society gentleman in this captivating historical fantasy full of wit, charm, and heart-fluttering romance. Effie has most inconveniently fallen in love with the dashing Mr. Benedict Ashbrooke. There’s only one problem: Effie is a housemaid, and a housemaid cannot marry a gentleman. It... Read more

Velvet Was the Night

By: Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Narrated by: Gisela Chípe

Length: 9 hours 51 minutes

Abridged: No

GOOD MORNING AMERICA BUZZ PICK • From the New York Times bestselling author of Mexican Gothic comes a simmering historical noir about a daydreaming secretary, a lonesome enforcer, and the mystery of the missing woman they’re both desperate to find.

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, NPR, The Washington Post, The... Read more

Enlightenment

By: Sarah Perry

Narrated by: Alex Jennings

Length: 13 hours 4 minutes

Abridged: No

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: NPR, Telegraph, Washington Post, The New Yorker. LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE. “Like A.S. Byatt’s Possession, Enlightenment is a baroque, genre-bending novel of ideas, ghosts and hidden histories. A richly layered epic....a heartfelt paean to the consolations of the sublime, where religion and science meet."" --... Read more

The Autumn Republic

By: Brian McClellan

Narrated by: Christian Rodska

Length: 19 hours 24 minutes

Abridged: No

"Just plain awesome" -- Brandon Sanderson

Tamas, Taniel, and Adamat have been betrayed and Adro now lies in the hands of a foreign invader. But it remains the duty of the powder mages to defend their homeland unto death in the explosive conclusion the Brian McClellan's Powder Mage trilogy.

The capital has fallen. . .

Field Marshal Tamas returns to... Read more

I Must Betray You

By: Ruta Sepetys

Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini & Ruta Sepetys

Length: 7 hours 9 minutes

Abridged: No

#1 New York Times Bestseller and winner of the Carnegie Medal!

A gut-wrenching, startling historical thriller about communist Romania and the citizen spy network that devastated a nation, from the #1 New York Times bestselling, award-winning author of Salt to the Sea and Between Shades of Gray.

Romania, 1989. Communist regimes are crumbling across... Read more

The Wealth of Shadows

By: Graham Moore

Narrated by: Johnathan McClain

Length: 12 hours 48 minutes

Abridged: No

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • “A thriller of a different kind—with an unlikely band of economists and bureaucrats working in the shadows to save the world.”—Charles Frazier, New York Times bestselling author of Cold Mountain

An ordinary man joins a secret mission to bring down the Nazi war machine by crashing their economy in this thrilling novel based... Read more

When We Cease to Understand the World

By: Benjamin Labatut

Narrated by: Adam Barr

Length: 5 hours 40 minutes

Abridged: No

When We Cease to Understand the World is a book about the complicated links between scientific and mathematical discovery, madness, and destruction. Fritz Haber, Alexander Grothendieck, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger—these are some of the luminaries into whose troubled lives Benjamín Labatut thrusts the listener, showing us how they... Read more

Our Evenings

By: Alan Hollinghurst

Narrated by: Prasanna Puwanarajah

Length: 16 hours 36 minutes

Abridged: No

From the internationally acclaimed winner of the Booker Prize, “an engrossing tale of one man’s personal odyssey as he grows up, framed in exquisite language” (The New York Times Book Review)

“The finest novel yet from one of the great writers of our time.”—The Guardian

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post,... Read more