Historical Fiction...with Some Romance

Try these books if you're looking for:

• historical fiction
• some romance
• emphasis on Civil War or Victorian time periods

March: A Novel 
By Geraldine Brooks
F BROOKS
An extraordinary novel woven out of the lore of American history. From Louisa May Alcott's beloved classic Little Women, Geraldine Brooks has animated the character of the absent father, March, as he leaves behind his family to aid the Union cause in the Civil War. His experiences will utterly change his marriage and challenge his most ardently held beliefs.

Gone with the Wind 
By Margaret Mitchell
F MITCHELL
Of all the novels written about the Civil War and its aftermath, none take us into the burning fields and cities of the American South as Gone With the Wind does, creating haunting scenes and thrilling portraits of characters so vivid that we remember their words and feel their fear and hunger for the rest of our lives. In the two main characters, the white-shouldered, irresistible Scarlett and the flashy, contemptuous Rhett, Margaret Mitchell not only conveyed a timeless story of survival under the harshest of circumstances, she also created two of the most famous lovers in the English-speaking world since Romeo and Juliet.

Candle in the Darkness 
By Lynn N. Austin
F AUSTIN Refiners #1
Book 1 in the Refiner's Fire series. The daughter of a wealthy slave-holding family from Richmond, Virginia, Caroline Fletcher is raised in a culture that believes slavery is God-ordained and biblically acceptable. But upon awakening to the cruelty and injustice it encompasses, Caroline's eyes are opened for the first time to the men and women who have cared tirelessly for her. Her journey of maturity and faith will draw her into the abolitionist movement, where she is confronted with the risks and sacrifices her beliefs entail.

The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary 
By Simon Winchester
423 WIN 1998
This is a work of nonfiction, but I have included it here because it reads much like a novel. Dr. W. C. Minor, an American Civil War surgeon, disturbed by his experiences in the war, travels to London, where he kills a man and is sentenced to an insane asylum. Despite his condition and his situation in an asylum, Minor goes on to contribute more than ten thousand definitions to the great 19th century crowdsourcing project of compiling the Oxford English Dictionary.

The Bughouse Affair: A Carpenter and Quincannon Mystery 
By Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini
MYST MULLER Carpente #1
The Bughouse Affair is a fanciful mystery set in 1890s San Francisco. Former Pinkerton operative Sabina Carpenter and her detective partner, ex-Secret Service agent John Quincannon, tackle two seemingly unrelated cases that are complicated by two murders and the interference of a madman who believes he is Sherlock Holmes.