Calendar Girls: Best Historical fiction

Welcome back to the eighth month of Calendar Girls! It’s a monthly blog event co-hosted by Flavia and Melaine and designed to ignite bookish discussions among readers. Calendar Girls was inspired by the 1961 Neil Sedaka song, Calendar Girl, For more information, about the Calendar Girls community click here!

This week’s theme is Historical Fiction.

This is a genre that I haven’t read too much of, but of the ones I have read are amazing and that makes this a very tough choice. There are Ruta Sepetys novels: Salt to the Sea and Shades of Grey. These books are beautifully written and heartbreaking. I have Out of Easy on my literal TBR shelf I’m sure it will join the ranks of exceptional work that Sepetys has done.  The Book Theif can not be over looked. A new age classic with an unconventional narrator. If you haven’t read that book, I don’t know what you’re waiting for.

However, the book I am going to choose as my ultimate choice is the book that of right now is the best book I’ve read in 2017.

This book is amazing.  I don’t think I will stop talking about it for a while yet. It was just so brilliant. I listened to the audiobook. Up until I started listening to this book, I had listened to four Sherlock Holmes books. The Gentleman’s Guide takes place about 100 years before the Holmes stories, but when it comes to language and style, the writing was very similar. The book gives a very– in my opinion– authentic view of the stories. There is similar vocabulary from Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, as well. It had that feel, although it’s a book written and published in the 21st century.

What I was expecting out of this book was a cute romance novel. What I got was a cute romance novel with 100% more adventure that I was ready for. There are highway men attacking them, a Davinci Code style mystery book, pirates, and on top of all of that, three characters who are three dimensional and have personality and very different relationships to each other.

I have not read a huge amount of books that have sibling relationships that are healthy and normal feeling. Monty and Felicity’s relationship felt so much like two teenage siblings. They bicker, the talk, they relate. It’s far from a perfect relationship, but it’s real.

Then there is Monty and Percy. This love story. I can’t even.

Over all this book is brilliantly written, it feels real. The language is well researched and used in a way that takes the 1700’s. The characters are stopped from doing things because they are traveling with an unmarried woman. Percy is black and there are issues traveling with Percy.

I love this book. I LOVE this book.

Do you have a favorite historical fiction novel? Do you have a favorite time period that you enjoy reading about?

This week is Gishwhes Week, so I am writing this in advance. Therefore, I don’t know the theme from September yet. If interested I suggest you check out Melaine or Flava’s posts, which are linked at the top of this post.

The Calendar Girls are having our monthly twitter chat on August 20th, where we will discuss historical fiction just follow the hashtag #calendargirls.

Until next time Internet,

Deanna