en-US Wed, 08 Apr 2026 10:30:15 -0700 60 144 41 https://www.goodreads.com/images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Review8506272192 Wed, 08 Apr 2026 10:30:15 -0700 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/8506272192 Book Riot has read You Dreamed of Empires (Hardcover) by Álvaro Enrigue
Book Riot’s Best Historical Fiction Books of the Century So Far:

This book is fabulism at its finest. Enrigue flips the story of the Spanish conquistadors’ invasion of Tenochtitlan on its head, envisioning a history that could’ve been in a hallucinogenic mushroom-fueled haze. You Dreamed of Empires blurs the boundaries of historical fiction to show everything the genre can do when pushed to its absolute limits. It's a genius work of fiction. —Rachel Brittain ]]> Review8506271311 Wed, 08 Apr 2026 10:29:50 -0700 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/8506271311 Book Riot has read Wolf Hall (Thomas Cromwell, #1) by Hilary Mantel
Book Riot’s Best Historical Fiction Books of the Century So Far:

This is the most harrowing novel about Henry VIII's remaking of England, but through the perspective of Thomas Cromwell. Mantel deftly explores how Cromwell worked his way up to the role of Henry’s trusted advisor during a turbulent time. While Henry is doggedly pursuing Anne Boleyn, the Catholic Church fails to reassert control, and Cromwell makes the decision to follow the king. However, the difficulty with becoming the watchdog of a mercurial ruler is that he may turn on you. The brilliance of this book is how it takes on familiar historical figures and goes deep on their complex motivations. —Julia Rittenberg ]]> Review8506270455 Wed, 08 Apr 2026 10:29:26 -0700 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/8506270455 Book Riot has read The Wednesday Wars (Hardcover) by Gary D. Schmidt
Book Riot’s Best Historical Fiction Books of the Century So Far:

Holling Hoodhood is the only student in his seventh grade class who doesn't leave early on Wednesdays for religious instruction, and thus, he's forced to read Shakespeare with his teacher. Month by month, readers ride alongside Holling as he both struggles to understand what he's reading and why his teacher is doing this to him. He works hard, though—it's an escape from a teetering home life—and over the course of the year, Holling's confidence and capacity to understand other people grows exponentially. Set during the Vietnam War, this middle grade gem leaves readers laughing one moment and in tears the next. —Kelly Jensen ]]> Review8506269260 Wed, 08 Apr 2026 10:29:00 -0700 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/8506269260 Book Riot has read The Vanishing Half (Hardcover) by Brit Bennett
Book Riot’s Best Historical Fiction Books of the Century So Far:

The inseparable, identical Vignes twins run away from home at 16. But when one has the chance to pass as white and marry her affluent boss, she completely vanishes from her sister’s life. Meanwhile the twin who’s left behind eventually returns home a single mother and faces ridicule and criticism from her light-skinned, Black community for her darker skinned child. This novel debuted as a number one bestseller and spent most of 2020 on the lists. The many ways these sisters and their daughters’ lives intersect and diverge made this multigenerational story a suspenseful page-turner, examining race and colorism with nuance and specificity. —Alison Doherty ]]> Review8506268159 Wed, 08 Apr 2026 10:28:29 -0700 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/8506268159 Book Riot has read The Thirty Names of Night (Hardcover) by Zeyn Joukhadar
Book Riot’s Best Historical Fiction Books of the Century So Far:

Bursting with ghosts and birds, Joukhadar’s poetic novel alternates between two timelines. In contemporary New York City, a Syrian American trans boy grieves his mother who died in a strange fire five years prior, and an illustrated journal uncovered in Little Syria divulges the mysterious life of Laila Z, a Syrian American bird painter who wrote to “B” about the U.S. and disappeared over half a century ago. Adorned with medals for the Stonewall Book Award and the Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Fiction, this hopeful story of ongoing conversations with beloveds delves into art, community, ornithology, personal histories, and resilience. —Connie Pan ]]> Review8506266994 Wed, 08 Apr 2026 10:27:56 -0700 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/8506266994 Book Riot has read The Song of Achilles (Paperback) by Madeline Miller
Book Riot’s Best Historical Fiction Books of the Century So Far:

The Song of Achilles deserves every accolade it earns and every bump in the bestseller charts. It won the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2012 and it is one of the first books that BookTok sent into the stratosphere.

We all needed a book that emphasizes the love story between hero Achilles and exiled prince Patroclus from The Iliad. It will break your heart that Achilles chooses glory and destiny to fight in the Trojan War over peace and Patroclus. The book will break your heart over and over, and you’ll be glad for it. It also feels like it may have helped raise the profile of feminist and queer reframings of mythological stories. —Elisa Shoenberger ]]> Review8506265869 Wed, 08 Apr 2026 10:27:30 -0700 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/8506265869 Book Riot has read The Shadow of the Wind (The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, #1) by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Book Riot’s Best Historical Fiction Books of the Century So Far:

An antiquarian book dealer’s son in mourning finds comfort in a mysterious book. Wanting more of where that came from, he sets out to find the author’s other works and discovers that someone is destroying every copy of every book the author has written. So begins a quest to determine who is doing this and why that sends the young man on a journey into the darkest parts of Barcelona. This is one of those classic "book lover books," a book about books and a compelling mystery with a touch of magic and romance set against the backdrop of Barcelona in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War. —Vanessa Diaz ]]>