This week's Top Ten Tuesday topic is My Top Ten Books Set in Another Time. Looking over my top rated books over the years, below are among my favorites set in a different time period. I tried to narrow the list down as best I could. Here are Fifteen of my favorite books set in different time periods.
Death Below Stairs (#1) by Jennifer Ashley
1881 - London
Victorian class lines are crossed when cook Kat Holloway is drawn into a murder that reaches all the way to the throne. [from the publisher]
Moloka'i by Alan Brennert
1891 - Hawaii
This richly imagined novel, set in Hawai'i more than a century ago, is an extraordinary epic of a little-known time and place---and a deeply moving testament to the resiliency of the human spirit. [from the publisher]
Kindred by Octavia E. Butler
Early 19th Century/1974 - Maryland/Los Angeles
The visionary author’s masterpiece pulls us—along with her Black female hero—through time to face the horrors of slavery and explore the impacts of racism, sexism, and white supremacy then and now. [from the publisher]
The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas
1820's - Mexico
Mexican Gothic meets Rebecca in this debut supernatural suspense novel, set in the aftermath of the Mexican War of Independence, about a remote house, a sinister haunting, and the woman pulled into their clutches... [from the publisher]
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
1896 - England, Italy
In the year 1806, in the midst of the Napoleonic Wars, most people believe magic to have long since disappeared from England -- until the reclusive Mr. Norrell reveals his powers and becomes a celebrity overnight. Another practicing magician emerges: the young and daring Jonathan Strange. He becomes Norrell’s pupil and the two join forces in the war against France. But Strange is increasingly drawn to the wildest, most perilous forms of magic and soon he risks sacrificing not only his partnership with Norrell, but everything else he holds dear. [from the publisher]
The Reformatory by Tananarive Due
1950 - Florida
A gripping, page-turning novel set in Jim Crow Florida that follows Robert Stephens Jr. as he’s sent to a segregated reform school that is a chamber of terrors where he sees the horrors of racism and injustice, for the living, and the dead. [from the publisher]
Jane Steele by Faye Lyndsay Faye
Mid 1800's - England
A Gothic reelling of Jane Eyre. Like the heroine of the novel she adores, Jane Steele suffers cruelly at the hands of her aunt and schoolmaster. And like Jane Eyre, they call her wicked - but in her case, she fears the accusation is true. When she flees, she leaves behind the corpses of her tormentors. [from the publisher]
Wolf Den Trilogy by Elodie Harper
1st Century CE - Pompeii
The gripping story of Amara, a woman sold into slavery in Pompeii’s notorious brothel. Once the daughter of an esteemed doctor, her life spirals downwards after her father’s death. Struggling for survival, Amara navigates a harsh reality while yearning for freedom.[from the publisher]
Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo
1954 - San Francisco
America in 1954 is not a safe place for two girls to fall in love, especially not in Chinatown. Red-Scare paranoia threatens everyone, including Chinese Americans like Lily. With deportation looming over her father—despite his hard-won citizenship—Lily and Kath risk everything to let their love see the light of day. [from the publisher]
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
Future - Canada/United States
An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization’s collapse—the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity. [from the publisher]
Circe by Madeline Miller
Ancient Greece
Woman. Witch. Myth. Mortal. Outcast. Lover. Destroyer. Survivor. CIRCE. [from the publisher]
The Deep End (Country Club Murder #1) by Julie Mulhern
1974 - Kansas City
Swimming into the lifeless body of her husband’s mistress tends to ruin a woman’s day, but becoming a murder suspect can ruin her whole life. [from the publisher]
Lavender House (Evender Mills Mystery #1) by Lev A.C. Rosen
1952 - San Francisco
When your existence is a crime, everything you do is criminal, and the gates of Lavender House can’t lock out the real world forever. Running a soap empire can be a dirty business. [from the publisher]
The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See
1930's to present day - Jeju Island
A classic Lisa See story—one of women’s friendships and the larger forces that shape them—The Island of Sea Women introduces readers to the fierce female divers of Jeju Island and the dramatic history that shaped their lives. [from the publisher]
All Systems Red (Murderbot Diaries #1) by Martha Wells
Future - Outer Space
A murderous android discovers itself in All Systems Red, a tense science fiction adventure by Martha Wells that interrogates the roots of consciousness through Artificial Intelligence. [from the publisher]
Have you read any of these novels? If so, what did you think? What are your favorite books set in another time?
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