Most of us want a fantastic book to supply an escape from what is happening in the world and supply a brief respite in your day-to-day grind on the job or in your home. However, with so many amazing new books coming out daily, it is hard to decide which ones deserve to make it on your pile.
Never worry: Whether you would like to get swept off your feet by a hot love, then bite your fingernails down to nubs using a hair-raising thriller, escape new worlds using a fanciful dream, choose a stroll in somebody else’s shoes with realistic fiction, or have a trip back in time together with historical fiction, we have some the Best Fiction Books for you.
Table of Contents
- 1 Top Rated Best Fiction Books To Read
- 1.1 Big Summer by Jennifer Weiner
- 1.2 Long Bright River by Liz Moore
- 1.3 The Glass Hotel by Emily ST. John Mandel
- 1.4 Writers & Lovers by Lily King
- 1.5 Topics of Conversation by Miranda Popkey
- 1.6 The Resisters by Gish Jen
- 1.7 Tiny Imperfections by Alli Frank And Asha Youmans
- 1.8 Blue Ticket by Sophie Mackintosh
- 1.9 All of the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr
- 1.10 The Color Purple, Alice Walker
- 1.11 Shōgun, James Clavell
- 1.12 War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
- 1.13 Sarah’s Key, Tatiana de Rosnay
- 1.14 Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel
- 1.15 I, Claudius, Robert Graves
- 1.16 The Other Boleyn Girl, Philippa Gregory
- 1.17 A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
- 1.18 Girl with a Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier
- 1.19 The Book Thief, Markus Zusak
- 1.20 The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCullough
- 1.21 One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
- 1.22 The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
- 1.23 The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco
- 1.24 The Historian, Elizabeth Kostova
- 1.25 Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Lisa See
- 1.26 The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, Mary Ann Shaffer
- 1.27 Roots: The Saga of an American Family, Alex Haley
- 1.28 The Crucible, Arthur Miller
- 1.29 Atonement, Ian McEwan
- 1.30 The Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follet
- 1.31 Cold Mountain, Charles Frazier
- 1.32 The Three Musketeers, Alexandre Dumas
- 1.33 The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
- 1.34 City of Women, David R. Gillham
- 1.35 Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden
- 1.36 The Help, Kathryn Stockett
- 1.37 The Hobbit, or There and Back Again by J.R.R. Tolkien
- 1.38 The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje
- 1.39 Outlander, Diana Gabaldon
- 1.40 Don Quixot, Miguel De Cervantes
- 1.41 The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
- 1.42 Moby Dick, Herman Melville
- 1.43 War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
- 1.44 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, ark Twain
- 1.45 The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
- 1.46 The Sin Eater by Megan Campisi
- 1.47 The Burning Chambers by Kate Mosse
- 1.48 Tombland by C. J. Sansom
- 1.49 The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
- 1.50 Ross Poldark by Winston Graham
- 1.51 The Doll Factory by Elizabeth Macneal
- 1.52 Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
- 1.53 Beloved by Toni Morrison
- 1.54 The Winter Soldier by Daniel Mason
- 1.55 The Pull of the Stars from Emma Donoghue
- 1.56 Under a Wartime Sky from Liz Trenow
- 1.57 The Hiding Game by Naomi Wood
Top Rated Best Fiction Books To Read
Here is a list of the best new fiction books to read that Pennbook recommended reading:
Big Summer by Jennifer Weiner
From the writer of Mrs. Everything comes this beach-ready glimpse into female friendship, love, and a few magnificent beachside mansions. Daphne has escaped the poisonous clutches of Drue Cavanaugh and comes into her own as a plus-sized influencer when Drue begs her to maintain her wedding on Cape Cod. Daphne agrees but soon finds himself engaged in a scandal nobody anticipated.
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Long Bright River by Liz Moore
Fans of crime fiction will love this play that centers around the individual effect of the opioid crisis. In the middle of this narrative are just two estranged sisters: Kacey struggles with addiction, while Mickey is a cop. When Kacey vanishes and women like her begin turning up dead, Mickey searches for the killer.
The Glass Hotel by Emily ST. John Mandel
Sometimes books simply feel just right for the current moment. This is that novel. Fans of this hit Station Eleven may even love this story, which creates a relationship between the implosion of a Ponzi scheme and a girl lost.
Writers & Lovers by Lily King
Anyone who has ever had a difficult decision to earn love will love this story of a girl drowning in debt and despair following her mother’s death and selecting between two guys. All of them can give her a different lifestyle, and you’re going to hold your breath because she understands what she desires.
Topics of Conversation by Miranda Popkey
Consider just how long we spend talking to each other and just how much they make up our lives. This silent novel is composed almost entirely of discussions between girls, focusing on everything they contain. It fizzes with enthusiasm, humor, guilt, and thus much more that happens once girls open up.
The Resisters by Gish Jen
Missing baseball? Salve that wound with this particular near-future dystopia. Back in AutoAmerica, the favorite Netted men and women reside on the property, although the Surplus folk resides on water. When a kid with an arm like a shotgun is born into a Surplus household, she winds up to get a Netted group, even as her house challenges the entire world order.
Tiny Imperfections by Alli Frank And Asha Youmans
Parents and anybody who has ever been to college will adore this glimpse into the tumultuous world of a private college, from two girls who worked inside for over 20 decades. Get to understand three generations of black girls in San Francisco because they browse that world and their connections, motives, and a heaping helping of play.
Blue Ticket by Sophie Mackintosh
On the day that they get their first time, all women experience a lottery. White tickets have to wed and have kids, while gloomy tickets receive livelihood and devil-may-care lives. However, if Calla decides to flout the machine, she must go on the lam and then require the survival abilities that the lottery educated her to outrun people whose mission is to conserve it.
All of the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr
A blind French woman and a German boy trail collide in occupied France as they try to endure the devastation of WWII. Marie-Laure has fled Paris together with all the Museum of Natural History’s most precious and dangerous germs. Meanwhile, Werner, an orphan, was building and repairing radios used by the Germans to monitor the resistance. Doerr beautifully intertwined their tails.
The Color Purple, Alice Walker
Place in the deep American South between wars, Celia, a young black woman born to poverty and segregation, leads a tough life. She’s raped, two of her kids are removed from her. She’s separated from her sister Nettie and trapped in her marriage. She then meets Shug Avery, singer, and magic-maker, a girl who takes control of her fate.
Shōgun, James Clavell
An English adventurer, a Japanese warlord, along with a gorgeous girl between. Shōgun is a saga of a time and location in 17th-century Japan, living with battle, lust, ambition, enthusiasm, and electricity.
War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
War and Peace is an in-depth analysis of the Napoleonic wars’ impacts on five Russian aristocrats and their families. The story moves between characters and scenes, at a glance talking a Moscow drawing space and in the brutality and insanity of war.
Sarah’s Key, Tatiana de Rosnay
Sarah is a 10-year-old woman in Paris in 1942, who locks her little brother in a cabinet once the French authorities round her family. Over half a century later, in Paris in 2002, journalist Julia Jarmond reports the 60th anniversary of this round-up and stumbles onto Sarah’s narrative. She starts to trace Sarah’s ordeal to learn what happened to her; her loved ones, and her small brother.
Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel
The first in a string, Wolf Hall details the existence of Tudor statesman Thomas Cromwell. Restless, vibrant, and challenging, Cromwell is fundamental to events in Tudor’s history, such as Henry VIII’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon.
I, Claudius, Robert Graves
A fictional autobiography of the fourth Roman Emperor that Claudius presents Claudius’s disabilities, such as a stammer and the way he’s guarded against public life in early maturity. Graves depicts him as a heroic figure.
The Other Boleyn Girl, Philippa Gregory
Mary Boleyn captured the attention of Henry VIII and fell in love, only to be placed aside by her very best friend and sister, Anne. Both women are pawns from the household’s ambitious plot to capture the king’s attention and the throne’s ability.
A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
The two men, Charles Darnay, an exiled French aristocrat, and Sydney Carton, a disreputable but brilliant English lawyer, are in love with Lucie Manette in London. They’re drawn against their will to Paris in the height of the Reign of Terror and La Guillotine.
Girl with a Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier
Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer is an enigmatic 17th-century performer that Chevalier brings to life through the eyes of a young servant girl, Griet. Vermeer chooses Griet to design for him, and this can be depicted in intimate detail along with the prosperous Vermeer home in the 1660s Delft.
The Book Thief, Markus Zusak
A young nurture girl Liesel Meminger enjoys books to finance her meager presence near Munich through WWII. Her accordion-playing foster dad teaches her to see, and she shares her novels with neighbors through bombing raids. Meanwhile, she gradually befriends the Jewish guy hidden in their cellar.
The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCullough
Covering three generations from 1915 onwards, “The Thorn Birds” depicts a household in the Australian sheep nation. Meggie Cleary loves but may not have Ralph p Bricassart, who climbs from parish priest to the Vatican. And Bricassart’s enthusiasm for Meggie will shadow him all the days of his life.
One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Buendia family’s irreconcilable conflict between the desire for privacy and the need for romance is chronicled through the guise of realism. One Hundred Years of Solitude investigates these problems and conveys life in Columbia in the early 1800s into the mid-1900s.
The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
“The Scarlet Letter” indicates the downfall of 3 individuals from 17th-century Massachusetts: youthful, beautiful Hester Prynne, who bore a child out of wedlock and won’t show the dad; her husband, Roger Chillingworth, who returns in the deceased and vow revenge; along with her lover, Arthur Dimmesdale.
The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco
Within an Italian abbey in 1327, the Franciscan monks have been suspected of heresy. Brother William of Baskerville explores and is abruptly embroiled in seven bizarre deaths. He inquires, gathers evidence, and digs in the mysteries of this abbey in which “the fascinating things occur at night.”
The Historian, Elizabeth Kostova
A young girl finds an ancient book and many yellowing letters; all addressed to “My dear and unfortunate successor.” She’s plunged into a labyrinth of secrets back to some centuries-long search to discover the origin of Vlad the Impaler and wash it out.
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Lisa See
Place in 19th-century China; two women are paired at a “laotong,” an emotional match that sprouts friendship lasting an eternity. The women communicate she, an ancient language that Chinese women use secretly, away from guys. The narrative covers traditional Chinese civilization from foot-binding to arranged marriages.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, Mary Ann Shaffer
In 1946, English author Juliet Ashton found her next publication subject about the island of Guernsey. She decides to pay a visit to the island after corresponding with residents about their experiences throughout the war. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society are born as an alibi when German occupiers capture members breaking curfew.
Roots: The Saga of an American Family, Alex Haley
Roots is the narrative of an African guy taken into captivity in 1767 at age three and the six generations that came after him. It ensures generations of slaves, free men, farmers, blacksmiths, timber mill workers, attorneys, architects, and much more. Roots catch the background of a single-family because it works its way from captivity throughout the human soul’s indomitability.
The Crucible, Arthur Miller
The Crucible is a classic drama in 17th-century Salem, Massachusetts, during the witch hunts and trials. A young woman accuses Elizabeth Proctor of being a witch, and self-righteous church leaders and townspeople clamor for her to be brought to trial. Ruthless prosecutors and excited neighbors exemplify the destructive power of socially sanctioned violence.
Atonement, Ian McEwan
In 1934, 13-year-old Briony saw a moment’s flirtation between her older sister and Robbie Turner, the slave’s son. Briony does not know the prime motives behind the flirtation and accuses Robbie of a crime that affects each of their lives. Throughout WWII and in the 21st century, Atonement follows the offense consequences.
The Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follet
In 12th-century feudal England, Tom, a master builder, sets out to construct the best Gothic cathedral on the planet he has ever known. Follet brings to life the vast woods, the walled cities, the woods, and the monasteries, together with everyday life throughout the Middle Ages.
Cold Mountain, Charles Frazier
A soldier sets out on a perilous journey back to his cherished close to the conclusion of the Civil War. Inman, a wounded Confederate soldier, walks away from the ravages of war to return to his love, Ada. Ada struggles to rekindle her family’s farm with the support of a youthful ramble, Ruby. Inman and Ada both face the hugely transformed world they currently occupy.
The Three Musketeers, Alexandre Dumas
Place in France in the 1620s; The Three Musketeers is an epic of dignity, honor, and courage with a group of romantic heroes, informative heroines, kings, queens, cavaliers, and offenders. The Three Musketeers has everything from experience and espionage to murder, vengeance, and enjoyment.
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
The unforgettable, heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father’s servant, The Kite Runner is a beautifully crafted novel set in a country that is in the process of being destroyed. It is about the power of reading, the price of betrayal, and the possibility of redemption; and an exploration of the power of fathers over sons – their love, their sacrifices, their lies.
A sweeping story of family, love, and friendship told against the devastating backdrop of the history of Afghanistan over the last thirty years, The Kite Runner is one of the best modern books, an unusual and powerful novel that has become a beloved, one-of-a-kind classic.
City of Women, David R. Gillham
Back in 1943, the guys of Berlin are away battling, and it has turned into a town of girls. Though most women seem to be versions of German behavior on the outside, many are included in their hidden war against the Nazis.
Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden
Enjoy is scorned in Memoirs of a Geisha, in which girls learn that looks are everything, and a woman’s virginity is auctioned off to the maximum bidder. Delving deep into Japanese culture before and during WWII, girls are educated to enter the most effective men to remain alive.
The Help, Kathryn Stockett
Back in the 1960s, Mississippi white girls trusted black girls to boost their kids; however, they refused them honor and basic human courtesy. However, three girls develop an unlikely friendship that spans the racial split and provides them each the power they should modify their lifestyles. It’s among the best adult fiction books for reading.
The Hobbit, or There and Back Again by J.R.R. Tolkien
In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.
Written for J.R.R. Tolkien’s own children, The Hobbit met with instant critical acclaim when it was first published in 1937. The text in this 372-page paperback edition is based on that first published in Great Britain by Collins Modern Classics (1998) and includes a note on the text by Douglas A. Anderson (2001). This is one of the best fiction adventure books to read.
The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje
Throughout WWII, a wounded man in Italy is cared for due to Hana, a French-Canadian nurse. The guy speaks English but can’t recall who he is or how he had been badly burnt. Hana attempts to convince him to remember his previous, and the facts about what they understand affect them forever.
Outlander, Diana Gabaldon
In 1945, Claire Randall, a former combat nurse, measured via an ancient standing stone in the British Isles. She’s abruptly sent back in time as a Sassenach (an “outlander”) in Scotland through the war and raiding border clans in 1743.
Don Quixot, Miguel De Cervantes
Known by many as the most influential work of literature to blossom from the Spanish Golden Age, Don Quixote frequently appears on lists of highest literary functions of all time. The writer chronicles the experiences of a nobleman and his squire – a witty yet straightforward farmer – as Quixote, who decided to turn into a knight-errant, tries to reestablish chivalry. The writer’s style is lively and experimental and has had a substantial effect on the literary world.
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
The novel is set in the 1920s and follows a cast of characters living on prosperous Long Island, mostly about the mysterious millionaire, Jay Gatsby, and his obsessive love for Daisy Buchanan. The book is superbly discredited, touching on such topics as resistance to change, surplus and idealism, and can be considered Fitzgerald’s magnum opus. Leap to the Jazz Age, a moment, as detected from the New York Times, when “gin was the national drink and sex the national obsession.” It’s among the best classic fiction books for reading.
Moby Dick, Herman Melville
Composed by American novelist Herman Melville this story depicts a captain’s obsession with revenge on the monster that had previously bitten off his leg the mighty Moby Dick. The author’s realistic and detailed descriptions, in addition to his imaginative writing style, enabled him to explore topics of social standing, integrity, and the presence of God.
War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
Bibliophiles and authors worldwide can all agree that studying Tolstoy’s War and Peace is an incredible, impeccable literary encounter. This masterpiece is placed during the time of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812. We’re introduced to three well-to-do characters that have stood the test of time, staying a number of the most well-known and cherished figures in literature. Tolstoy also beautifully contains characters from varied backgrounds, demonstrating their battles with their history and culture.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, ark Twain
This well-known and popularised novel delves into issues like racism, friendship, freedom, war, and religion with remarkable elegance, lightheartedness, and dignity. The American narrative is told in the first person by a nineteenth-century boy since he embarks on adventures with a runaway slave. It had been among the first books to be written in vernacular English.
The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
Welcome into medieval England, in which a civil war ravages the country along with also a monk is arena mission. Ken’s The Pillars of the Earth follows Philip, a dedicated monk, who joins forces with Tom, a gifted builder, to tackle the ambitious project possibly has set themselves into. In a universe in chaos, but their journey won’t be a smooth one.
The very first publication in Ken Follett’s series, The Kingsbridge Books, this ancient saga is something you have lost in.
The Sin Eater by Megan Campisi
Place into a thinly disguised 16th century England, Megan Campisi’s debut book is a richly woven tale of treason and betrayal, power, and women. When a fourteen-year-old is arrested for stealing a loaf of bread, he has been sentenced to develop into a Sin Eater, a catastrophic sentence that will see him shunned by society and punished into the town’s border.
The Sin Eater finds the confessions of this dying and investigates their sins as a funeral rite is also thought to be stained. When May is known as listening to the deathbed confessions of two of the Queen’s courtiers, she hears whispers of a dreadful rumor her invisibility enables her to explore.
The Burning Chambers by Kate Mosse
The Burning Chambers is the ideal illustration of Kate Mosse’s expert hand in painting a historical image. She takes viewers along with her to France from the year 1562. A mysterious conspiracy is afoot, and nineteen-year-old Minou Joubert receives an anonymous letter and meets with a young Huguenot convert that will change her life forever. Love, devotion, and also the fact battle it out in this epic 16th-century experience.
Tombland by C. J. Sansom
In a novel set in a politically unstable England after the death of Henry VIII, the intrepid investigator Shardlake must discover the mystery surrounding the murder of Edith Boleyn until it results from the complete unraveling of the English court.
The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
When the guys of Vardø are wiped out in a catastrophic storm, the living girls don’t have any option but to fend for themselves. But since the girls develop increasingly separate, suspicions and rivalries grow, coming into an aching head with the coming of commissioner Absalom Cornet. The Mercies is based on a catastrophic storm that struck on the Norwegian island of Vardø in 1617 and subsequent witch trials of 1621.
Ross Poldark by Winston Graham
Historical fiction is frequently the foundation for some of the most acclaimed and most popular period dramas, and Winston Graham’s Poldark series is no exception. Fans of this Poldark TV series, notably, and historical fiction, will generally adore this sweeping saga. From the first publication Ross Poldark, the hero returns home from the American War of Independence to locate his mansion agent and the girl he loves engaged to his uncle. This is one of the best historical fiction books of all time.
The Doll Factory by Elizabeth Macneal
In the 1850s, London Iris fantasies of being an artist. In a nation that treats her second-class citizen due to her gender, she jumps at the opportunity to research under pre-Raphaelite painter Louis Frost in exchange for posing as his version. Unknown to her, but this is not the only person in his sights along with a dark obsession bubbles in a stranger viewing by the periphery.
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Achebe is frequently praised as the father of modern African literature, due to their precise prose and profound insight into the lives of Africans in their own time and yesteryear. Throughout the narrative of an Igbo wrestler called Okonkwo, Matters Falls Apart investigates pre-colonial Nigeria and the brutal British rule’s brutal first effect.
Beloved by Toni Morrison
“Beloved” opens under a decade following the abolition of slavery in the united states and follows the life span of their today emancipated Sethe and loved ones as they attempt to construct a new life for themselves. Disturbances within their house cause them to feel Sethe’s older daughter, who died years before, haunts them. This must-read publication investigates the emotional effects of slavery in addition to gender and family dynamics.
The Winter Soldier by Daniel Mason
This novel opens with the start of WWI. Clients follow Lucias, a medical student in Vienna, who enlists and finds himself engaged at a distant field-hospital ravaged by typhus. His dreams of rescuing lives are faced with the stark reality of warfare, which will be unlike anything that he could have struck in glamorous Vienna. With the support of a battle-hardened nurse that he sees a barbarous antipsychotic medication, but if an unconscious soldier has been attracted to him for therapy, the choices Lucia makes will alter his life forever.
The Pull of the Stars from Emma Donoghue
As disease and war ravage Ireland, Nurse Julia Power functions in a small ward at an understaffed hospital, in which expectant moms struck through unfamiliar influenza are quarantined together. Julia is aided by two new arrivals, Doctor Kathleen Lynn, on the run from law enforcement, and a young volunteer helper, Bridie Sweeney.
Within the span of 3 times, these girls will change one another’s lives in unexpected ways. The Stars’ attraction is a traditional story of survival and hope from the bestselling author of Room.
Under a Wartime Sky from Liz Trenow
In 1936, as the danger of war hung over Europe, Churchill gathered the brightest minds in Britain collectively in a Suffolk nation house. Their assignment? To invent the technologies that may mean success for the Allies. Vic, a bashful physicist, has finally found a place where he belongs, and if Kath is recruited to run the top-secret method that they form an unlikely friendship as bombs drop over Britain.
The Hiding Game by Naomi Wood
Set in the tumultuous decades of pre-WW2 Germany, in the revolutionary Bauhaus art school, The Hiding Game is an evocative book of love, obsession, and haunting secrets. After Paul Beckermann arrives in the Bauhaus, he wholly and immediately immerses himself in the school’s radical teachings as he assembles an intense friendship with a bunch of fellow pupils.
Paul falls almost immediately in love with the enigmatic Charlotte. Still, he is not the only person, and friendships finally disintegrate under the strain of rivalries and betrayals since the Bauhaus finds itself under threat.
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