Our favorite way to time travel is through historical fiction and this year we got to take incredible trips! Across the globe and decades into the past, we’ve been all over the map with this year’s reads. See if your favorite topped the charts in 2025.

This year, the winner of the She Reads Best Historical Fiction of 2025 Award is:

The Book Club for Troublesome Women by Marie Bostwick

In a glossy 1960s Virginia suburb, Margaret Ryan “has it all” until the enigmatic Charlotte moves in and a book club—quickly dubbed the Bettys—cracks open the truth. Over cocktails and The Feminine Mystique, Margaret, Charlotte, Bitsy and Viv trade secrets, test loyalties and rediscover who they are beyond wife and mother. Witty and warm, The Book Club for Troublesome Women is a love letter to friendship, reinvention and quiet rebellion—perfect for fans of Lessons in Chemistry and lively book clubs.

Buy the book now: Bookshop.org | Amazon

And don’t miss out on the rest of our favorite historical fiction reads from 2025!

Harlem Rhapsody by Victoria Christopher Murray

Set in 1919 Harlem, Harlem Rhapsody follows Jessie Redmon Fauset—the first Black woman literary editor of The Crisis—as she chases greatness, discovers rising voices like Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen and Nella Larsen, and risks everything for a forbidden love with W. E. B. Du Bois. Victoria Christopher Murray delivers a propulsive portrait of a woman balancing ambition, artistry, friendship and scandal.

Buy the book now: Bookshop.org | Amazon

The First Witch of Boston by Andrea Catalano

Set in 1646 Massachusetts Bay, The First Witch of Boston reimagines the true story of healer Margaret Jones, the first woman in Massachusetts condemned for witchcraft. Newly arrived from England and in love with cautious husband Thomas, Margaret’s bold nature collides with Puritan suspicion as tragedy and fervor gather. Drawn from diaries and court records, this novel explores marriage under siege, a mother’s courage and the peril of women who won’t shrink. Haunting and readable.

Buy the book now: Bookshop.org | Amazon

The Fourth Daughter by Lyn Liao Butler

In Taiwan, chef Liv Kuo—newly housebound after trauma—answers Ah-Ma’s call to find the fourth daughter taken at birth. What begins as a reluctant trip becomes a sensory homecoming of broths, night markets and stories long silenced under martial law. As Liv and her grandmother follow clues, they uncover an old cookbook, a shattering betrayal and fierce love that endures across generations, tying together women’s resilience and the healing power of food.

Buy the book now: Bookshop.org | Amazon

The Stolen Queen by Fiona Davis

From Fiona Davis (our queen of historical fiction) comes a mystery that shuttles from 1936 Egypt to the 1978 Met Gala. After a shattering loss, Charlotte Cross guards the Met’s Egyptian treasures, obsessed with overlooked female pharaoh Hathorkare. When a priceless artifact vanishes on gala night, she teams up with Annie Jenkins—Diana Vreeland’s assistant—to trace the truth from Fifth Avenue to the Valley of the Kings. Sisterhood and buried secrets collide as Charlotte confronts past to protect what matters most.

Buy the book now: Bookshop.org | Amazon

Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson

From Charmaine Wilkerson, bestselling author of Black Cake, comes a moving family saga about love, loss and legacy. As a child, Ebby Freeman watched her brother die beside the shards of a centuries-old stoneware jar—an heirloom carried North by an enslaved ancestor. Years later, after a public breakup, Ebby flees to France, where the past won’t loosen its grip. Following the jar’s hidden history, she uncovers secrets that could solve a tragedy—and help her write a braver future.

Buy the book now: Bookshop.org | Amazon

Buckeye by Patrick Ryan

Set in postwar Bonhomie, Ohio, Buckeye follows two families bound by a stolen kiss on V-E Day and a secret that won’t stay buried. Cal, aching from the war he couldn’t fight, and Margaret, fleeing her past, set in motion ripples that test marriages, motherhood and the next generation. All the while Cal’s wife, Becky, a seer, speaks to the dead and the living. A sweeping, tender saga about true love, consequence and the courage to choose goodness.

Buy the book now: Bookshop.org | Amazon

Isola by Allegra Goodman

Allegra Goodman’s Isola follows Marguerite, an heiress betrayed by her guardian and cast away with the man she loves on an island off New France. Stripped of privilege she learns to build fire, find food and trust a new faith. Part love story and part survival, it’s about a woman who refuses to break as she faces nature and the men who would control her. For readers who crave grit, grace and hard-won hope.

Buy the book now: Bookshop.org | Amazon

Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall

After a farmer is found dead, Beth’s marriage to Frank begins to unravel when a gunshot at their sheep draws back Gabriel Wolfe—the first love who broke her heart—now returned with his son who recalls the boy Beth lost. As desire collides with grief and jealousies flare, secrets surface with consequences. Moving past and present, Broken Country blends love story and thriller as Beth must choose between the woman she was and who she’s become.

Buy the book now: Bookshop.org | Amazon