The keys to the success of the best historical novels

Historical fiction is in the first position among the favorite readings in Spain. Despite being undervalued by critics many times, today there are those who say that we are even living a golden age. Do you know the reason for the success of the best historical novels? We tell you everything. Fulfill your dreams!

Pushing the limits of history

When we talk about the best historical novels we must reflect on their limits. The novel is a work of fiction of more than 50,000 words and written in prose. That is why we ask ourselves: can we continue to speak of a novel if the facts that are told are real? The answer is yes, since an author of a historical novel transforms his real documentation into non-historical matter.

The historical novel is still fiction even though it is related to reality very closely. When we say that it exceeds the limits, we emphasize that the novel is the fruit of the author's imagination. Therefore, contrary to the objectivity of a historian. If you also like this literary genre, you will have been able to see that it summons great possibilities born of imagination. And also that, paradoxically, this field is nourished by what our ancestors lived through.

The best historical novels hook us because...

Despite the predilection you may have for the historical novel, the truth is that it has been looked down upon by intellectuals for a long time. But why are the numbers of the historical novel increasing? The Sociological Research Center (CIS) is investigating this factor.

The first reason could be that most of today's readers are a captive audience. That means that, as a reader of historical novels, you are stable and consolidated in the literary genre, so you do not fluctuate with other editorial phenomena. In addition, it also highlights the phenomenon of literary marathon. The novels create an atmosphere so credible that it ends up captivating us more than the truthfulness. Therefore, we enter them and end up being part of the time.

In the wide field of possibilities that, as a reader, the historical novel offers you, we include the fact that it gives rise to creating and making us enjoy a good plot. Within the good plot, above all we are more hooked by books whose authors are capable of humanizing their characters, removing them from the pigeonhole that would correspond to them historically. The same happens with books that allow us to breathe the atmosphere of the time.

When a book stars an invented character within a historically recognizable context, it unconsciously attracts us more. This type of book makes you become a witness of some great historical event and again, you will see the balance between information and narration. Sometimes a covert trial is even created using this method.

The best historical novels that you cannot miss:

Africanus. The Consul's Son, by Santiago Posteguillo

The Valencian author began to excel with the first installment of the trilogy Africanus . In the son of the consul he travels to Rome in the 3rd century BC. There, he sees how Scipio was born and skillfully mixes a strong work of historical documentation with an adventure story.

The novel offers us an incredible field full of possibilities. Posterguillo has a great capacity to recreate historical times in a very vivid way. Also, to give light to characters that help us to overcome topics of the historical vision. It doesn't matter if the characters really existed or not. The fundamental thing for Santiago Posterguillo is his very well achieved balance between narration and information.

The First Man of Rome, by Colleen McCullough

We go a little further back, but we highlight a novel that continues to be one of the favorites of the readers of historical novels in Spain. With this work, McCullough manages to combine in a very attractive way the purest fiction with the classic sources. It has thus created an addictive reading that has survived to this day.

The cursed land, by Juan Francisco Ferrándiz

This 2018 novel transports us to the Barcelona of the 9th century. It is a medieval historical epic recreated in an unusual city. It is set in a place of no more than 1500 inhabitants that is being ruled by the Franks. The administration is done at a distance, while it is depressed by the attempts of conquest by the Saracens. It is a novel of revenge, love, betrayal and ambition.

New trends in historical narration

The best historical novels of today seem to have a kind of generic hybridization. This trend is dominating the narrative that is coming into our hands today. An example is combining, within the characteristic historical style, a bit of fantasy. This has happened, for example, in the series of novels written by Lindsey Davis, where the novel of ancient Rome is combined with the fantastic saga A Song of Ice and Fire, by author George RR Martin.

Even this last author adds a bit of historical documentation within the fanciful cut of his saga. The same occurs with The Cathedrals of Heaven, by Michel Moutot. In his novel, adventures are combined with a social and intimate narrative and historical documentation.

Traditional versus modern storytelling

The historical novel is a work where you can see represented a time from the past through the narration of events, the characters and the characteristics of their lives in that period. In its beginnings, the historical novel only reconstructed the past to form a kind of national identity. Therefore, even the characters were treated with great veracity and little was left for the author's creation.

The coexistence of fictional and historical elements, the location of history at a specific moment and the temporal distance from the time that we can see represented and the present, are still there. However, in recent historical novels you can see a new look at the past where, at times, we can even question our own history.