#TopTenTuesday Historical Fiction Featuring Real Historical Figures #TuesdayBookBlog

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl.

The rules are simple:

  • Each Tuesday, Jana assigns a new topic. Create your own Top Ten list that fits that topic – putting your unique spin on it if you want.
  • Everyone is welcome to join but please link back to That Artsy Reader Girl in your own Top Ten Tuesday post.
  • Add your name to the Linky widget on that day’s post so that everyone can check out other bloggers’ lists.
  • Or if you don’t have a blog, just post your answers as a comment.

For this week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic we’re invited to pick a genre and build a list around it.  My favourite genre being historical fiction, I’ve picked Historical Fiction Featuring Real Historical Figures. Links from the title will take you to my review.

  1. Queen Macbeth by Val McDermid – Gruoch, the real Lady Macbeth
  2. The Endeavour of Elsie Mackay by Flora Johnston – pioneering female aviator, Elsie Mackay,
  3. Precipice by Robert Harris – Prime Minister Herbert Asquith and socialite Venetia Stanley
  4. The Instrumentalist by Harriet Constable – violinist Anna Maria della Pietà and composer Antonio Vivaldi
  5. The King’s Mother by Annie Garthwaite – Cecily Neville, Duchess of York
  6. Agricola: Invader by Simon Turney – Roman general Gnaeus Julius Agricola
  7. Diva by Daisy Goodwin – opera singer Maria Callas
  8. A Tapestry of Treason by Anne O’Brien – Constance of York, Lady Despenser
  9. The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng – author W. Somerset Maugham
  10. The Chosen by Elizabeth Lowry – author,Thomas Hardy

My Top 3 July 2025 Reads

I read eight books in July, the same as last month and close to my customary reading rate. Here are the three I enjoyed the most. Links from each title will take you to my review or the book description on Goodreads (mostly the latter as I’m behind with reviews).

Check out all the books I’ve read so far in 2025 here. If we’re not already friends on Goodreads, send me a friend request or follow my reviews.

My thanks to Swift Press for my copy of Green Ink and Mantle for The Art of a Lie via NetGalley.


Five Stars

There Are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak (Viking) – the brilliantly realised tale of three characters living alongside two rivers, centuries apart, who are linked by a single drop of water and an epic poem

Green Ink by Stephen May (Swift Press) – the story of Victor Grayson, the real life firebrand socialist MP turned secret-service informant who vanished without trace one night in late September 1920

The Art of a Lie by Laura Shepherd-Robinson (Mantle) – an enthralling historical mystery set in Georgian London

What were the best books you read last month? Have you read any of my picks?