It’s a real honour to make Laury Silvers’ list of five ‘Seriously Historical’ historical novels. By this she means novels that ‘do history’ — do historian’s work, within the practical format of the novel.

Laury Silvers is the author of The Sufi Mysteries — exemplary of novels that do history, since Silvers not only draws on her previous scholarly work but pushes it further with the help of fiction. Fiction as a way to explore historical questions, fiction as a tool in itself.

Seriously Historical Historical Fiction

While you’re at Shepherd, you can catch up with my own list of five ‘Seriously Epic’ historical novels: Seriously Epic Historical Fiction. Or see Laury and I discuss our process in this joint interview by Julie Bozza: Interview with Bryn Hammond and Laury Silvers