How strangely unnerving and comforting that, despite the chasm – in time, culture, context, and geography – that separates us from the past, the stories of people who have walked the earth before us are familiar to our own. What do we have in common with a young girl stealing books in Nazi Germany or a young woman married off to an Italian Grand Duke? Novels set in the past often feel like fantasy; a character’s circumstances are so wildly different than our own, yet their reality – even if fictionalized – recounts hard truths about our history and lays bare our humanity.

Historical fiction is a window into the past and a mirror of our lives and reality. Here’s where you can start if you want to dip your hands into some historical fiction.