The Best New Family Sagas in Historical Fiction

Last Updated: July 18, 2023Tags: Family saga, Historical fiction, Regency Era

Interesting Newcomers

I like a big book. As a teen, my bookshelf was piled high with James Michener, Mary Stewart, Herman Wouk, Colleen McCullough, M.M.Kaye and more. But I have a special soft spot for family sagas. Unfortunately for me, no one seems to be writing books like the Forsyte or Pallisers sagas these days.

Perhaps readers have less time to immerse themselves in lengthy tomes, or maybe simple economics are a factor for authors. Anyone with the skills to research and write a high quality historical family saga could easily churn out half a dozen light romances in the same amount of time.

Whatever the reason, it’s not easy to find a historical family saga centered on fictional characters. More common by far are fictionalized retellings of history, like Cynthia Harrod-Eagles’ endless Morland Dynasty series, and many others recreating the lives and power struggles of royal families.

Lately, I’ve also noticed a tendency to slap the ‘family saga’ label on any multi-book light romance series with each volume dedicated to a member of the same family. What’s the difference between these and a traditional family saga? In a word: Scope. Learn more about the characteristics of great family sagas here.

Bridgerton propelled a new swathe of readers into the Regency romance genre, which only a few years earlier seemed to have faded from favor. Authors responded with a ton of light romances revisiting the familiar tropes, many of them deliciously fun to read.

Long before the current trend, author Beatrice Knight was buried in research for an ambitious historical family saga with a Regency Era-Napoleonic Wars backdrop. It took five years to finish Alverstone and sketch out its sequel, The Three Graces. In an interview we’ll post to coincide with the audiobook release, she laughs: “…my editor thought I was nuts. I could have written ten cute romances for the time it took!”

The result is one of a small handful of Regency-set family sagas ever written. Running at around 180,000 words, Alverstone lays the foundations for a grandly ambitious series, as well as delivering a stand-alone feast of a book for readers with a passion for the era. I thought I was thoroughly versed in that history, but I had never heard of flea traps and did not know the French used poodles as war dogs.

Alverstone is rich with historical nuggets like those, and the author’s style is a rare joy: wryly observed, clever, funny, and perfectly pitched for the period. Regency tone has not been this well handled since since Georgette Heyer, and Ms. Knight serves subtext and dialogue with the refined, tongue-in-cheek swagger I normally associate with Jane Austen, herself.

Alverstone is not for the fainthearted. The audiobook is 20 hours long. From a few other reviews I’ve seen, it’s obvious that readers of light romance got a lot more than they bargained for when they clicked on a link to the ARC, as I did. To be fair, Alverstone opens in familiar romance territory, at a ball, where the author deftly introduces the heroine, all three of her suitors, and the male and female villains of the story – all at the same event. By the time I realized Alverstone was far more than the traditional romance I had expected, there was no turning back. I was in love with the book.

Coming from a small publishing house, Alverstone wasn’t launched with the hoopla big publishers can generate for the most insignificant titles. Maybe it could have been pitched more directly as a historical saga, but technically it does have a Regency romance at its core. I have a selfish interest in promoting it because I want to read the next one. So if you buy Alverstone and love it, please post reviews and tell your friends!

Worth Checking Out

The Cowgill Family Saga by Bill Kitson