Historical fantasy has appeared in my life at unsuspecting moments. These novels have transformed me, drove a deep knowing within, made me question myself, and allowed me to give in to the nagging urge to write.
It all started when I walked into Comparative Literature 101 and lingered on the professor. He was small in stature, but, as I would learn, mighty in experience. He passed out the syllabus, and on it was a novella that shaped my literary world — forever.
The following five historical fantasy novels and novelists helped shape me as a writer.
Novel 1: Aura by Carlos Fuentes
Carlos Fuentes’ beautiful, dark novella Aura showed up in my life that first day of university in 1989.
I fell hard the moment I met Felipe Montero and experienced the magical realism that permeated Latin American literature at the time. It was the first of five timeless historical fantasy novels I’d come to cherish.
Having grown up in a very Conservative, religious household, books on my childhood reading list were restricted. Fuentes proved to be my first step into the sweeping world of literature. And, after that, I never turned away from it in any form.
From there, I discovered a love for Rosario Castellanos, Gabriel García Márquez, and the art of Frida Kahlo — which opened me to a realm of imagination and experience I didn’t understand, but really wanted.
Aura opened the door to history and a fantastical dance, that, together, tell amazing tales — and lead me to the next life-changing read.
Novel 2: The Kin of Ata Are Waiting for You by Dorothy Bryant
In my mid-20s, I spent most of my days in the cozy corners of a bookstore in Spokane, Washington. It became my escape from a whole lot of mental stress happening in my life. A year earlier, I’d been on the news staff in a little town in Illinois the night our colleague was murdered. We spent weeks reporting on it, and I had never really dealt with the impact even after taking a job working the police beat at the Spokane newspaper.
I was a mess. Reading let me disappear.
One afternoon, I picked up Dorothy Bryant’s The Kin of Ata Are Waiting For You. This novel took me on a journey deep into dreams and creativity, breaking out of the bad place I’d worked myself into and discovering the magic of having a rich inner life. It came to me at the right moment, and I knew I wanted to write novels like it.
Then, came another that made me reconsider.
Novel 3: Labyrinth by Kate Mosse
In terms of what drove me into the writing, there’s one novel I refer to time and again: Labyrinth by Kate Mosse.
Discovering it was like discovering the holy grail (and not because it’s about the holy grail). It was my first experience with a dual timeline format, and I was hooked.
It blew my mind that I could have a modern timeline character AND one with its own historical POV.
Mosse thrills us with Alaïs and her Medieval life in Carcassona. This brutal, compelling narrative is balanced by the modern world of Dr. Alice Tanner, who’s on a dig in the Languedoc and discovers the secrets of the Holy Grail along with her relation to Alaïs.
My love of archeology and grail lore tossed me into the deep end. I became an eternal Kate Mosse fan.
Following that, I went on a years-long binge of dual narratives with strong female leads.
Novel 4: The Eight by Katherine Neville
I NEVER expected to love The Eight by Katherine Neville. It’s about chess. Not my thing.
However, nuns hiding magical chess sets from Charlamagne is definitely my thing. And North Africa is definitely my thing. So, I started reading.
The dual timeline gets right into the thick of things in the historical timeline. Nuns murdered, ancient oaths, French kings . . . Swoon! The modern timeline, and its unusual starting point in Algeria in 1972, thrilled me.
I’d never read a novel based in that time period, much less one with a cool, mystical historical timeline. Cat and her search for the fabled Montglane chess service turned me into a thriller lover.
And that’s when the Sibyls arrived at my doorstep.
Novel 5: Azazeel by Youssef Ziedan
About ten years ago, while sitting around the diner table with a dear friend from the Middle East, conversation turned to Hypatia of Alexandria. We debated late into the night, tossing back coffee after coffee.
Was she something more than the historical record makes of her?
Both of us knew she must have been extraordinarily powerful to run the Neo-Platonic School in Alexandria. Yet, neither of us could reconcile the missing pieces.
I left with my head buzzing. For months after, I read everything I could get my hands on about Hypatia and the women surrounding her at that epic turning point in the history of the world. The Sibyls and their prophetic powers showed up over and over again. Then, one day, my friend handed me a book.
Azazeel by Youssef Ziedan transformed the way I viewed Hypatia and the root of good and evil in a way that has shaped everything I write — even today.
The novel, which follows a Coptic monk and his obsession with Hypatia along his route from Alexandria to Syria, started my obsession with Arabic literature. It is truly one of the most provocative examinations of faith, greed, and corruption of the mind.
From there, Hypatia and the Sibyls took on a new meaning for me. It sparked the driving force of my writing life and what would become The Sibylline Chronicles.