Top New England-based Historical Fiction Novels

This list features well-known and highly regarded historical novels set in New England, including Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, Connecticut, Vermont, and Rhode Island. It is organized by era, with links.

Colonial Era & Salem Witch Trials (1600s–1700s)

• The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne: The definitive classic of Puritan morality, guilt, and sin in 17th-century Boston.
• North Woods by Daniel Mason: A multi-century epic following the eccentric inhabitants of a single plot of land in western Massachusetts.
• The Heretic’s Daughter by Kathleen Kent: A harrowing, realistic depiction of the Salem Witch Trials told by a descendant of Martha Carrier.
• The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare: A beloved young adult story of a girl navigating the oppressive religious confines of late-1600s Connecticut.
• Caleb’s Crossing by Geraldine Brooks: An immersive look at early Martha’s Vineyard, detailing the relationship between a Puritan minister’s daughter and the first Native American graduate of Harvard.
• The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe: A dual-timeline story connecting a modern graduate student to a 1692 Salem healer.
• The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon: Inspired by the real diary of Martha Ballard, an 18th-century midwife solving a murder during a brutal Maine winter.
• Bound by Sally Cabot Gunning: Follows an indentured servant navigating personal liberty, love, and class boundaries in colonial Cape Cod and Boston.
• The Winthrop Woman by Anya Seton: Follows Elizabeth Fones Winthrop in early Massachusetts Bay Colony.

The American Revolution & 19th Century (1770s–1890s)

• Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes: An apprentice silversmith becomes a courier for the Sons of Liberty as the Revolution brews in Boston.
• A Girl Called Samson by Amy Harmon: Inspired by the true story of Deborah Sampson, a woman who disguised herself as a man to fight in the Revolutionary War.
• Little Women by Louisa May Alcott: The timeless, semi-autobiographical Civil War-era story of the March sisters growing up in Concord, Massachusetts. (Some may argue this isn’t classic “historical fiction” because it is set in the same era as it was written, rather than being a look back.)
• March by Geraldine Brooks: A Pulitzer Prize-winning novel that focuses on the March family patriarch as he faces the horrors of the Civil War.
• The Daring Ladies of Lowell by Kate Alcott: Captures the industrial boom of the 1830s through a young woman working in the cutthroat textile mills of Lowell, Massachusetts.
• Fortune’s Rocks by Anita Shreve: A turn-of-the-century seaside saga centered on an intense, scandalous romance at a New Hampshire summer estate.
• Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton: A bleak and tragic look at rural, turn-of-the-century life in a fictional, snowbound Massachusetts town.
• Wreck of the Gossamer by Shawn P. McCarthy: A sailor lost at sea sets a box adrift as his ship sinks. It eventually sends the woman who finds it on a continent-spanning quest of self-discovery.
• Rise to Rebellion by Jeff Shaara: Covers events leading to the American Revolution, including Boston.
• My Brother Sam Is Dead by Christopher Collier and James Lincoln Collier: A young-adult historical novel examining divided loyalties during the Revolution in Connecticut.
• A Hundred Summers by Beatriz Williams: Set in Rhode Island before the devastating hurricane of 1938.

The 20th Century (1900s–1970s)

• The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant: A heartwarming look at early 20th-century immigrant life in Boston, told through the reflections of an elderly Jewish woman.
• The Cider House Rules by John Irving: Set in rural Maine, this sweeping epic chronicles the life of an orphan boy and the doctor who mentors him.
• The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters: A poignant historical mystery following a Mi’kmaq family whose four-year-old daughter vanishes from a Maine blueberry field in 1962.
• A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving: A deeply spiritual, tragicomic coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of a 1950s and 60s New Hampshire town and the Vietnam War era.
• Local Honey by Shawn P. McCarthy: A story of America’s haves versus have-nots. It’s part love triangle, part class struggle, and part dreamy window into the lost New England of the 1950s.
• The Radcliffe Ladies’ Reading Club by Julia Bryan Thomas: Explores female independence, friendship, and societal constraints at Cambridge in the 1950s.
• The Stars Are Fire by Anita Shreve: Inspired by the devastating 1947 wildfires that swept through coastal Maine, focusing on a young mother’s resilience.
• Flight of the Sparrow by Amy Belding Brown: Based on the captivity narrative of Mary Rowlandson.

Best Overall Shortlist for New England Historical Novels

• Caleb’s Crossing
  • March
  • The Heretic’s Daughter
  • Johnny Tremain
  • The Winthrop Woman
  • The Frozen River
  • Fortune’s Rocks
  • Local Honey
  • A Hundred Summers
  • Wreck of the Gossamer
  • The Boston Girl