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Every book addict knows the feeling. You finish the final words of your latest read — maybe wipe a tear away, maybe end with a satisfied smirk — and pause to reflect on the wonders you’ve just experienced. As you’re reminiscing on plot twists and character developments, though, another feeling starts to sink in, one that’s slightly less pleasant: the realisation that you’ll never adventure with these people and their story for the first time again. You’ll never know the excitement and the curiosity of that world beginning to build up, shrouding the real one around you. You’ll never have that first laugh or that first cry.
Thankfully, there is one solution to this issue: series. How can you be heartbroken about never hanging out with a character in their world again when (surprise!) there’s five more books to read? Yes, inevitably the heartbreak will creep up by the end of the final title, but we’d never turn down the chance to stall it for just a few more books.
As, we believe, historical fiction is the queen of genres when it comes to series to explore, here’s a roundup of some of our favourites:
The Caldwell Girls Series
This week, we released the very first in our latest historical fiction series, Taking Heart. In it, Rowena Summers introduces us to the Caldwell family, whose three leading ladies — Imogen, Elsie and Daisy — will have you cancelling plans to keep up. When the Caldwell family falls on hard times and WWII approaches, the three sisters must adapt to the changing world around them and forge their own path. There’s love, there’s drama, there’s unimaginable loss, and once Taking Heart has stolen your heart, there’ll be two more titles to stoke the fire of your obsession with the Caldwells in Daisy’s War and The Caldwell Girls (coming later this year!).
This series starts off with The Girl from Poor House Lane, where we meet Kate, a struggling single mother left reeling from the loss of her husband. When an opportunity to better her son’s life arises, she must choose how far she’ll go to provide for the one she loves. The following titles, The Child from Nowhere and The Woman from Heartbreak House, stick with Kate as she finds love, loses love, navigates family relationships and fights for happiness. The Poor House Lane Sagas are a roller coaster ride of heartwarming books that will thrill you as much as they break your heart.
The Hardie Family Series
Another one of our series we just can’t get enough of is The Hardie Family Series by Anne Melville. The House of Hardie gives us Midge, Gordon, Lucy and Archie: four people from two different families who have everything they could need, yet yearn for something different. Moving between Oxford and China, we’re sent on adventures of love and ambition, while also battling the complex class structures of the Victorian era. And, as a bonus, we can’t complain about the captivating female leads doing their best to smash the patriarchy they’re stuck with. Luckily, the second title in the series, The Daughter of Hardie is already up for pre-order, with the third, The Hardie Inheritance, on its way later this year.
If you’re looking for a saga that focuses on community life, this is the one for you. In the first title, The Girls of Mulberry Lane, we’re introduced to Maureen Jackson and Peggy Ashley, two women doing their best to find true love and keep their families happy in wartime London. They go on to experience marriage, birth, betrayal and death all while new faces stir things up on their little street in East London. The Mulberry Lane Series follows the Jackson and Ashley families for five books into the thick of WWII and beyond as they navigate motherhood, new jobs, and an ever-changing array of fascinating neighbors.
These classic wartime stories all take place in the delightful St David’s Wells, a Welsh seaside town that has no shortage of drama. From the declaration of war to the welcoming home of the soldiers, the Holidays at Home series tackles engagements, tragic accidents, local gossip and tourist-trade quarrels. Though the characters change throughout, you’ll fall in love with the little village and all of its inhabitants through each of the six books.
As always, thank you for reading, and be sure to tweet us @AgoraBooksLDN with your favourite historical fiction series!
