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Ok #bookstodon I'm looking for some niche reading recs here: Can you suggest a #horror or #thriller novel that is also #historicalfiction?
Preferably #queer too, but not required.
ldeally set in a time period medieval or earlier, though open to others.
They say you have to read what you want to write, but what I want to write is hard to find!
Feel free to boost, thanks.
@sevmunro The Paris Express is set in 1895, but it checks a few of your boxes. Great book!
@lrt_writes Thank you for the rec! People keep suggesting Emma Donoghue to me. I should probably read one of her books and this sounds like a good place to start.
@sevmunro
Not medieval or strictly historical but the nearest I can think of would be Hawksmoor by Peter Ackroyd.
For non-queer how about The Name Of The Rose?
@floppyplopper Both new to me. Thanks for the suggestions!
@sevmunro
Maybe you're also not familiar with Edith Pargeter who wrote the Brother Cadfael series as Ellis Peters, CJ Sansom's Shardlake series, or Maurice Druron's Accurséd Kings series. I can't vouch for Peters or Sansom although I know they're popular. I've read one of Druron's and not exactly my thing but clearly good writing.
Reading this back I realise it's not a great cultural mix. but I'll leave it in.
The Map Of Salt And Stars by Zeyn Jhoukhadar matches your spec perfectly. Zeyn is transmasculine author, two stories run side-by-side medieval cartographer Muhammad al-Idrisi's surveying of his map of the world and the Syrian refugee crisis.
My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk, set in Istanbul 20 years after the Ottoman defeat at Lepanto.
The Legends Of The Condor Heroes trilogy by Jin Yong. Not exactly historical fiction but written in the wuxia style, arguably China's oldest literary style and set around the period of the Mongol Conquest.
The Forty Rules Of Love by Elif Shafak. Concerns Rumi and Shams Tabrisi, Rumi's tutor and "companion".
That's all I can think of right now. Happy reading.
@sevmunro
Ryūnosuke Akutagawa. Short story writer, mostly horrific, mostly set in historical China or Japan.
@sevmunro
Our Hideous Progeny, CE McGill (victorian)
The Mercies, Kiran Millwood Hargrave (17th century Norway)
The Red Palace/The Forest of Missing Girls/The Silence of Bones, June Hur, all set in different periods from 1400-1800 Joseon (Korea)
@sevmunro
i’m picky and i like all of these. 