Gritty Historical Fiction - Christchurch City LibrariesLike this list

15 items

• The Mercies

  a Novel

  Hargrave, Kiran Millwood, 1990-

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  Life in 1700's Stockholm was unpleasant to say the least. Amidst all of the debauchery, drunkenness, power plays, and privilege, life is cheap, and that is the world that our two early detectives work within to solve a grisly case of a mutilated…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Wolf and the Watchman

  Natt och Dag, Niklas, 1979-

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  Brutal, violent, bloody, and ultra-real, and absolutely stunning descriptive writing that leaves nothing behind, this story is not for the squeamish! Life in 1700's Stockholm was unpleasant to say the least. Amidst all of the debauchery,…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• McGlue

  Moshfegh, Ottessa

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  A sailor awakens in the hold of the naval vessel on which he's been serving. Accompanying him is the worst hangover he's ever had and no knowledge of how he got into this position. What comes out of this is a sporadic tale of love, murder, violence,…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The North Water

  McGuire, Ian

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  Laying bare the grim and brutal life on board a whaling ship in the 19th century in all its horrific glory. A murderous man seeks passage to escape his fate and causes a shift in the culture of the whaling ship he's aboard. Dark, violent, and very…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Sound

  a Novel

  Drummond, Sarah, 1970-

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  A confronting and unsanitized tale set across 1800s Aotearoa, Van Diemen's Land, and Western Australia. Our hero is Wiremu Heke, who after a clash of tribes, travels across the seas in the company of a crew of sealers. The group makes their way from…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Blood Meridian

  Or, The Evening Redness in the West

  McCarthy, Cormac, 1933-2023

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  The vivid and very real violence of the border between Mexico and America is brought to life here by one of the best storytellers alive today. The indigenous population of America are being routinely slaughtered and the country is ruled by violence…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Revenant

  a Novel of Revenge

  Punke, Michael, 1964-

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  A survivalist story set in the American wilderness during the fur trade in the early stages of the 19th century. A tracker is left for dead after a grizzly bear attack. He struggles to survive, regain his mind, but driving him is his desire for…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Luminaries

  Catton, Eleanor, 1985-

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  A complex and intriguing mystery, set against the frontier wilds of gold-rush era West Coast. Catton weaves the threads between characters with mastery, and a kind of staged theatricality, and the connections between the story and the movements of…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith

  Keneally, Thomas, 1935-

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  The Man Booker shortlisted Australian classic of a young indigenous man responding to the injustice and humiliations heaped upon him by white Christians in late 1800s New South Wales. It stands today as a mirror to intolerant society.

• How Much of These Hills Is Gold

  Zhang, C Pam

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  In the dying years of the California Gold Rush, two siblings find themselves orphaned and alone, roaming an unforgiving landscape in search of a place to bury their father. Brutal and beautiful in equal measure, this sweeping epic calls into…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Glorious Exploits

  Lennon, Ferdia

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  Glorious Exploits follows two young, unemployed potters in ancient Syracuse as they goad and bully a crowd of starving, imprisoned Athenians into performing theatre for their entertainment. Told in unexpectedly modern vernacular, we see the horrors…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• James

  a Novel

  Everett, Percival, 1956-

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  The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn gets a compelling and necessary retelling in this striking novel by Booker Prize winning author Percival Everett. Through Jim's eyes, we see modern-day America in its infancy, the horrors of slavery, racism and war…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Sparrow

  Hynes, James, 1955-

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  Sparrow is a boy of unknown origin, raised in the kitchen of a brothel at the edge of the Roman Empire. Through his eyes, we see the horror and brutality of life for slaves, prostitutes' and those on the edges of society. Vivid, graphic, and…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Days Without End

  Barry, Sebastian, 1955-

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  A young Irish man and his best friend emigrate to the U.S, during the Civil War period, where they sign up to the army and take to the battlefield. They are thrown in to the carnage and horrors of war but also fall in love. They must then find their…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Harvest

  Crace, Jim, 1946-

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  Harvest is set in a remote village in an unspecified time, but the story is one that resonates throughout history. When the villagers wake to find their masters, building have suffered from a fire and some newcomers have set up camp in the…Read moreRead more of this annotation