Rachel is a writer from Arkansas, most at home surrounded by forests and animals much like a Disney Princess. She spends most of her time writing stories and playing around in imaginary worlds. You can follow her writing at rachelbrittain.com. Twitter and Instagram: @rachelsbrittain
We love to talk about underrated books here on Book Riot. From the best books you’ve never heard of to books that are criminally underrated on Goodreads, we Rioters just can’t stand it when a book doesn’t get its due. We never want you to miss a great book—especially just because you never heard about it.
Books can be underrated for all sorts of reasons. Maybe they didn’t get the buzz they deserved. Maybe they were mismarketed. Maybe they were overshadowed by bigger releases. Maybe they had a small release and never found the right audience. Whatever the reason, just because a book hasn’t been shelved on Goodreads or reviewed on Storygraph doesn’t mean it isn’t a good book. It just means not enough of the right people have found it yet. I think that’s very much the case with these six books. Some of them are a little niche, yes, but what do historical fiction readers love more than learning about a little-known period of history?
Alright, we’ve got that settled. Let’s talk numbers. I’m classifying “underrated” historical fiction as a book with fewer than 1,000 ratings on Goodreads and/or 500 reviews on Storygraph. Why the difference? Well, Storygraph doesn’t track the number of users that have shelved a given book as “read,” so I’m using their review tally as a comparable statistic to Goodreads’ “ratings” number. Because Storygraph includes all number ratings in their “reviews” category regardless of whether a written description is included, while Goodreads distinguishes between “ratings” and written “reviews,” the two numbers make for a reasonable comparison.
The number of Goodreads users versus Storygraph users also skews the number of Goodreads ratings higher, which is why you’ll notice a sizable difference between the two. Storygraph surpassed four million users in April 2025, but that’s still a pretty small number compared to Goodreads’ approximately 150 million users (as of February 6, 2025, according to The Guardian). You’ll see the difference in numbers, but I think it’s clear to see that these books aren’t as well-known as they should be, regardless of which book tracking site you use. Since you’re reading this list, maybe that’s about to change.
Summer Will Show by Sylvia Townsend Warner
Goodreads ratings: 964
Storygraph reviews: 250
An upstanding Victorian woman sends her husband and his mistress away to Paris in order to raise her children in peace, but when both children die, she winds up following them on the eve of revolution. It’s a choice that will change her life forever.
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Rachel is a writer from Arkansas, most at home surrounded by forests and animals much like a Disney Princess. She spends most of her time writing stories and playing around in imaginary worlds. You can follow her writing at rachelbrittain.com. Twitter and Instagram: @rachelsbrittain
Three Novels of Ancient Egypt by Naguib Mahfouz
Goodreads ratings: 475
Storygraph reviews: 39
From a story of the legendary Khufu’s reckoning with his prophesied end to the love story of Pharaoh Merenra II and Rhadopis, the Nobel Prize-winning Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouz traces back through Egypt’s extraordinary past.
That Could Be Enough by Alyssa Cole
Goodreads ratings: 731
Storygraph reviews: 425
This novella by one of my favorite (historical) romance authors explores the lives of two Black women in the early years of the United States, not long after the Revolutionary War. One, Mercy Alston is working as a maid for Eliza Hamilton, the widowed wife of Alexander Hamilton, who preserved much of his writings and historical legacy. The other, Andromeda Stiel, is a dressmaker who’s come to the Hamilton house to give the account of her grandfather’s experiences with Alexander Hamilton during the war.
Mademoiselle Revolution by Zoe Sivak
Goodreads ratings: 861
Storygraph reviews: 277
When the daughter of a wealthy white plantation owner and an enslaved woman flees the violence in Haiti for France, she has no idea she’s trading one revolution for another. But France is a country on the brink of radical change as the populace grows increasingly disillusioned with the inequality of the status quo. As a mixed woman, Sylvie appears to some—such as the intoxicatingly eloquent Robespierre—the image of what freedom and France should strive to be. It’s his mistress, Cornélie Duplay, however, who helps Sylvie to see what she herself would like to be. This is a gorgeous historical fiction novel I’ve been recommending for years, and I was honestly shocked to see how few ratings it had on Goodreads. Readers, you’re seriously missing out if you don’t read this one!
The Rebel Nun by Marj Charlier
Goodreads ratings: 974
Storygraph reviews: 190
Marj Charlier’s medieval novel is based on the true story of a sixth-century nun, Clotild, the daughter of a king and his concubine, who led her convent into a rebellion against the unjust misogyny of the medieval church. When a bishop tries to take control of Clotild’s nunnery in her stead, she escapes the convent and leads a group of uncloistered nuns on a march to beg the help of her royal family. It was never meant to be a battle, but when things turn bloody, Clotild and her sisters find themselves forced to fight for their place in the church.
The Parihaka Woman by Witi Ihimaera
Goodreads ratings: 783
Storygraph reviews: 104
As the government of New Zealand continues to confiscate Māori land for white settlers throughout the late nineteenth century, people in the peaceful town of Parihaka in Taranaki realize they’ll have to fight back. One of them, a woman named Erenora, will have to risk everything to protect her home and save the man she loves, her exiled husband, Horitana. It’s an important look into the colonial past of Aotearoa New Zealand.
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