Set Sail with these Historical Fiction Novels Set on the High Seas

Hanne comes from a family of Old Lutherans in nineteenth-century Prussia, where worship must be done in secret and their community is under constant threat. But while a journey to Australia could mean safety for her community, it will also have devastating consequences for Hanne and her new friend Thea, a kindred spirit who accepts Hanne for who she is. Cramped quarters and a raging typhus epidemic on board mean that even if the community makes it to Australia, they’ll never be the same.

This novel in prose tells the story of the last slave ship brought illegally to America in the 1860s, long after the United States had outlawed the importation of enslaved people though not slavery itself. From the horrors of the Middle Passage to swamplands along the Alabama river, African Town tells the story of the 110 men, women, and children kidnapped from Benin who would eventually go on to establish a community of survivors after the Civil War.

The stories of a dairy maid who runs away to a bustling naval port to work as a lady’s maid to an eccentric woman and a teenager pressganged into naval service intertwine in this tale of the dangerous allure of the sea. It’s a story of love, identity, and survival.

What’s more fun than a pirate story? How about a pirate story about a kidnapped chef forced to cook elaborate meals on the high seas? Renowned chef Owen Wedgwood only has one hope of surviving the pirate Mad Hannah Mabbot and that’s by cooking the most exquisite food every seen aboard a pirate ship every Sunday without fail. The larder might not be well stocked, but if Wedgwood wants to survive his new pirate life, he’ll have to make the best meals of his life.

This novel tells the story of the Viking exploration of the North Atlantic from the perspective of a daring woman, Gudrid. In a time when the old Norse gods are still invoked even as Christianity gains favor and the sea is the only gateway to the rest of the world, Gudrid and other Viking explorers voyage into the unknown, from the northern ice fields to the shores of North America.

With Spain in the grips of civil war, a group of refugees embark on a treacherous journey through the mountains and to the ocean where a ship chartered by Pablo Neruda waits to usher them across the Atlantic. For Roser, a pregnant young widow, and an army doctor named Victor Dalmau, a life of exile in Chile offers new hope even as the rest of the world breaks out into war. It’s a story of hope, exile, and belonging set against the backdrop of the Spanish Civil War and World War II.