How does the past affect our present? It’s a question we find ourselves faced with time and time again, so it’s no surprise that it comes up in historical fiction, too. It is the genre of the past after all. But in dual-timeline historical fiction novels like these, it also explores the present.
The ways in which dual-timeline novels can connect multiple characters and stories through time are forever fascinating to me. I love how their structure can slowly unravel mysteries, reveal motivations, or connect events you never would’ve expected. These five dual-timeline novels, where past meets present, feature stories of revenge, stories of hauntings, and stories of desperation. Every single one of them explores a different take on how the past and present can inform each other in novels and maybe even in life.
Crocodilopolis by John Manuel Arias
The eldest son of a powerful political family in Costa Rica is plotting his revenge. He was primed for greatness, but then his younger brother, Osario, betrayed him. Now, years later, Seth is determined to make him pay. As he journeys from his new home-in-exile in Washington, DC, back to his childhood home, Seth remembers their early years growing up in Costa Rica, the dark family secrets they hid, and the double crossing that changed his life forever. Now, he’ll return, ready to feed his brother to the crocodiles—literally.
The Forgotten Midwife by Laura Anthony
Split between present-day and 1950s Ireland, The Forgotten Midwife is the story of women forced into religious institutions and those lost to Ireland’s “mother and baby homes.” Even as her wedding approaches, along with the prospect of joining a large family, Riley can’t help but mourn how little she knows of her own family, especially with her grandmother battling the late stages of dementia. A birth certificate for an unknown baby born in 1950s Ireland sends her off on a wild hunt for answers. The search takes her back through the generations to a young woman forced to fulfill her family’s commitment to the church at the Home for Fallen Girls.
Japanese Gothic by Kylie Lee Baker
A samurai in exile in late nineteenth-century Japan sees an omen that she knows must foretell her family’s doom: the face of a young foreigner in her window. A college student seeking refuge at his father’s new house in Japan doesn’t remember the night he killed his college roommate, but he knows something is as wrong with him as it is with this house. Why else would he be haunted by the vision of a woman wielding a sword every night? One of the two of them is a ghost, but only one of their stories is true.
Past Tense
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Under the Ghost Moon by Lyn Liao Butler
From the days of the White Terror in Taiwan, when martial law ran rampant, to Kauai in the present day, Under the Ghost Moon reveals a horrifying family history. It’s only after her brother drowns that Joey Zhang discovers her mother’s journals and the secrets her older brother had been keeping from her all her life. The biggest secret of all: the truth about the day their parents died. With the help of her brother’s friend Ethan, Joey begins to uncover the truth about her family’s past. But when the truth is this painful, uncovering it will take strength Joey never knew she had.
May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry
This debut novel from poet Rebecca Perry follows a curator who dresses up historical buildings to help people relive the past. Her work in the private quarters of a medieval palace soon has her utterly transfixed with a king that history has almost completely forgotten. The youngest of three brothers, the king was never meant to take the throne. It was only the untimely deaths of all his older brothers that left him as the heir apparent. Now, rumors of his unsuitability for the job threaten to unseat him after he’s only just been crowned.
Explore even more books with expansive timelines:
Dual-Timeline Historical Fiction Novels
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