The best historical novels with interfaith love stories

Trespasses evokes the anguish of Northern Ireland during The Troubles through the story of a doomed love affair.

This is a heart-wrenching, complex novel full of startling emotional insights. It’s the 1970s in a small town outside of Belfast, and the stakes could not be higher: Cushla is a young, Catholic teacher and Michael is a married, Protestant barrister known for defending IRA members.

It’s unusual to read historical fiction by an author who actually lived in the same time and place that her characters do; I felt I was getting inside knowledge about a historical period I’ve always been interested in.

The Red Tent is about sisterhood and the ways aunties and mothers and daughters support each other.

It’s stunning visually; I read this book almost twenty years ago and can still conjure up the rangy desert and the dusky interior of the eponymous tent. Diamant offers a unique perspective on what was arguably the first Jewish/Gentile love affair, between the Bible’s Dinah, the only named daughter of the patriarch Jacob, and the Prince of Shechem.

It was the first Jewish historical fiction book I ever read and will always have special a place in my heart.

I used to moderate a book club for museum members at what is now the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Love Medicine was chosen by one of our exhibition artists. This astonishing debut is a masterwork about family, poverty, and passion.

The book is set where my grandparents came from, Minnesota and the Dakotas, and illustrates how settlers from Europe (my ancestors) continued to disrupt and destroy Native lives well into the 20th century. Ojibwe spiritual beliefs and Catholicism tangle as tightly as the characters that embody them. Spanning from 1934 to 1985, this novel should not be missed by anyone interested in Native American history.

Rose Teasdale is a young British woman in Churchill’s typing pool and Lazare Aron is a Jewish French Resistance fighter. They make for great company in this World War II spy novel.

When Rose is selected for the Special Operations Executive, a secret British espionage group, she is literally dropped behind enemy lines and into Lazare’s arms. Hlad is a meticulous researcher and elegantly incorporates the true history of Operation Jericho—an RAF bombing on a Nazi-held French prison near the end of the War—into a compelling love story.

I listened to the audiobook version of Churchill’s Secret Messenger while walking around my Northern California neighborhood one rainy pandemic winter, and really enjoyed Simon Vance’s rich narration.

I’d recommend this book to fans of The Notebook and serious history buffs alike.

Molly and Max are childhood friends who grew up across the street from one other in Toronto. They know and trust each other implicitly, so when an attraction develops between them as young adults, Molly and Max quickly tumble into love. What’s the issue? She’s Protestant, he’s Jewish, and Depression-era Canada is boiling with antisemitism.

Structurally, Letters Across the Sea is a classic World War II novel; Graham makes it stand out with loads of fascinating Canadian history and an unflinching look at the brutal conditions of the Pacific Front.