I’ve read all of Jennings’ books and there’s a lot more going on than pedophilia … but I must say there’s a lot of it. The Journeyer is my favorite, but Raptor is also good. Spangle is probably the tamest in terms of Jennings’ penchant for sex and gore.
For a different sort of historical novel, you might try Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier, based on a painting by Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer.
I’ve read all of Jennings’ books and there’s a lot more going on than pedophilia … but I must say there’s a lot of it. The Journeyer is my favorite, but Raptor is also good. Spangle is probably the tamest in terms of Jennings’ penchant for sex and gore.
For a different sort of historical novel, you might try Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier, based on a painting by Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer.
I’d recommend The Conspiracy by John Hershey (a novel in the form of letters and intelligence reports concerning a conspiracy against Nero) and Let the Emperor Speak by Allan Massie (a novel in the form of the diary of Augustus). Both are quite good. I’m not sure whether they’re still in print, unfortunately.
I’d also recommend Shaara’s The Killer Angels. A wonderful novel, but one that unfortunately one that doesn’t follow history very closely.
Seabiscuit - An American Legend.
It’s actually non-fiction but it’s an astounding piece of storytelling. I didn’t think I’d like it since I’m not a horse racing fan by any stretch, but it immediately won me over.
The following titles by Nigel Tranter:
The Bruce Trilogy: The Steps to the Empty Throne, The Path of the Hero King, and The Price of the King’s Peace
The Montrose Omnibus: The Young Montrose and Montrose the Captain-General
The Wallace
High Kings and Vikings
…and those are just the ones I’ve read. Tranter was a respected historian who took the true events and people from Scottish history and presented their lives as novels rather than dry historical texts. Within a framework of factual history, he would fill in the spaces with conversations and possible minor events between what is known in the historical record. And he did it pretty well, too.
<i>Cloudsplitter</i> by Russell Banks, a fictionalized account of the life of John Brown.
[Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally] YES YES YES OH GOD YES [Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally]
I LOVED THIS SERIES! And what’s wonderful is that it’s a novel about real people. I thought it was just a novel set in Ancient Rome, until I started doing Google searches on Sulla and Gaius Marius.
If you want a romantic time travel, try the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon. Set in Scotland at the time of the Jacobites…a truly yummy series.
I will second Norinew’s nomination of The Journeyor by Gary Jennings. That was one fine book. I would have suggested Raptor or The Aztec by the same author but they seem less involved with real history as we have read it than the previous one. Both of those stories only historical part are the place names and some of the names of the Villains. The rest of those stories were pure fiction.
I loved I, Claudius and Claudius the God too.
If you are willing to go into the historical fiction genre and aren’t too worried about the accuracy of the main characters I would also suggest Umberto Eco’s In The Name Of The Rose.
About the same time that the other kids took interest in faux-historical authors like Tokien, I started reading a long-dead, out of print and forgotten author named Lawrence Schoonover. He set his novels in exotic places like Constantinople and Trebizond, with plenty of background information about their societies. It really ruined me for fantasy lit, since now I know plausibility does not rule out entertainment.
The Killer Angels is probably the best.
I enjoyed Gore Vidal’s Julian.
Parts of James Michener’s Centennial are pretty well ripped from the pages of history. Isn’t the Massacre at Rattlesnake Buttes chapter is almost a dramatization of the Sand Creek Massacre?
There a bunch of books that are ostensibly children’s books that nonetheless provide an accurate account of historical times and in some cases, real people, and are well written stories to boot.
Scott O’ Dell is by far the most prominent.
Island of the Blue Dolphins: Based on a true story. An Indian girl (Karana) is left behind on an island off the northern coast of the US.
Zia: This is supposedly a sequel to Island, and Karana does show up in it, but it’s really the story of Zia and other Indians’ experiences living in a Spanish mission.
Sing Down the Moon: The trail of tears told from the point of view of an Indian girl.
Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes: The American Revolution told through the eyes of an apprentice silversmith.
The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare: Religious intolerance in colonial America.
Lyddie by Katherine Paterson: Lyddie is a worker in one of the 19th centure Lowell textile mills.
Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan: Esperanza is a privileged Mexican girl force to flee with her mother to the US, where she ends up in the migrant farm camps of California’s Central Valley. Based on the true story of the author’s grandmother. This is so far the best children’s novel published in the 2000’s.
Sarum by Edward Rutherford. It is a fictional account of the history of the Salisbury Plain from the receding of the Ice through the 1980’s. It follows a handful of families’ lineage.
Well… This is stretching the OP a bit, but I’ll say The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas. It has a fair number of historical figures playing important roles (Buckingham, Anne of Austria, Richelieu, and Louis XIII most notably) but the main characters are more or less ficticious. (There was a real musketeer captain named Henri D’Artagnan, but my impression is that Dumas just borrowed the name for his character.)
The McCollough Rome books have lately gotten too trashy romance novel for me (I keep expecting Ayla and Jondular to show up).
In Cold Blood is wonderful.
Micheners books are pretty good. As are Uris’. I haven’t read them in years.
There is the wonderful “Tale of Murasaki” about the woman who wrote the first novel in Medival Japan.
I tend to prefer actual History to historical fiction. Alison Weir’s English History being my favorite.
You’re right, of course, that it’s not fiction, but I have to second your recommendation. I was also skeptical about this book, but now I recommend it whenever people start talking about good books. The problem is, I have a hard time actually convincing people to try it. The typical response: “Oh, horse racing? Yes, that sounds interesting!” – said in a trying-to-sound-sincere voice. I don’t know if anyone has in fact read the book on my recommendation. (Come to think of it, I started reading it only because my sister-in-law, who has recommended some great books to me in the past, actually put the book in my hands. If I’d had to go out to a library or bookstore to look for it, I probably would never have read it either.) Anyway, please, someone, try this book! You’ll be hooked from the beginning, and it just gets better. Strange as it may sound, it is a true page-turner.
I’ll be damned. Wracked my brain over that title just last night - remembered the whole story but not the title. Where were you then? 
I’m going to toss out James Michener’s books as a suggestion. He seems to put a massive amount of research into his books but I’m never sure if he’s accurate. Because of this I like to read them as a jumping-off point. Reading his description of Queen Liliu’o’kalani in Hawaii, for example, and then actually visiting I’olani Palace was … interesting … to say the least. Or reading Poland and then looking up historical figures on the web.
Amok’s mention of The Three Musketeers reminds me of a particularly pathetic period of my college career when I attempted to take an essay-form midterm in a French history class armed only with knowledge gained from Dumas. My prof gave me back the paper without a grade, only the comment “You do realize the Three Musketeers is fiction, yes?” and made me retake the midterm AND write a paper on the accuracy or lack thereof of D’Artangan and co. Nice professor. What can I say – it’s hard to stop reading Dumas once you get started.
Other historical novels:
Crazy Horse: Strange Man of the Oglala by Mari Sandoz. I think this book’s reputation suffers because for a while, it was promoted as “biography” which it clearly isn’t, it’s almost completely fiction. However, as a novel, it’s excellent, and it gives an accurate picture of Lakota life at the time, although the life of Crazy Horse in particular is purely speculative.
The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey. This is sort of a cheat, because it’s a modern day person researching Richard III, but it’s an excellent book so it’s always worthy of mention. I think it really sets the bar for historical mysteries.
Dorothy Dunnett has two series, The House of Niccolo and The Chronicles of Lymond that are quite likely the densest books ever written in the 20th century, and they’re extremely good and addicting once you get started on them. The main characters are fictional, but move around in a world of actual historical figures and events. Niccolo is 15th century, and Lymond is 16th, if memory serves.
Great suggestions! I gotta add Alan Furst’s “espionage noir” novels of eastern Europe in the 1930s and 1940s.
How did the thread get this long with a reference to Flashman, hmmmm?
And how did it go this far without a mention of Tolstoy’s War and Peace?