The Pillars of the Earth

The Three Musketeers Alexandre Dumas

D'Artagnan arrives in Paris with nothing but a horse and outsized ambition, and within weeks is fighting duels alongside the most famous swordsmen in France.

The Last Kingdom Bernard Cornwell

A Saxon boy captured by Vikings grows up to fight for both sides, uncertain which he is -- and finds himself at the center of Alfred the Great's struggle to hold England together.

World Without End Ken Follett

Two centuries after The Pillars of the Earth, four children witness a secret murder in a Kingsbridge forest -- and the consequences pursue them across a lifetime and a plague.

Gone with the Wind Margaret Mitchell

Scarlett O'Hara survives the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the destruction of everything she knew -- through stubbornness, resourcefulness, and a refusal to accept that it is over.

The Mists of Avalon Marion Zimmer Bradley

The Arthurian legend retold through the eyes of its women -- Morgaine, Gwenhwyfar, the Lady of the Lake -- as the old ways of the Goddess give way to Christianity.