BVBook Verdict

If you liked

Books like My Cousin Rachel

Loved My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier? Here are 10 books with a similar appeal — drawn mostly from history, ranked by how confidently we'd recommend them next.

10 books · ranked

  1. 1

    Sapiens

    Yuval Noah Harari · 2011 · History

    A sweeping history of humanity from the emergence of Homo sapiens in Africa to the present, arguing that what made humans uniquely powerful was the ability to create and believe in shared fictions — nations, religions, money — that allowed large-scale social cooperation impossible for other species. One of the bestselling non-fiction books of the 21st century.

  2. 2

    Guns, Germs, and Steel

    Jared Diamond · 1997 · History

    Why some societies came to dominate others, argued from geography rather than race; sweeping and influential.

  3. 3

    The Warmth of Other Suns

    Isabel Wilkerson · 2010 · History

    The Great Migration of Black Americans told through three unforgettable lives; monumental narrative history.

  4. 4

    Number the Stars

    Lois Lowry · 1901 · History

    Ten-year-old Annemarie Johansen and her best friend, Ellen Rosen, often think about life before the war. But it's now 1943, and their life in Copenhagen is filled with school, food shortages, and the

  5. 5

    The Longest Day

    Cornelius Ryan · 1901 · History

    A clear, well-researched, and very readable account of Operation Overlord as told by survivors. Skip the Ambrose book and read this instead.

  6. 6

    The red true story book

    Henry Justice Ford · 1895 · History

    Romanticized accounts of battles, conquests, shipwrecks, torture and other occasions for heroism. The stories are taken from a variety of sources, and a wide range of European history, and the sympath

  7. 7

    Five Little Peppers Midway

    Margaret Sidney · 1890 · History

    Pepper children, especially Phonsie, win over their hoity-toity cousin while taking joy in their mother's wedding.

  8. 8

    The Scarlet Plague

    Jack London · 1910 · History

    It is the year 2072, sixty years on from the scarlet plague that decimated the earth's population. As one of the few who knew life before the plague, James Howard Smith tries to impart what he knows t

  9. 9

    The world crisis, 1911-1918

    Winston S. Churchill · 1915 · History

    'A chronicle of World War I recounts the major campaigns, outlines the strategies forged by the generals, and details the beginnings of modern warfare. "Churchill was alive to his task with every nerv

  10. 10

    In Freedom's Cause

    G. A. Henty · 1884 · History

    At the turn of the fourteenth century in Scotland, young Archie Forbes becomes involved with both William Wallace and Robert the Bruce in the struggle for Scottish independence from English rule.

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