The saying goes, “Truth is stranger than fiction.” In my own writing, I have told my own true stories because I find them way more fascinating  and meainggful than anything I could ever make up!

I enjoy fiction of all kinds, though I’m extra curious about stories that are based on real people who have lived and actual events that have take place.

Fictionalizing true stories is a way to look at things through a different lens. I appreciate getting a glimpse into the emotional lives of characters who have been resigned to pages of facts in history books.

Here are some fascinating novels you may not have known are actually based on actual events and real people!

*Note: I’ve written the descriptions of these books based on general Google searching and the book synopsises on Goodreads. 

10 Unbelievable Novels Based on True Stories

Love and Other Consolation Prizes by Jamie Ford

Based on: A young boy who was raffled off as a healthy boy to a good home during the 1909 World’s Fair in Seattle

This is compelling story about a fascinating time in the world and U.S. history. It follows Ernest, the boy who is  the auction prize, on his journey to the U.S, and into his life in a brothel whose owner was the raffle winner.

Beneath a Scarlet Sky by Mark T. Sullivan 

Based on: Pino Lella, a 17-year-old Italian boy who led Jews escaping the Nazis over the Alps, and later became a spy inside the German Army.

This is an epic novel, intertwining history with a suspenseful story involving love and courage.

See What I Have Done by Sarah Schmidt

Based on: Lizzie Borden, who was the main suspect axe murders of her father and stepmother in Massachusetts in August of 1892, . Borden was tried and acquitted of the murders.

This novel retells one of the most fascinating murder cases in U.S. history into a fascinating story of family.

Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood

Based on: The 1843 murders of Thomas Kinnear and his housekeeper Nancy Montgomery in Canada. Kinnear’s two servants, Grace Marks and James McDermott, were convicted of the crime.

Atwood uses facts from previously published documents on the case and writes a complex historical narrative from Grace’s point of view.

The Good People by Hannah Kent

Based on: An Irish woman named Anne Roche who was tried and acquitted for the death of a young boy  by drowning him in a river. The woman’s defense was that she had been trying to banish the fairy out of the boy, implying that they believed him to be a changeling.

This is a fascinating story of three women who come together to rescue a child from a superstitious community.

The Perfect Nanny by Leila Slimani

Based on: A nanny who murdered two children in her care, in New York City in 2012.

This novel was originally published in French in 2016, then translated into English in 2018 and has become an International Bestseller. It’s a creepy, suspenseful novel at once both engaging and disturbing.

Little Deaths by Emma Flint

Based on: The case of Alice Crimmins, a single mother who woke one morning in 1965 to find her two children ages 4 and 5 missing from their locked bedroom. The children were later found dead.

This literary crime novel explores the capacity for good and evil in everyone, and the consequences of even the smallest of lies.

Girl Waits With Gun by Amy Stewart

Based on: Constance Kopp, one of America’s first female deputy sheriffs.

This is the first in a series of four historical novels that chronicle the life of a daring woman who became a deputy sheriff.

Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward

Based on: The author’s experience in Hurricane Katrina.

This is a gut wrenching look at life in a poverty stricken region of America, particularly during crisis.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil  by John Berendt

Based on: Actual events that occurred in the 1980s and is classified as non-fiction. Because it reads like a novel and rearranges the sequence of events in time, it is sometimes referred to as a “non-fiction novel.”

An incredibly  engaging  story a shooting in Savannah, Georgia with a remarkable cast of characters and a vividly atmospheric setting.