I have already advocated for Hilary Mantel's most popular and very critically acclaimed novel Wolf Hall and its sequel Bring Up the Bodies. And as if you needed another reason to check them out, the BBC is adapting them with Damian Lewis as Henry VIII, and there is a stage adaptation on Broadway, so you need to read them before they reach total pop culture saturation. Plus volume three in the Thomas Cromwell trilogy is expected to be published in 2015.

When you've completed that task, dive into the rest of the Hilary Mantel oeuvre, which includes her incredible collection of short stories The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher, published earlier this year. She has plenty of other novels and short story collections to check out, as well as a one-volume memoir, but of greatest interest to me is her historical fiction account of the Reign of Terror, A Place of Greater Safety. Everything I've read of heard about it makes it sound like something I would love, and if Wolf Hall is any indication, Mantel has a pretty firm grasp on historical fiction.