In Beatriz Williams' new novel, Under the Stars , a mother and daughter are drawn into an 1840s mystery by the discovery of a cache of paintings. Below, the best-selling author of Husbands and Lovers and The Summer Wives names works that have shaped her own.

'The Aubrey-Maturin novels' by Patrick O'Brian (1969–2004)

Among its manifold dazzling virtues, O'Brian's 20-volume saga of a Royal Navy captain and his ship's surgeon so effortlessly evokes life aboard a warship during the Napoleonic era, and the humanity of those aboard, that you experience the story as the characters do. I'm rereading the entire series for the fifth time since I picked up Master and Commander as an undergrad, and my reaction remains the same: This is how you write historical fiction. Buy it here .

'Pers

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