(Sadly I cannot recommend my own book, The Lotus Queen!) A partial answer, but the only historically based fiction I have read recently is the Storyteller's Tale by Omair Ahmad. It is a short but rewarding novella which transports you back to exotic India in a simple but powerful way. There are however a wide variety of historical books out there right now by authors such as I. Sundaresan and Chitra Divakaruni.