Three novels for an alternate history Presidents' Day

It was with the greatest reluctance that I decided not to include a JFK conspiracy theory book on this list. I had several likely candidates picked out, but in the end I opted for straight up FICTION fiction.

Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter, Seth Grahame-Smith
This is probably the novel that first comes to mind when you think of a fictional alternate history American president, due to having recently been turned into a Tim Burton movie.

If you want to get technical about it, this is actually a secret history, not an alternate history. The core concept of Grahame-Smith's novel is that everything we know about Lincoln was true and actually happened, but that also he was hunting vampires in his spare time.

The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood
This may seem like an unlikely choice, given that there is no president as a character in the novel. But A) it's such an amazing book that everyone should read it because I swear it gets more relevant every day, and B) Atwood's dystopic Gilead Republic was created during a bloody coup that happened on - you guessed it - Presidents' Day.

Crazy right-wing religious nuts take over the government and revoke all of the rights of women and homosexuals. THAT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN. Oh, wait.

The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
Arguably Dick's finest novel, the alternate timeline begins with the assassination of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933. America fails to pull out of the Great Depression, the Allies lose WWII, and the next thing you know, Nazis are in control of the entire world.

This amazing, intricate work of fiction includes a popular novel about an alternate history in which the Allies won WWII, uses the I Ching as a literary device, and employs a nested series of illusory worlds that is nothing short of mind-blowing.

Cover image copyright Margaret Atwood/MacLellan and Stewart, courtesy Wikimedia Commons