Bits and pieces of historical fiction news

Writing frequent pieces about books, brief reviews included, involves a lot of multitasking. At any given time, I’m typically reading one novel for review, finalizing the content for another before turning it in by the deadline, and serving as the editor for others’ reviews. Within the last few weeks, in addition to finishing up three reviews myself, I’ve been developing questions and working on intros for two upcoming author Q&As.

On top of that, I completed my service as a 2nd round judge for the Historical Novel Society’s 2026 First Chapters competition, which covered scoring and providing constructive feedback for fifteen entries, and wrapped up editorial work on the May issue of Historical Novels Review (plus my full-time librarian job). It has been an interesting but dizzying experience, shifting among multiple assignments within a short period of time. I have two more reviews to do by the end of April, so I’m not quite done yet with this reading marathon.

In other news:

My starred review of Maggie O’Farrell’s Land (Knopf, June) is out in Booklist’s April issue. I enjoyed her Hamnet and loved The Marriage Portrait, yet Land is even better. Opening on an isolated peninsula in western Ireland in 1865, and focusing on one family’s endurance of the tragic legacy of the Great Hunger and their deeply engrained, quasi-mystical relationship with their homeland, it feels like the novel she was born to write, and one only she could have written. One of her main characters is based on an ancestor who created maps for Britain’s Ordnance Survey in Ireland.

 

The Walter Scott Prize shortlist for 2026 has been announced, with five historical novels in contention for the £25,000 prize:

The Pretender by Jo Harkin (Bloomsbury, UK/Knopf, US) - a pretender to the English throne during the Wars of the Roses
The Matchbox Girl by Alice Jolly (Bloomsbury UK/US) - a nonspeaking young woman with autism in 1930s Vienna
Benbecula by Graeme Macrae Burnet (Polygon, UK; Biblioasis, Can/US) - the aftermath of murders in remote 19th-century Scotland
Once the Deed Is Done by Rachel Seiffert (Virago, UK; no US edition) - secrets pervade a refugee camp in 1945 northern Germany
Seascraper by Benjamin Wood (Viking, UK; Scribner, US) - an unusual guest arrives in coastal northern England in the early ‘60s

All five are written by British authors, and the winner will be announced on June 12. This is a prestigious and well-funded prize. I haven’t read any of the five yet. In the past, I’ve had mixed luck with reading the winners and finalists; some I found superb (Hilary Mantel), while others felt too self-consciously literary for me.

I read Colin Mustful’s (publisher, History Through Fiction) Substack about the cost of running a historical fiction conference with interest. The first HTF conference, which was promoted as a small, intimate event, recently took place in Beverly, Massachusetts, and virtually. As the volunteer who handled finances and registration for the first four Historical Novel Society North American conferences (2005-11), I recognize many of the sentiments expressed in the post: a lot of hope that “if you build it, they will come!” plus a big initial learning curve, significant coordination and planning, and a diverse set of expenses. I’ve read many positive reports from attendees.

The New York Times has a feature article on Titanic fiction (gift link) by novelist Donna Jones Alward, whose latest, Ship of Dreams, fits the category. I remember a mini-trend of Titanic novels appearing in 2012, alongside the 100th anniversary of the ship’s sinking, and the subject continues to grab readers’ attention. Among the ones on her list, I’ve read The Titanic Survivors’ Book Club, about a quirky mélange of individuals in pre-WWI Paris who have the distinction and good luck to have missed boarding the fatal voyage, and can recommend it.

And also from the NYT, an interview with Nelio Biedermann (gift link), whose debut novel Lázár (Summit/S&S, 2026) is a saga about an aristocratic Hungarian family. The author is a 22-year-old Swiss undergraduate student, and I hope to read the book in due course.