Last week I posted my last review of the shortlisted books for the 2015 Walter Scott Historical Fiction Prize. That means it’s time for this feature, where I give my opinion about whether the judges got it right.

The shortlist for 2015 is a tough one to like. There were seven books on the shortlist, but for various reasons, four of them just didn’t float my boat at all: Zone of Interest by Martin Amis, In the Wolf’s Mouth by Adam Foulds, Arctic Summer by Damon Galgut, and A God in Every Stone by Kamila Shamsie.

Of the other three nominations, Viper Wine by Hermione Eyre is the most inventive in approach and is well grounded in its historical background. Looking back at my review, I think I enjoyed it more than I remembered. The Ten Thousand Things, that year’s winner by John Spurling, is probably the book that most qualifies as literary fiction, and it certainly conveys both a historical context and a sense of time and place. It had such a detached viewpoint, however, that I was never fully engaged with it. For me, The Lie by Helen Dunmore was the most engaging, but of these three, it conveyed the least about its historical time. So, for this year’s prize, taking into consideration both how involving the book was and its reflection of its time and place, I guess I would have picked Viper Wine, with a plus for its wildly inventive approach.

I recently posted my last review of the books on the shortlist for the 2010 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. So, as usual, it’s time for my feature, If I Gave the Award, when I tell you if I think the jury got it right.

2010 was a strong year for historical fiction, and the shortlist reflects that. Of the seven books on that year’s list, I really enjoyed four of them, liked one other, and didn’t enjoy two others as much. Of the weakest entries, I felt that The Glass Room by Simon Mawer was cold and withdrawn, and I did not enjoy the subject matter of Hodd by Adam Thorpe, although it was effective at evoking the historical period. The Quickening Maze by Adam Foulds was interesting, but I still felt removed from the subject.

The strongest entries, in my opinion, were Sacred Hearts by Sarah Dunant, Lustrum by Robert Harris (published as Conspirata in the U.S.), Stone’s Fall by Iain Pears, and the winner, Wolf Hall by Hillary Mantel. Sacred Hearts, Lustrum, and Wolf Hall were best at evoking a sense of period and place, while Stone’s Fall had a great mystery.

If you follow my blog closely, however, you can probably guess which one I will pick. Wolf Hall was on my Best Books list for the year 2012. It is, in fact, one of my favorite books ever. So, I agree with the jury this time.