Having posted my last review of the shortlisted books for the 2013 Walter Scott Historical Fiction Prize, it is time for my feature in which I give my opinion of the books on the shortlist. I have to say that 2013 is another difficult year with several excellent historical novels on the list.

Let’s begin with the ones I didn’t like as well. Although The Daughters of Mars by Thomas Kenneally tells an interesting story about nurses in World War I, it keeps such a distance from its characters that you lose some interest in what happens to them. Merivel: A Man of His Time by Rose Tremain accomplishes the same thing with its semi-comic, mocking tone.

I became more involved in Toby’s Room by Pat Barker. An important consideration for this prize is how fully realized the period and place seem to be, and in this novel that goal was accomplished. It was also accomplished in The Streets by Anthony Quinn. These were both good, solid, and interesting historical novels.

By far the two best novels, though, were the winning book, The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng, and Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel. They both created an entrancing world for their characters and were beautifully written. When I sat down to write this feature, my intention was to choose The Garden of Evening Mists, probably because I had read it more recently. I posted my review of that book a few months ago and of Bring Up the Bodies way back in 2012. However, rereading my original review of that book made me remember how much I was impressed by it. Therefore, I find myself unable to choose between these two books. For this year, with quite a few good books to chose from on the list, I find that the most impressive were The Garden of Evening Mists and Bring Up the Bodies.

Having finally reviewed the last book on the shortlist for the 2011 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, it is time to write this recurring feature, where I give my opinion about which book I feel deserved the award.

This was a year with several entries that were unusual and one that I felt was not actually a very good novel. Let’s start with that one, To Kill a Tsar by Andrew Williams. This novel about a plot to assassinate Tsar Alexander II was presented wrapped around an unlikely and uninteresting love story. I was never sure whether I was supposed to feel sympathy for the plotters or not. I didn’t.

The winner for that year was The Long Song by Andrea Levy. Although this is an interesting novel about the last days of slavery in Jamaica, I felt it was somewhat distancing from its characters. However, this sad story is told with humor and lightness.

Heartstone by C. J. Sansome is an entry in his Matthew Shardlake series set in Tudor England. Although this series is outstanding for its thorough immersion in the Tudor world, this novel was impeded in its effectiveness, I thought, by the subplot involving Ellen Fettiplace.

C by Thomas McCarthy is an unusual story of the life of a young man, set in the early 20th century and ending during World War I. Again, this novel, which wanders about among many different pursuits of its main character, was interesting but seemed detached from its subject, as was I.

One of the most beautifully written entries for that year is Ghost Light by Joseph O’Connor. This is the story of the poet John Millington Synge and Molly Allgood. Characterization is more important in this novel than the historical setting, which I think is vital for a novel considered for an award for historical fiction.

That leaves one of my favorite books of all time, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell. This novel is set in 18th century Nagasaki, Japan, during the first opening of Japan to the West. Jacob de Zoet becomes one of the first Europeans to be allowed to set foot off the island called Dejima where all the Europeans are restricted to live. This novel was full of the flavor and customs of 18th century Japan as well as a good story about corruption in the Dutch East India Company.

Although several of the books on this year’s list are worthy of the award, my personal choice is The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet.

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.