The longlist for the 2025 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction has been announced today! Thanks to this prize, I have discovered lots of great books and authors and always look out for the longlists and shortlists; in fact, trying to read all of the shortlisted titles since the prize began in 2010 is a personal project of mine (you can see my progress here).
There are twelve books on this year’s longlist and here they are:
The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry (Canongate)
The Catchers by Xan Brooks (Salt)
Mother Naked by Glen James Brown (Peninsula Press)
Clear by Carys Davies (Granta)
The Mare by Angharad Hampshire (Northodox Press)
The Book of Days by Francesca Kay (Swift Press)
The First Friend by Malcolm Knox (Allen & Unwin Aus)
Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon (Fig Tree)
A Sign of Her Own by Sarah Marsh (Tinder Press)
The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller (Sceptre)
Munichs by David Peace (Faber)
The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden (Viking)
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I haven’t read a single one of these, which I think is a sign of how far away this prize has moved from the sort of books I’m naturally drawn to (which is fine – I’m always happy to step out of my comfort zone and try different things) and also a focus on books from small independent publishers that may not have had a lot of attention. There are at least some that I’m aware of and that I know have been getting good reviews – The Heart in Winter, Clear, Glorious Exploits, The Land in Winter and The Safekeep – but I haven’t even heard of some of the others. I’ll have to investigate!
The shortlist will be announced in April and the winner will be chosen in June at the Borders Book Festival in Melrose. Obviously I won’t have time to read all of these before the shortlist is revealed, so if you can recommend anything in particular please let me know.
She Reads Novels 
The Heart in Winter was one of my favourite books last year!
That’s good to know! I’ve seen some other very positive reviews of that book as well, so I’ll definitely try to read that one.
Glorious Exploits is truly original and made me research a piece of history I knew absolutely nothing about and made me book a holiday to Syracuse!
Great – I’ll look forward to reading it. A holiday to Syracuse sounds very appealing!
I have read a review of The Land in Winter (from Susan @alifeinbooks) which made me want to read it
It does sound interesting and I’ve enjoyed other books by Andrew Miller so I’m hoping I’ll like that one too.
I read The Safekeep which was okay but not wonderful.
I would like to read it but I think some of the others on the list sound more appealing.
I haven’t read any of these either which is unusual. I’ve heard of about two thirds from reviews and, like you, will investigate further.
I’ve usually read at least two or three of them! The judges never really seem to go for mainstream titles, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing as it encourages me to pick up books I might otherwise have overlooked. I don’t think I’ll get through many of these before the shortlist announcement, though.
I haven’t heard of any of these except for The Safekeep. It’ll be interesting to see which book wins.
It’s always hard to predict what will win! I’m hoping to read at least a few of these books before the shortlist comes out.
I’ve only heard of First Friend.
I hadn’t heard of that one until now, but it sounds interesting. It doesn’t seem to be available in the UK yet, though, which is annoying!
Lol–I run into that all the time reading UK bloggers–not out in the USA yet, or, a few times, it has had to be published under a different title which is just as annoying!
I DNF The Safekeep, which is the only one I’ve tried from this list, so not a great start for me! There’s a couple others I’d definitely skip due to previous bad experience with the writer or seeing poor reviews. But there are a couple I haven’t heard of at all which could be amazing!
I thought about reading The Safekeep last year when it was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, but didn’t get round to it. I would like to try it but not as a priority. Some of the other books on this list sound more appealing to me at the moment.
I read far less historical fiction than you but I’ve usually read at least one or two on the longlist – not this year! And I’ve only heard of two – Clear and The Land in Winter. I wonder if they’re longlisting lots of books that haven’t been published yet (which always annoys me)?
Considering that I do read a lot of historical fiction, I’m always surprised by how many books I’ve never even heard of on these longlists! The Malcolm Knox book only seems to be available in Australia at the moment, which is annoying.
Hello Helen, I have not heard of any these, so I can’t recommend any of them, however I hope you will enjoy stepping out of your comfort zone with some of these.
Blessings, Jessica 💌
Thank you! I’ve only heard of a few of these and only because I’ve noticed them on other blogs. I’m not sure how many of them I will actually read!