The Historical Writers’ Association’s Goldsboro Debut Crown recognises new talent in writing. An important and prestigious award, it’s watched keenly by those who love historical fiction. This week the 2016 winner is announced as Cecilia Ekback for her Nordic noir thriller Wolf Winter.
At the awards ceremony Philippa Gregory was also recognised with an Outstanding Contribution to Historical Fiction Award for novels such as The Other Bolyn Girl, The White Queen, and others.
Ekback will receive £1,000 prize money for what is described as an atmospheric and impressive debut. The award judges stated that they were unanimously impressed by Wolf Winter, plunging the reader into Swedish Lapland, 300 years ago.
Described as dark and powerfully written and an outstanding debut, it seems Wolf Winter is a worthy winner of the award. Wolf Winter is already seeing great sales, and readers will soon be looking for the next big novel from this new writer.
An old hat on the other hand is Philippa Gregory who won the Outstanding achievement award. In recent years Gregory’s name has been synonymous with accurate historical fiction and joins previous recipients Michael Morpurgo (2015) and Bernard Cornwell (2014) in the accolade.
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