Historia’s September 2018 giveaway is the first of three Crowns shortlist specials. Win all six books shortlisted for the 2018 HWA Debut Crown Award, showcasing the best new voices in historical fiction.
Just follow the instructions below to enter. You’ve got four chances to win and can enter using any or all of the options:
1. Sign up to the Historia mailing list. We promise not to send you spam and will never sell our mailing list. Current subscribers can just confirm below.
2. Follow us on Twitter
3. Tweet about this giveaway
4. Visit our Facebook page
And the winner is… Terry Rudge! Congratulations, Terry, your books will be on their way to you soon.
More about the books:
The Optickal Illusion, Rachel Halliburton (Gerald Duckworth & Co Ltd)
It is 1797 and in London, nothing is certain anymore: the future of the monarchy is in question, the city is aflame with conspiracies, and the French could invade any day. Amidst this feverish atmosphere, the American painter Benjamin West is visited by a dubious duo comprised of a blundering father and vibrant daughter, the Provises, who claim they have a secret that has obsessed painters for centuries: the Venetian techniques of master painter Titian.
West was once the most celebrated painter in London, but he hasn’t produced anything of note in years, so against his better judgment he agrees to let the intriguing Ann Jemima Provis visit his studio and demonstrate what she knows. What unravels reveals more than West has ever understood about himself, the treachery of the art world, and the seductive promise of greatness. Rich in period detail of Georgian society, The Optickal Illusion demonstrates the lengths women must go to make their mark on a world that seeks to underplay their abilities.
The Sealwoman’s Gift, Sally Magnusson (Two Roads)
1627. In a notorious historical event, pirates raided the coast of Iceland and abducted 400 people into slavery in Algiers. Among them a pastor, his wife, and their children.
In her acclaimed debut novel Sally Magnusson imagines what history does not record: the experience of Asta, the pastor’s wife, as she faces her losses with the one thing left to her – the stories from home – and forges an ambiguous bond with the man who bought her.
Uplifting, moving, and witty, The Sealwoman’s Gift speaks across centuries and oceans about loss, love, resilience and redemption.
The Lightkeeper’s Daughters, Jean E. Pendziwol (W&N)
Elizabeth’s eyes have failed. She can no longer read the books she loves or see the paintings that move her, but her mind remains sharp and music fills the vacancy left by her blindness.
When her father’s journals are discovered on a shipwrecked boat, she enlists the help of a delinquent teen, Morgan, to read to her. As an unlikely friendship grows between them, Elizabeth is carried back to her childhood home – the isolated lighthouse on Porphyry Island, Lake Superior – and to the memory of her enigmatic twin sister Emily. But for Elizabeth, the faded pages of her father’s journals reveal more secrets than she anticipates and provide the key to a moment she has never understood. The day when she found a grave, marked with her own name…
The Woolgrower’s Companion, Joy Rhoades (Chatto & Windus)
Australia 1945. Until now Kate Dowd has led a sheltered life on her family’s sprawling sheep station but, with her father’s health in decline, the management of the farm is increasingly falling to her.
Kate is rising to the challenge when the arrival of two Italian POW labourers disrupts everything – especially when Kate finds herself drawn to the enigmatic Luca Canali.
Then she receives devastating news. The farm is near bankrupt and the bank is set to repossess. Given just eight weeks to pay the debt, Kate is now in a race to save everything she holds dear.
The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, Stuart Turton (Raven Books)
‘Somebody’s going to be murdered at the ball tonight. It won’t appear to be a murder and so the murderer won’t be caught. Rectify that injustice and I’ll show you the way out.’
It is meant to be a celebration but it ends in tragedy. As fireworks explode overhead, Evelyn Hardcastle, the young and beautiful daughter of the house, is killed.
But Evelyn will not die just once. Until Aiden – one of the guests summoned to Blackheath for the party – can solve her murder, the day will repeat itself, over and over again. Every time ending with the fateful pistol shot.
The only way to break this cycle is to identify the killer. But each time the day begins again, Aiden wakes in the body of a different guest. And someone is determined to prevent him ever escaping Blackheath…
Estoril, Dejan Tiago-Stankovic (Apollo)
Set in a luxurious grand hotel just outside Lisbon, at the height of the Second World War, Estoril is a delightful and poignant novel about exile, divided loyalties, fear and survival.
The hotel’s guests include spies, fallen kings, refugees from the Balkans, Nazis, American diplomats and stateless Jews. The Portuguese secret police broodingly observe the visitors, terrified that their country’s neutrality will be compromised.
The novel seamlessly fuses the stories of its invented characters with appearances by historical figures like the ex-King Carol of Romania, the great Polish pianist Jan Paderewski, the British agent Ian Fleming, the Russian chess grandmaster Alexander Alekhine and the French writer and flyer Antoine de St Exupery, who forms a poignant friendship with a young Jewish boy living alone in the hotel.
See the shortlists for the HWA Sharpe Gold Crown and Non-Fiction Crown and look out for more gorgeous giveaways in the next few weeks!
