A Stroud author is in the running for the £25,000 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction.
The Matchbox Girl by Alice Jolly is one of five authors in contention. Her book will compete against The Pretender by Jo Harkin, Benbecula by Graeme Macrae Burnet, Once the Deed is Done by Rachel Seiffert and Seascraper by Benjamin Wood.
For the first time in its 17-year history, all the books on the shortlist announced by the Abbotsford Trust are by British authors.
The Walter Scott Prize celebrates quality of writing in the English language, and is open to novels published in the previous year in the UK, Ireland or the Commonwealth. Reflecting the subtitle ‘Tis Sixty Years Since’ of Scott’s famous work Waverley, the majority of the storyline must be set at least 60 years ago.
The Prize is managed by The Abbotsford Trust, the independent Scottish Charity responsible for Sir Walter Scott’s extraordinary Borders home, and is supported by Hawthornden Foundation and the Buccleuch Living Heritage Trust and Duke of Buccleuch, in memory of Elizabeth Buccleuch.
The judges said: “The five shortlisted novels for the 2026 Walter Scott Prize probe intimate lives lived in both small and big settings.
“Readers will hear voices usually unheard but which, once heard, won’t be forgotten.
“The shortlist choice is always difficult, but our authors each reveal the hidden, and in doing so offer new insights into our own times as well as the times in which their novels are set.
“Above all, our five authors are storytellers, so if you like a good story, the 2026 Walter Scott Prize shortlist is one you won’t want to miss.”
The winner will be announced at the Borders Book Festival in Melrose on June 12.
