The Historical Writers’ Association (HWA) is delighted to announce the winners of the 2025 HWA Crown Awards, celebrating the best in recent historical writing, fiction and non-fiction!
The winners of the Gold Crown for fiction, the Non-fiction Crown and the Debut Crown were revealed on Wednesday, 19 November, at an awards party at Crypt on the Green, a historic building in Clerkenwell.
We’d like to thank the authors and publishers for their submissions. It’s been another exciting year for new historical writing, both fiction and non-fiction.
We’re also extremely grateful to this year’s judges for their dedication and hard work. With so many excellent books submitted, it’s always a major commitment, and narrowing them down to one winner is never easy.
The winners of the HWA Gold, Non-fiction and Debut Crown Awards, out of another year of impressive shortlists, are:
The HWA Gold Crown Award 2025
The winner of the 2024 Gold Crown Award is: The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry (Canongate Books)
Louise Hare, chair of the Gold Crown judges, said: “Such a wonderful book, weaving the harsh realities of life in 1890s Montana with an epic love story. It’s written in a style that feels unique to Barry, never forced and always interesting.”
The shortlisted books for the Gold Crown were:
The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry (Canongate Books)
Shy Creatures by Clare Chambers (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
Small Bomb at Dimperley by Lissa Evans (Doubleday)
The Maiden of Florence by Katherine Mezzacappa (Fairlight Books)
Hold Back the Night by Jessica Moor (Manilla Press)
Time of the Child by Niall Williams (Bloomsbury)
The HWA Gold Crown Award judges for 2025 are: Louise Hare (chair), Ellen Alpsten, Maggie Brookes, Mark Ellis, Louise Fein, Alison Joseph, Amy McElroy, Frances Quinn, Carolyn Kirby and Linda Porter.
The HWA Non-fiction Crown Award 2025
The winner of the 2024 Non-fiction Crown Award is: Moederland by Cato Pedder (John Murray)
Annie Whitehead, who chairs the Non-fiction judging panel, said: “The judges felt that the innovative approach, focusing on nine related women who were in turn related to the author, gave depth and interest to what is also a comprehensive history of a nation. The connection enhanced the story, adding layers of personal history to the national story. With women’s history at its heart it also presents a well-researched and balanced picture of a troubled, and at times turbulent, country, and is an absorbing read.”
The shortlisted books for the Non-fiction Crown were:
Lionessheart by Catherine Hanley (The History Press)
The Endless Country by Sami Kent (Picador)
Demon of Unrest by Erik Larson (William Collins)
Naples 1944 by Keith Lowe (William Collins)
Storm’s Edge by Peter Marshall (William Collins)
Moederland by Cato Pedder (John Murray)
The HWA Non-fiction Crown Award judges for 2025 are: Annie Whitehead (chair), Lucy Lethbridge, Ned Palmer, Ros Taylor and Francis Young.
The HWA Debut Crown Award 2024
The winner of the 2024 Debut Crown Award is: A Poisoner’s Tale by Cathryn Kemp (Bantam)
Ayo Onatade, chair of the Debut Crown judges, said: “The winner of the HWA Debut Crown not only evoked a profound sense of place and intrigue but the geography, local culture and historical period all intertwined to produce this well written and inseparable tragedy based on a true crime.”
The shortlisted books for the Debut Crown were:
The Wicked of the Earth by AD Bergin (Northodox Press)
The Instrumentalist by Harriet Constable (Bloomsbury)
Nephthys by Rachel Louise Driscoll (Harvill Secker)
Winter of Shadows by Clare Grant (Black Spring Crime)
A Poisoner’s Tale by Cathryn Kemp (Bantam)
Spitting Gold by Carmella Lowkis (Doubleday)
The HWA Debut Crown Award judges for 2025 are: Ayo Onatade (chair), Dan Bassett and Susan Heads.
Commenting on this year’s Crown Awards, HWA Chair Imogen Robertson said: “We are delighted to be celebrating historical writing tonight. The winners are all by turn thought-provoking, entertaining and brilliantly written. Also the superb range and quality of the short- and longlists demonstrates how the past can continue to reflect, inspire and inform the future. These are works of great imagination, deep research and fresh thinking and we are delighted to be able to wholeheartedly recommend them all.
“Huge thanks, as always, to our judges, who spend many hours reading, championing and choosing these fantastic books.”
Would you like to know more about the background to Cathryn Kemp’s winning novel, A Poisoner’s Tale? Read her Historia feature, Giulia Tofana: poisoner, murderer, saviour?
See more about the 18 books shortlisted and 36 books longlisted for the awards this year.
The HWA Crown Awards for 2026 will be open for entries in the Spring. We’ll publish details nearer the time.
The awards party
We announced the awards at a party held to celebrate the HWA Crown Awards and HWA Dorothy Dunnett Short Story Competition winners.
It was a cold and windy night, but the warm atmosphere at Crypt on the Green in Clerkenwell made up for it. The ceremony started with giving awards to the highly-commended and shortlisted short story authors.
(Left to right:) Joe Dragovich, Alex Edwards (highly commended), Sophie Lenoir, Elaine O’Connor (shortlisted), Betty Moxon from the Dorothy Dunnett Society, and Imogen Robertson. Unfortunately, the winner, Sean Lusk, was at another awards do in Scotland — collecting the prize for the Saltire Book Award for Fiction for A Woman of Opinion, so we forgive him.
Next, Ayo Onatade announced the winner of the HWA Debut Crown, Cathryn Kemp. Here are Imogen, Ayo and Cathryn.
Annie Whitehead handed the HWA Non-fiction Crown Award to Cato Pedder, seen here with Annie and Imogen on the left.
The winner of the HWA Gold Crown, Kevin Barry, was at home in Ireland and couldn’t join us, but he sent a lovely speech to be read out.
We’ll end with a photo of Cato and Cathryn holding their awards, safely boxed for the journey home.
All photographs by Fatima Mian.
The party also saw the launch of the Dorothy Dunnett Society and Historical Writers’ Association Short Story Competition 2025 anthology, now available as a paperback or ebook. All six shortlisted, highly commended and winning stories are in it.
