Lady of Lincoln Wins Gold in the 2026 Readers’ Favorite International Book Awards
LADY OF LINCOLN has won the 2026 Readers’ Favorite Gold Medal for Fiction - Historical, Personage
I’m delighted to share some wonderful news: Lady of Lincoln(by me, Rachel Elwiss Joyce) has won the Gold Medal in Fiction – Historical – Personage in the 2026 Readers’ Favorite International Book Award Contest!
It’s a particularly lovely award to receive because Lady of Lincoln began with a real woman whose story had, for centuries, been pushed to the margins of history. I’m honoured that my writing is bringing her to the fore.
A prestigious award
Readers’ Favorite is one of the world’s largest book-review and award organisations. Its annual competition attracts thousands of entries from around the world, from independent authors to major bestsellers, with books judged within more than 140 individual categories.
And this year, Lady of Lincoln took Gold in Historical – Personage! (One of only two historical categories).
I’m really very, very thrilled!
The woman behind the novel
Nicola de la Haye was no fictional heroine; she was hereditary constable of Lincoln Castle, a major landholder in her own right, and later became England’s first female sheriff. Her life spanned one of the most turbulent periods in medieval English history. She lived through rebellion, royal power struggles and civil war, and repeatedly defended Lincoln Castle against those who sought to take it from her.
Most famously, in 1217, she held the castle through a prolonged siege while a French-backed rebel army occupied much of Lincoln itself. The battle that followed became one of the decisive moments in the struggle for the English crown.
Yet Nicola remains far less well known than many of the kings and noblemen whose lives intersected with hers, which is one of the reasons I wanted to write Lady of Lincoln.
Maybe one day she’ll feature on a bank note. She deserves it.
“One of the greats in this genre”
But writing about an historical character in fiction is far more than just saying what happened. It’s bringing her, her struggles, her loves, and her conflicts to live.
And the Readers’ Favorite reviewers have been extraordinarily generous about the novel, so it looks like I did bring her to live - at least for them!
One described Lady of Lincoln as:
“one of the greats in this genre”
Others praised Nicola’s “indomitable spirit” and the novel’s depiction of a woman who must rely not on battlefield prowess, but on intelligence, resilience and sheer determination to survive and lead.
Those comments mattered enormously when I first received them. Seeing the book now awarded the 2026 Gold Medal makes them feel even more special.
And, most importantly, thank you, readers!
Awards are wonderful—but books ultimately live because people read them. So thank you to everyone who has bought Lady of Lincoln, read it through Kindle Unlimited, listened to the audiobook, posted a review, recommended it to a friend, or written to tell me that Nicola’s story stayed with you.
When I started writing about a medieval woman many readers had never heard of, I had no idea how widely her story would travel. Since then Lady of Lincoln has sold many thousands of books and had many millions of page reads.
Nine hundred years after Nicola de la Haye earned her place in history, people are still discovering her. I think she would have rather liked that.
Lady of Lincoln is available in paperback, ebook, Kindle Unlimited and audiobook.
