The 2020 Costa Book Awards First Novel shortlist

Several months ago I posted about being a judge for this year's Costa Book Awards in the First Novel category and I've been aching to talk about all the great books I've been reading. Today I am thrilled to finally announce our shortlist! I've read so many debut novels in the past few months. Judging a book prize is like a full time job – although obviously I enjoy reading as much as possible so it's really a labour of love and it was such a pleasure discovering so many new voices amongst the submitted books. It was also wonderful conferring with my fellow judges novelist Jill Dawson and Debbie James, owner and manager of Kibworth Books. I wish I could gossip about heated arguments and falling out with each other, but honestly we got along brilliantly. They are such intelligent and sympathetic readers that it was really a joy discussing a huge range of novels with them. Given the circumstances we couldn't meet in person but we spoke for multiple hours over video call to discuss an incredible range of novels. Judges always say this, but it was honestly such a difficult decision when it came down to selecting certain books over others. I'm excited and proud to reveal the four novels we selected for the shortlist. 

The novels are “Big Girl, Small Town” by Michelle Gallen, “The Family Tree” by Sairish Hussain, “Love After Love” by Ingrid Persaud and “All the Water in the World” by Karen Raney.

We were absolutely unanimous in these choices. After having such an in-depth conversation about so many books we decided the best way to pick the shortlist was to each create a pile of four books off camera which we'd reveal to each other simultaneously. We did this and all three of us had picked the same four novels. So that decided it! I know there's often a lot of politics around book prizes and speculation about favour being shown to certain types of books, but we honestly picked these because of the strength of the writing and the power of their storytelling. Reading each of these four novels was a completely absorbing experience and I'd enthusiastically give them to any friend, family member or stranger to read.

You know I love following book awards. Since there are different categories for the Costas I get the best of both worlds with this prize as I've got to be a judge but I'm also delighted to see what books have been listed in the other categories. The full list has been published on the Costa Book Awards' website but I am especially thrilled to see Monique Roffey's novel “The Mermaid of Black Conch” shortlisted for the Novel Award. It's one of my favourite books that I've read this year and it's fantastic to see it receive this recognition. There are many on the other shortlists I'm eager to read over the Winter holidays including books by Susanna Clarke, Tim Finch, Julian Barnes, Rachel Clarke, Lee Lawrence, Rachel Long and others.

The winners in each category will be announced on January 4th. Also, between each category winner an overall winner will be announced on January 26th. Last year's overall winner “The Volunteer” by Jack Fairweather was an incredibly powerful true story about the resistance hero who infiltrated Auschwitz. So I'm excited to see which book is selected for this year's prize. In the meantime, I'm so excited to follow discussions about the shortlists and reader reactions to the First Novel category in particular. I hope you love reading them as much as I did. Let me know what you think in the comments if you've read any of these books or if you're interested in reading them. 

I'm Judging a Book Prize!

As many of you know, I enjoy following a lot of book prizes and I'm excited to share with you that I'll be judging a very popular book prize myself this year: The Costa Book Awards. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the format of the Costa Book Awards every year groups of judges select shortlists in five different categories which are Novel, First Novel, Biography, Poetry and Children's Literature. I will be a judge in the First Novel category which is great because I love debut fiction and discovering new voices. So I'll be involved in picking a shortlist and a winner for this category. I'm so excited about it, but it's going to be an interesting challenge too because this isn't just about picking my personal favourite book. I've been a judge on a number of book prizes before. They've all been quite different experiences but I've also had some of the richest, most involving discussions about books with fellow prize judges. Towards the end of the process it can get really difficult to choose between very different but equally great books but that's the point of the job. I'll be discussing the submissions with two other judges in my category for the Costas and we need to keep in mind the prize's guidelines. Last year's winner in the First Novel category was Sara Collins' “The Confessions of Frannie Langton” which I absolutely loved.

The guidelines for the prize which I'm keeping in mind while reading is that:

A ‘Costa’ book is a sparkling, eminently readable book with broad commercial appeal. Not esoteric; not so ‘beautifully-written’ that the story and characters got forgotten along the way. Just terrific, intelligent, readable books which (we hope) large numbers of people will want to buy, and read, and recommend to friends.

That's something I think Sara Collins' novel does perfectly and it's a book I've recommended to so many people. So this is a great standard to try to live up to.

I'm already reading some great novels that have been submitted for the prize, but – as you can probably guess – I won't be able to discuss any of the initial submissions here because that wouldn't be fair to the process of the prize or the publishers or authors. I'll still be reading other books over the next few months and publishers send me books all the time so I'll still be reviewing many of these I just won't be able to discuss them in the context of the prize or whether they've been submitted for the prize or not. But, later this year, I'll be very excited to talk about the short list we chose after the announcement is publicly made. And, no doubt, I'll talk about the books listed in all categories because over the years I've read a lot of great books that have been listed for the prize. So last year, in addition to Sarah Collins novel I also loved Mary Jean Chan's collection “Fleche” which was the Poetry category winner and Jack Fairweather's book “The Volunteer” which was the Biography category winner. And this book was also the overall winner of last year's prize because once the five category winners are chosen an overall winner is picked as well. (I won't be involved in this final process, but it'll be very exciting to follow.)

Way back in the year 2000 Zadie Smith won the first novel award for “White Teeth” and this award helped launch and establish her career. So it's an amazing opportunity for an author and I see judging it as a great responsibility. Also, more sentimentally, it means a lot to me that I'll be a judge on this prize because another previous winner from 2000 was the memoir “Bad Blood” by Lorna Sage. This obviously won the biography category in that year when this award was still called The Whitbread Awards. The name of the prize changed in 2006 when Costa Coffee became the sponsor of the awards. But the reason this book winning was so meaningful to me was that Lorna was my teacher at the time and I know it meant so much to her to win this award. And Lorna was one of the most inspirational teachers I ever had and she helped shape who I am as a reader. She introduced me to the books of writers such as Joyce Carol Oates and Angela Carter. So it feels really special to be involved in judging this prize and it's a great honour.

Watch this space. This is going to be great. The shortlists and winners will be announced later this year. I'm sure I'll be talking about it a lot more at that time and I hope you follow along and read along as announcements are made.

The 2019 Costa Book of the Year Winner

I’ve greatly enjoyed following the Costa Book Awards this year. The shortlist announcement at the end of November included recent favourite reads such as the poetry collection “Surge” and the novel “Starling Days”. It’s one of my resolutions this year to read more outside of my comfort zone of novels and with the multiple categories this prize includes it’s a great opportunity to explore other genres. So when the category winners were announced at the beginning of January I decided to read the poetry, biography and children’s books as well as the first novel award winner. I’m so glad I took the time to read them because I think “The Confessions of Frannie Langton” is such an inventive and mesmerising story. I also found the poetry “Flèche” collection to be so absorbing and moving. The only book I didn’t finish was the YA novel “Asha & the Spirit Bird” because I found the plot somewhat clunky (probably because I’m not the right audience for this form of book) though I enjoyed the characters and setting. However, I was completely gripped by the biography “The Volunteer” which recounts the story of a Polish resistance fighter who volunteered to be imprisoned in Auschwitz where he forged an underground army, sabotaged facilities, gathered evidence about Nazi war crimes and spread news of the Holocaust to the Allies.

I was lucky enough to have been invited to the Costa Book Awards ceremony last night. It was a glitzy affair with lots of lovely bookish people. And it was wonderful to see each of the category winners being awarded £5,000 on stage. Trying to judge books from these different categories against each other must be such a challenging task, but selecting an overall winner gives a good chance to celebrate literature across all genres. It was so difficult to guess but I had thought Sara Collins might win the award since a biography “The Cut Out Girl” won last year and several people I talked to felt the same way. However, “The Volunteer” was declared as the Book of the Year and author Jack Fairweather was awarded £30,000. I think this is a great decision. I know many people are hesitant to read more about WWII because it feels like it’s a portion of history which has been well covered. However, this powerful biography proves there are so many more unique and important stories to be told. Since I knew nothing of Witold Pilecki before reading this book it was also a very tense read because I had no idea what his fate would be so I was gripped till the end. It’s also poignant that this book won the prize this week because on Monday it was the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. I hope this award will encourage many other readers to pick up this tremendous biography.

The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins

I was first drawn to reading “The Confessions of Frannie Langton” after watching the author Sara Collins discuss it in such a compelling way on the first episode of The Big Scottish Book Club which aired on BBC Scotland last year. And I felt drawn to it again when it was recently listed for the Costa Book Awards (and won the First Novel category.) I'm so glad I finally got to it because it's an utterly captivating historical novel with a feisty and intelligent protagonist who has many secrets and an enthralling story to tell. 

The novel begins in the early 1800s where Frannie is on trial for the murder of Mr and Mrs Benham. As she waits in her prison cell she writes her account of what happened and describes her journey from being born a slave on a Jamaican plantation to working as a maid for the couple she's eventually accused of murdering. She describes horrifying scientific experiments that were performed on humans, the effects of laudanum addiction, the taboo of same-sex love and takes us into the seedy underworld of London's brothels. These elements result in a story that feels somewhere between the novels “Washington Black” and “Fingersmith” which, as far as I’m concerned, is very high praise! What draws all this together and makes this novel utterly unique is Frannie's distinct and convincing point of view. She makes shrewd observations about attitudes towards class and race as well as the nature of being, the meaning of literature and the complications of love.

Early in her life Frannie was taught to read and write for reasons that eventually become clear, but it wasn't for her own personal development. However, it awoke within her a love for literature and she craves the company of books whenever she has access to them. Naturally this makes her a sympathetic character and being well educated gives her the ability to record her own story where many people from her background could not. Yet, we also get the perspectives of numerous other characters through dialogue, the testimonies given in court and occasional accounts from various individuals which are inserted into the text. It's clever the way this shows how Frannie could sometimes use people's assumptions about her to her own advantage, but it's also heartrending in the way it reveals how many underestimated her or used her as a pawn in their own schemes.

Frannie tells a captivating and meaningful tale with a viewpoint that still has a lot of relevance today. I also can't think of another character I'd rather take for a drink and exchange books with so we can have long discussions about what we've read. This is such an impressive and memorable debut novel. I hope Sara Collins writes more in the future.