The Authors’ Club have announced the shortlist for their Best First Novel Award:
We are delighted to announce the shortlist for the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award 2013. The six books were selected by a panel of Club members after intense and wide-ranging debate.
“The more unanimity in a longlist,” commented the chair of judges, literary critic Suzi Feay, “the fiercer the fighting will be with the shortlist – over titles which we had already agreed are wonderful books… It’s less trouble electing a new Pope.”
The shortlisted titles are:
- The Marlowe Papers by Ros Barber (Sceptre)
- Absolution by Patrick Flanery (Atlantic)
- Tony Hogan Bought Me an Ice Cream Float Before He Stole My Ma by Kerry Hudson (Chatto)
- Mountains of the Moon by I J Kay (Cape)
- Seldom Seen by Sarah Ridgard (Hutchinson)
- The English Monster by Lloyd Shepherd (Simon & Schuster)
The six books were chosen, after intense and wide-ranging debate, from an exceptionally strong longlist, which included such outstanding contenders as The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce, Every Contact Leaves a Trace by Elanor Dymott, Alys, Always by Harriet Lane, The Panopticon by Jenni Fagan, A Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar by Suzanne Joinson and Ramshackle by Elizabeth Reeder.
There will be a reading from the shortlisted novels by their authors at Foyle’s bookshop, 113-119 Charing Cross Road, London, WC2H 0EB, on Wednesday 15 May.
The winner will be announced and the £2500 prize presented at a reception at the National Liberal Club on Monday 3 June by this year’s guest adjudicator, the acclaimed novelist Salley Vickers.
Longlisted titles that failed to make the cut:
Every Contact Leaves a Trace by Elanor Dymott (Cape)
The Panopticon by Jenni Fagan (William Heinemann)
A Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar by Suzanne Joinson (Bloomsbury)
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce (Doubleday)
Alys, Always by Harriet Lane (Weidenfeld)
Ramshackle by Elizabeth Reeder (Freight Books)
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