We’re delighted to reveal the titles shortlisted for The Bath Novel Award 2017. We aim to spotlight the very best unsigned books and this year five novels have shone out from a field of almost twelve hundred. These finalists all explore themes about deception – by those in power, within families, or of ourselves – and how to find light, love and life in even the darkest of days.
2017 proved an exceptionally strong year for viewpoint and voice. Lead characters include: a Russian immigrant scraping a living in a London burger bar; a Starburst-sucking Brooklyn writer masquerading as a private investigator; a sixteen-year-old girl searching for the sister who escaped their religious sect; a Derbyshire illustrator with a deadly fairytale commission and a botany graduate fighting for survival in a sunless world seventeen years after a perpetual eclipse.
The winner of The Bath Novel Award 2017 as judged by Laura Williams of Peters Fraser Dunlop, will be announced at a reception in Bath’s Victoria Art Gallery on July 6th. The winning novelist will receive £2,000 with one shortlistee also awarded an editorial prize of £500 services with Cornerstones Literary Consultancy.
As all our judges read “blind” we’ll be keeping the three male and two female shortlistees’ identities under wraps until the winner is announced on July 6th, but in the meantime, many congratulations to the writers of these five standout titles:
CUCKOO (Psychological Thriller)
LOST JOURNALS OF SUNDOWN (Literary Psychological Thriller)
ONE OF US (Crime)
THE LIGHT FACTORY (Literary Speculative)
THE LOST SISTER (Young Adult)
Read the Bath Novel Award 2017 Longlist announcement here
The Bath Novel Award & Bath Children’s Novel Award are sponsored by Cornerstones Literary Consultancy
Bath Children’s Novel Award 2016 shortlisted Sarah House signs with Polly Nolan
Bath Novel Award 2016 shortlisted Scott Bain signs with Lauren Clarke
Bath Novel Award 2016 shortlisted Cathy Layne signs with Zoe Ross