
. . . . and the winners are –
Costa First Novel Award
Love After Love by Ingrid Persaud
Meet the Ramdin-Chetan family: forged through loneliness, broken by secrets, saved by love. Irrepressible Betty Ramdin, her shy son Solo and their marvellous lodger, Mr Chetan, form an unconventional household, happy in their differences, as they build a home together.
Costa Novel Award
The Mermaid of Black Conch by Monique Roffey
Set in a tiny Caribbean village in the 1970s, this charming yet clear-eyed romance begins with a fisherman, David, lazily awaiting his catch only to snare a centuries-old mermaid, Aycayia, cursed by women jealous of her beauty. She’s drawn to the sound of the guitar he’s strumming; he wonders if he’s been smoking too many spliffs.
Costa Biography Award

The Louder I Will Sing by Lee Lawrence
On 28 September 1985, Lee Lawrence’s mother Cherry Groce was wrongly shot by police during a raid on her Brixton home. The bullet shattered her spine and she never walked again. In the chaos that followed, 11-year-old Lee watched in horror as the News falsely pronounced his mother dead. In Brixton, already a powder keg because of the deep racism that the community was experiencing, it was the spark needed to trigger two days of rioting. But for Lee, it was a spark that lit a flame that would burn for the next 30 years as he fought to get the police to recognise their wrongdoing.
Costa Poetry Award

The Historians by Eavan Boland
Her final volume, The Historians, is the culmination of her signature themes, exploring the ways in which the hidden, sometimes all-but-erased stories of women’s lives can powerfully revise our sense of the past. Two women burning letters in a back garden. A poet who died too young. Boland listens to women who have long had no agency in the way their stories were told.
Costa Children’s Award
Voyage of the Sparrowhawk
From the bestselling author of The Children of Castle Rock. In the aftermath of World War One, everyone is trying to rebuild their lives. If Ben is to avoid being sent back to the orphanage, he needs to find his brother Sam, wounded in action and is now missing.