Women have taken all four spots on the shortlist for best novel of 2013 in the Costa Book Awards, with Bernadette Bishop, who passed away in July, among those selected.
Bishop could be the first writer to win the award posthumously. Her book, Unexpected Lessons in Love, is an autobiographical story about a retired psychotherapist who, like herself at the time of writing, is battling cancer.
Also on the shortlist are Kate Atkinson for Life After Life, Maggie O’Farrell for Instructions for a Heatwave and Evie Wyld for All the Birds, Singing.
The overall winner of the Costa Book of the Year 2013 will receive £30,000 and will be selected and announced at the Costa Book Awards ceremony in central London on Tuesday 28th January 2014. You can see the full shortlists for all five of the Costa Book Award 2013 categories here.
We don’t know about you, but we’re doing a little celebratory dance for women’s fiction today. Best of luck to the shortlist!
Have you read any of these books? Which do you think should win?