The category winners for the 2018 Costa Book Awards have just been announced. The Costa Book Awards is one the UK’s most prestigious literary prizes that recognizes great books throughout the year, written by authors based in the UK and Ireland.

I enjoy this book award since the books that are picked, either shortlisted or the winners, are always good book choices and great reads to add to your TBR shelf. The coveted Costa Book of the Year 2018 will be announced on January 29.

Costa Novel Award 2018 Winner

Normal People by Sally Rooney

Sally Rooney’s second novel is a deeply political novel, just as it’s also a novel about love. It’s about how difficult it is to speak to what you feel and how difficult it is to change. It’s wry and seductive; perceptive and bold. It will make you cry and you will know yourself through it.

Costa First Novel Award Winner 2018

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

This was such an amazing mystery to read and I am so glad this book was not only shortlisted but won a Costa Award. Well-deserved!

Costa Children’s Book Award 2018 Winner

The Skylarks’ War by Hilary McKay

Clarry and her older brother Peter live for their summers in Cornwall, staying with their grandparents and running free with their charismatic cousin, Rupert. But normal life resumes each September – boarding school for Peter and Rupert, and a boring life for Clarry at home with her absent father, as the shadow of a terrible war looms ever closer. When Rupert goes off to fight at the front, Clarry feels their skylark summers are finally slipping away from them.

 

Costa Biography Award 2018 Winner

The Cut Out Girl: A Story of War and Family, Lost and Found by Bart van Es

This is an astonishing, moving reckoning with a young girl’s struggle for survival during war. It is a story about the powerful love and challenges of foster families, and about the ways our most painful experiences – so crucial in defining us – can also be redefined.

Costa Poetry Award Winner 2018

Assurances by J.O. Morgan

Assurances is an intimate, dramatic work for many voices: lyrical, anxious, fragmentary and terrifying; a poem about the nuclear stalemate, the deterrent that is still in place today: how it works and how it might fail, and what will vanish if it does.