Nero Book Awards 2024 – Category Winners Announced!
14 January, 2025Congratulations to Liz Hyder whose atmospheric fantasy adventure The Twelve, illustrated by Tom De Freston (Pushkin Children’s Books) was crowned the Children’s Fiction winner for the Nero Book Awards 2024.
Launched in May 2023, the Nero Book Awards were set up to celebrate the craft of great writing and the joy of reading across four award categories: Children’s Fiction (9-15), Debut Fiction, Fiction and Non-Fiction.
The Twelve was selected from a shortlist of four titles by a panel of judges made up of children’s authors and booksellers. They praised the book’s ‘Beautiful characterisation’ and ‘compelling storytelling’, and described it as ‘a book for now and all time – an immersive time-travel adventure that will keep readers hooked.’
Hyder is no stranger to awards: her debut novel Bearmouth won the Branford Boase Award (2020), the Older Fiction category of the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize (2020) and was chosen as the Children’s Book of the Year in 2019 by The Times. She talks about the inspiration for The Twelve and her writing journey in this exclusive interview for Books for Keeps.
Commenting on this year’s awards, Gerry Ford, Founder and Group CEO of Caffè Nero said: ‘The standard of entries this year was very high and with such incredible shortlists, our judges had a difficult job of picking just one winner in each category. They have chosen four impressive books which display an outstanding level of writing and captivating story telling.’
A final judging panel led by celebrated journalist and author Bill Bryson will now consider all four category winners before choosing one title to be crowned the winner of the Nero Gold Prize. The winner will be announced at a ceremony in London on 5th March.
Fiction Category Winner 2024
Lost in the Garden by Adam S. Leslie (Dead Ink Books)
Debut Fiction Category Winner 2024
Wild Houses by Colin Barrett (Jonathan Cape)
Non-Fiction Category Winner 2024
Maurice and Maralyn: An Extraordinary True Story of Shipwreck, Survival and Love by Sophie Elmhirst (Chatto & Windus)
