London-based coffeehouse chain Caffè Nero announced the category winners for its first-ever Nero Book Awards, given to “outstanding reads” by authors based in the U.K. and Ireland.
Paul Murray was named the winner in the fiction category for his novel The Bee Sting, which was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize and the Booker Prize. The judges praised Murray’s book as “hilarious and tragic in equal measure.”
The nonfiction winner was Scottish comedian Fern Brady for Strong Female Character, her memoir about growing up with undiagnosed autism.
Winning the children’s fiction prize was The Swifts, written by Beth Lincoln and illustrated by Claire Powell, a middle-grade book that the judges dubbed “a rip-roaring murder mystery full of comedy and high jinks.”
Michael Magee won in the debut fiction category for Close to Home, about a 22-year-old man in Belfast whose life unravels after he assaults a stranger at a party.
The Nero Book Awards were created last year, taking the place of the defunct Costa Book Awards, which were also sponsored by a U.K.-based coffeehouse chain.
The category winners will now compete for the Nero Gold Prize, which will be judged by a panel including author Bernardine Evaristo, and announced at a London ceremony on March 14.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
