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We're so thrilled that DAUGHTERS OF NIGHT (Mantle, 2021) by Laura Shepherd-Robinson is on the shortlist for the Historical Writers' Association Gold Crown Award 2021! The judges have described Laura's book as "a cracking tale that transports the reader back to the licentious and murky world of prostitutes, pimps and thieves of 18th-century Covent Garden. Pacy, intriguing story, full of characters you’ll love to hate and spot-on research." The HWA Crown Award winners will be announced on 24 November, 2021. Follow #HWACrowns21 on Twitter.

Congratulations to Anthony Anaxagorou and Wayne Holloway-Smith, who have both been shortlisted for the 2021 Ledbury Munthe Poetry Prize for Second Collections. Anthony's collection AFTER THE FORMALITIES (Penned in the Margins), a Guardian Poetry Book of the Year and one of The Telegraph's Best Poetry Books in 2019, has been nominated for the prize and Wayne's "stunning" and "relentlessly inventive" (Best Poetry Books of 2020, Irish Times) LOVE MINUS LOVE (Bloodaxe Books) has also been selected. Judges Naomi Shihab Nye and Sandeep Parmar have chosen books from poets who have "different backgrounds and styles, but whose work is characterised by ambition and risk." All the shortlisted poets will read at an online event on Tuesday 7th December, when the judges will announce the winner. Reserve free tickets here: Prize Ceremony Tickets.

Congratulations to Andrew Taylor and Laura Shepherd-Robinson who have both been longlisted for the Historical Writers' Association Gold Crown Award for 2021! THE LAST PROTECTOR by Andrew Taylor was published by HarperCollins in Spring 2020 and The Sunday Times wrote that "Taylor confirms his status as one of our finest writers of historical thrillers." His novel THE KING’S EVIL previously won the Historical Writers’ Association Gold Crown 2020 for Best Historical Novel of the Year. DAUGHTERS OF NIGHT by Laura Shepherd-Robinson was published by Mantle in Spring 2021 and was described by Antonia Senior in The Times as "the best historical crime novel I will read this year." Both novels were The Times bestsellers on their release. The HWA Crown Award shortlists will be announced on 5 October, 2021 and the Awards ceremony and HWA Crown Award winners will be announced on 24 November, 2021.

Congratulations to Rachel de Thample who has won the Guild of Food Writers Award for Specialist or Single Subject (sponsored by Watson and Walpole) with her cookbook FERMENTATION: RIVER COTTAGE HANDBOOK NO.18 (Bloomsbury, 2020). The Guild’s Awards celebrate the best of British food writing and broadcasting - you can watch the announcement here. In FERMENTATION, Rachel de Thample shines a light on one of the oldest methods of preserving food, which is just as relevant today, and shows you how to produce delicious and health-boosting ferments in your own kitchen. "A superb introduction with a practical but inspiring tone that will let you try something new with your garden produce." - English Garden

Helena Attlee, author of LEV’S VIOLIN: An Italian Adventure, has launched a crowdfunding campaign at Hay Festival to rescue and restore a unique violin. Helena was inspired to write the story of this violin when she heard it played by Greg Lawson at a concert in Presteigne, near Hay on Wye. She described its voice as “powerful enough to open pores and unbuckle joints” in her book, which reached millions of listeners when it was broadcast on BBC Radio 4’s Book of the Week in April 2021. Now the neck of the violin has collapsed and its fragile body needs thorough restoration. The campaign team includes Greg Lawson, violinist with Scotland’s leading orchestras and a member of Moishe’s Bagel, a band playing Klezmer and world music, and Dr Lev Atlas, principal viola at the Scottish Opera Orchestra, who smuggled the violin out of Russia in the 1980s. The restoration has been facilitated by Martin Swan of Martin Swan Violins, and will be carried out by violin maker and restorer Anette Fajardo. This campaign aims to raise sufficient funds to restore Lev's violin and give its wonderful voice back to the world for another hundred years. When it has been restored, it will be offered on loan to exceptional students seeking out their own voices as musicians, and to other players with projects especially suited to its particular tone. Any additional funds raised will be given to Music for All, a charity dedicated to providing instruments for schools, supporting individual musicians and community music projects. Contributors to the campaign will be given the opportunity to hear the glorious sound of Lev's violin on a newly recorded album featuring a variety of classical and world music. Among other funding rewards are tickets to an online concert with Lev’s violin, Greg Lawson and Lev Atlas, a signed copy of LEV’S VIOLIN, and the opportunity to welcome Greg Lawson to your home for a private concert.

We’re delighted that Pete Paphides has won the £10,000 RSL Christopher Bland Prize 2021 with his memoir BROKEN GREEK. The prize is awarded to a debut writer of fiction or non-fiction aged 50 or over. This year’s judges were Mary Beard (Chair), Monica Ali, Georgia Byng and Ben Hunte. BROKEN GREEK brings together Pete’s experiences as a child of Cypriot parents growing up in Birmingham and his early immersion in pop music in vivid and poignant prose. The paperback edition is out on 10th June 2021 from Quercus. “..the book's greatest asset is its abundance of material about musicians and songs, and the way that they have guided its author through experiences that would have been impossible to navigate alone.” - The Guardian

Congratulations to Gill Meller and Rachel de Thample, whose cookbooks have been shortlisted for this year’s Guild of Food Writers Awards! ROOT, STEM, LEAF, FLOWER (Quadrille, 2020) by Gill Meller is shortlisted for the General Cookbook Award. The category includes cookbooks that 'focus on recipes and the practicalities of cooking’, but can be based on ‘any cuisine, historical period or diet’. ROOT, STEM, LEAF, FLOWER is a cookbook about making the most of the land's bounty in your everyday cooking. With 120 seasonal, vegetarian recipes, Gill’s writing shows us how small changes to the way we cook and eat can lessen our impact on the environment and improve our health and wellbeing. Gill's first book, GATHER (Quadrille, 2016), won the Fortnum & Mason Award for Best Debut Food Book, and TIME (Quadrille, 2018) was shortlisted for the Guild of Food Writers General Cookbook Award. Rachel de Thample’s book, FERMENTATION (Bloomsbury, 2020), which is part of the River Cottage Handbook series, is shortlisted for the Specialist or Single Subject Cookbook Award. This award covers cookbooks that ‘focus on a particular technique, ingredient, food group or single subject’. FERMENTATION shows us how to harness the power of fermentation in our cooking, with recipes on everything from sauerkraut and sourdough, kimchee and kombucha, to pickles and preserves, accompanied by brilliant explanations of how the fermenting process works. ‘Endlessly inventive’, according to The Independent, Rachel is the author of FIVE (Ebury, 2015), TONICS & TEAS (Kyle Books, 2017), MORE VEG, LESS MEAT (Kyle Books, 2018), and GIFTS FROM THE MODERN LARDER (Kyle Books, 2019). The Guild of Food Writers annual Awards ‘celebrate the breadth of knowledge and expertise at work in a thriving creative field’. The winners will be announced virtually this year on Wednesday 23 June at 6pm.

Anne Youngson’s novel, MEET ME AT THE MUSEUM, a “thoughtful and gentle meditation on buried passions” (The Guardian), will be dramatised on BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour. There will be 10 episodes in total and the first one will be aired on Monday 22nd March. Tamsin Greig will be playing the protagonist, Tina Hopgood, and Paul Ritter will play Anders Larsen.

We’re absolutely thrilled that SMALL PLEASURES by Clare Chambers is on the longlist for the Women’s Prize this year, one of sixteen nominated books. Bernardine Evaristo, chair of the judges, remarked “these novels fascinated, moved, inspired and challenged us.” The judging panel will announce the shortlist on April 28th, and the 25th winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction will be announced on Wednesday 7th July. Good luck to Clare and many congratulations to her!

We're thrilled to see Laura Shepherd-Robinson's "deeply satisfying novel" (The Observer), DAUGHTERS OF NIGHT, reach number 5 in The Times hardback chart a week after its release.

LAMENTATION, the sixth book in the bestselling Shardlake series by C. J. Sansom (Mantle), has been dramatised by Colin MacDonald on BBC Radio 4. All episodes will be broadcast from Monday 18th January and will air throughout the month, available for catch-up on the BBC Radio 4 website. The drama will be split into ten exciting episodes, directed by Bruce Young. LAMENTATION received brilliant reviews on publication, described as a “serious rival” to Hilary Mantel (Sunday Times) and a “remarkable achievement” (The Observer). The Shardlake series begins with DISSOLUTION, DARK FIRE, SOVEREIGN, REVELATION and HEARTSTONE. Sansom’s latest addition to the series is TOMBLAND which was published in 2019.

We are thrilled to announce that THE KING’S EVIL (HarperCollins, 2019) by Andrew Taylor has been awarded this year’s HWA Gold Crown. Preceded by THE ASHES OF LONDON (HarperCollins, 2016) and THE FIRE COURT (HarperCollins 2018), THE KING’S EVIL is the third book in Andrew Taylor’s number one bestselling series, which follows James Marwood during the reign of King Charles II. ‘This is historical fiction at its dazzling best’, according to The Guardian, and Taylor is ‘one of the best historical crime writers today’, according to The Times. The Historical Writers’ Association Gold Crown is awarded to the best historical novel of the year. This year’s winners were selected by a panel of judges who ‘unanimously loved’ Taylor’s latest instalment: ‘with its rich and exuberant writing and wonderfully realised setting, THE KING’S EVIL is a thrilling, immersive ride.’

We are thrilled to announce that THE KING’S EVIL by Andrew Taylor (HarperCollins, 2019), THE BEAR PIT (Quercus, 2019) by S.G. MacLean, and THE FATAL PASSION OF ALMA RATTENBURY by Sean O'Connor (Simon & Schuster, 2019) have been longlisted for several awards at this year’s Crime Writers’ Association Awards! Both Andrew Taylor and S.G. MacLean have been longlisted for the Sapere Books Historical Dagger for best historical crime novel set in any period up to fifty years prior to the year in which the award will be made. THE KING’S EVIL is the ‘dazzling’ (The Guardian) third instalment in Andrew Taylor’s Sunday Times bestselling series, and is also longlisted for the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for thrillers set in any period. THE BEAR PIT by S.G. MacLean is longlisted for the Gold Dagger, awarded to the best crime novel. This latest novel is the fifth in the The Seeker series, which is ‘one of the best historical crime series around' (The Times). THE FATAL PASSION OF ALMA RATTENBURY by Sean O'Connor is longlisted for the Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction for non-fiction works on a crime related theme, including works relating to true crime, historical crime, crime-related biography, crime-fiction literature and critical studies. THE FATAL PASSION OF ALMA RATTENBURY is 'A case study in human frailty, jealousy and desire.' (The Times). The Crime Writers’ Association awards are ‘the premier literary crime writing awards in the United Kingdom’ and the oldest in the genre. The shortlists will be announced later in the year with the ceremony due to take place on 22nd October 2020.

We’re thrilled to announce that Netflix has acquired the rights to THE CASE OF THE MISSING MARQUESS by Nancy Springer, which is the first book in Springer’s six-part series. Legendary Entertainment’s forthcoming film, titled ENOLA HOLMES, tells the story of Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes’s younger sister Enola, and the mysteries which she investigates. From FLEABAG director Sam Bradbeer, the film will be led by Millie Bobbie Brown, Henry Cavill, Sam Claflin, Fiona Shaw and Helena Bonham Carter. The novels have been published to critical acclaim. Kirkus awarded its starred review, saying that Springer introduces us to ‘an innocent but capable young sleuth’ with ‘gleeful panache’. The film’s release date is to be confirmed.