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Hooray! Sally Rooney wins the 2018 Costa Novel Award

I’m very excited this morning to see Sally Rooney win the Costa Novel Award for her excellent novel Normal People. Rooney, at 27 the youngest winner ever, has pulled off a breathtaking feat in writing a novel about love that will appeal as much to an 18 year old as an 80 year old.

Here are the winners in the other categories. The Costa Book of the Year will be chosen from the list of category winners and announced on the 29th of January.

Best first novel: The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton(Raven Books)

Best biography: The Cut Out Girl by Bart van Es (Penguin)

Best poetry: Assurances by JO Morgan (Jonathan Cape)

Best children’s book: The Skylarks’ War by Hilary McKay (Macmillan)