Inaugural Scottish Teenage Book Prize Winner!

And we have a winner of the new Scottish Teenage Book Prize. Claire McFall has just won the £3000 prize for her book Black Cairn Point, beating Joan Lennon and Keith Gray, who each receive £500. These things happen. Congratulations to all three.

I’ve not read Claire’s book, but it’s been described as a chilling and atmospheric thriller set in Dumfries and Galloway, which explores what happens when an ancient malevolent spirit is reawakened.

Claire says ‘I’m over the moon that Black Cairn Point has been voted the winner of the first Scottish Teenage Book Prize. It’s a brilliant award that encourages young people around Scotland to read books about and from their country and their culture. But it also encourages them to get involved by taking part in the competitions for readers that run alongside. Silver Skin and The Last Soldier are both terrific books, so to know that readers chose my novel is an enormous compliment. This is why I write.’

She is an English teacher and lives in the Scottish Borders. Her first book, Ferryman, is a love story which retells the ancient Greek myth of Charon, and it won the Older Readers Category of the Scottish Children’s Book Awards 2013; was long-listed for the UKLA Book Awards, long-listed for the Branford Boase and nominated for the Carnegie Medal. The sequel is coming in September. Her second novel, Bombmaker, is about identity in a dystopian devolved United Kingdom.

So, Hades, a dystopic Britain and malevolent spirits…

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