Nero Book Awards Winners Announced

Nero have announced the four winners of their inaugural Book Awards, including their Children's Fiction Winner.

Celebrating outstanding writing by great authors living in the UK and Ireland, these awards list the best books of the year.

Each year, the expert panel of judges will choose which books from the past 12 months they would most want to recommend to others for their quality writing and readability. From a shortlist of 16 unputdownable books, a winner will be named in each of the following four categories: Children’s Fiction, Debut Fiction, Fiction and Non-Fiction. An overall winner, given the Nero Gold Prize for the “Book of the Year”, will also be named.

For 2023, The Swifts, written by Beth Lincoln (illustrated by Claire Powell and published by Penguin Random House Children's UK) has been crowned the Children's Fiction winner. Deemed "fast-paced, fiercely charismatic and brimming with challenge and heart", The Swifts is a celebration of words and individuality. The story is hailed as suspenseful with witty dialogue, with Lincoln weaving wordplay, games and plenty of mischief throughout. 

In other categories, Paul Murray's The Bee Sting won Best Fiction, Michael Magee's Close to Home was named Best Debut Fiction and Fern Brady's Strong Female Character was crowned the Non-fiction winner.

Learn more about the award and the winners here, and view the accompanying reading guides for the entire shortlist here.