By Isle of Wight Observer
Author, Georgina Moore, won big at the recent Isle of Wight Book Awards for her debut novel, ‘The Garnett Girls’.
The awards, which have run for three years, and were founded by Sunday Times journalist and author, Hunter Davies, and independent Cowes bookshop, Medina Books, were held at The Island Sailing Club, Cowes.
Georgina won the fiction prize for ‘The Garnett Girls’, which is set on the Island. Patrick Crowley won the non-fiction prize for ‘Rose, Castle and Crown’, and Michael E Willis, author of ‘Troubled’ shared the Children’s prize with Peter J Murray, author of ‘The Darker Side of Wight’.
The awards were sponsored by Hovertravel, Isle of Wight Festival and David and Patsy Franks. Out of 38 entries, the overall Book of the Year prize went to Georgina, with Hunter saying: “It was so professional and well written. I found The Garnett Girls so engaging and soooo Isle of Wight. It is such a worthy winner.”
Gardening TV presenter and author, Alan Titchmarsh, who also judged, added: “Very enjoyable and quite surprising for a debut novel. Characters you care about and a good sense of place.”
Paul Armfield, from Medina Books, Cowes, explained: “Whenever there’s a new novel set on the Island there will be an initial curiosity that will bring the first wave of sales, and then, depending on what those first readers thought of the book, sales will either slow to a dwindling trickle or gather in momentum. ‘The Garnett Girls’ has absolutely snowballed and has flown off our shelves, both in hardback and paperback. A very popular winner!”
Along with a raffle, the judge’s copies of all books entered for awards were sold to raise funds for IW Search and Rescue, with a total of £630 being raised.
Judges were: Hunter Davies (fiction), Alan Titchmarsh (non-fiction) and Anne McNeil (children’s).
Entry for next year’s awards open in March, and is free to anyone published (self-published or professionally released) during the previous year. The only conditions are the book must have a physical form and that there has to be some element of Isle of Wight content.
