Accent's Kate Field wins Joan Hessayon Award

Kate Field has won the Romantic Novelists Association's Joan Hessayon Award for new writers with her debut novel The Magic of Ramblings (Accent Press).

Field collected her award and a £1,000 cheque at the RNA’s Summer Party, held at the Royal Overseas League in London this evening, Thursday, May 18th.

The winning novel tells of a heroine who starts a community library in the remote Lancashire village of Ramblings. RNA chair Nicola Cornick said: “The judges agreed that the winning novel was outstanding, and selected it for its warmth and insight. It has a beautiful quality of being both poignant and uplifting at the same time.”

Field’s novel won on a shortlist that also comprised debuts Victoria Cornwall’s The Thief’s Daughter, Morton Gray’s The Girl on the Beach and Lynda Stacey’s House of Secrets (all published by Choc Lit), fellow Accent title Sitting Pretty by April Hardy, Terri Fleming’s Perception (Orion), Jen Gilroy’s The Cottage at Firefly Lake (Forever, Grand Central, Hachette), Vivien Hampshire’s How to Win Back Your Husband (HQ Digital), Emily Kerr’s Who Does He Think He Is? (Crooked Cat), Abbey MacMunn’s Touched (Tirgearr Publishing) and Arabella Sheen’s Castell’s Passion (Beachwalk Press). 

Incoming RNA chair Nicola Cornick with Joan Hessayon winner Kate Field, RNA president Katie Fforde and incoming vice chair Alison May