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Georgina Moore wins big at The Isle of Wight Book Awards for debut novel
Author Georgina Moore has won big at The Isle of Wight Book Awards for her debut novel The Garnett Girls. The awards, which have now run for three years and were founded by Sunday Times journalist and author Hunter Davies and independent bookshop Medina Books, were held in Cowes on 1st October at The Island Sailing Club.
The judges yesterday were Hunter Davies (fiction), Alan Titchmarsh (non-fiction) and Anne McNeil (children’s). Georgina Moore 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. The children’s prize was shared between two authors, Michael E. Willis for Troubled, and Peter J. Murray for The Darker Side of Wight.
The overall Book of the Year prize went to Moore, as Davies, founder and judge said: “So professional and well written. I found The Garnett Girls so engaging and soooo Isle of Wight. Such a worthy winner.”
Alan Titchmarsh said: “Very enjoyable and quite surprising for a debut novel. Characters you care about and a good sense of place,” while Anne McNeil said: “There was a real lightness of touch to The Garnett Girls. I loved the escapism and the sense of place. Georgina brought the island to life for me in the way that Mary Wesley brought Cornwall to life.”
Paul Armfield from Medina Books in Cowes said: “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!”
Entry is open from March 31st to May 31st 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.
