Vintage double in Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award longlist

Goldsboro Books has announced the 12-title longlist for the third Glass Bell Award, featuring two titles from Vintage and five debuts including The Tattooist of Auschwitz (Bonnier Zaffre) by Heather Morris.

The award, celebrating the best storytelling across all genres of contemporary fiction, has a prize of £2,000 up for grabs along with an engraved glass bell.

For Vintage, Women’s Prize-nominated Ordinary People by Diana Evans and Tim Willocks' indictment of modern South Africa, Memo From Turner, are both in with a chance of the award.

Blitz-set comic novel Dear Mrs Bird by A.J. Pearce (Pan Macmillan) and high-concept thriller The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton (Bloomsbury Raven) also make the list.

They are joined by thrillers Snap by Belinda Bauer (Transworld), Our House by Louise Candlish (Simon & Schuster) and M.W. Craven’s The Puppet Show (Little, Brown).

Also doing battle for the prize are VOX by Christine Dalcher (HQ), The Poison Bed by E C Fremantle (Michael Joseph), Swan Song by Kelleigh Greenberg-Jephcott (Cornerstone) and An Ocean of Minutes by Thea Lim (Quercus).

The shortlist, judged by Goldsboro Books founder and m.d. David Headley and his team, will be announced on 1st August before a party in the bookshop on 16th September to unveil the winner.

Headley said: “From heavyweight names to rising stars, 2018 saw some incredible fiction written by women and it wasn’t a surprise that our longlist is organically very female-dominated.

“Other than that, it is an incredibly broad and varied longlist, demonstrating the incredible range of fiction being published today, including thrillers, historical novels through the ages and, in probably a sign of the times, two unnerving dystopias. 

“These books were hugely enjoyed by the whole team, and I know that selecting a shortlist, let alone a winner will be an enormous challenge.”