Finalists have been named for the 2024 New England Book Awards, honoring books "either about New England, set in New England, or written by an author residing in New England." Members of the New England Independent Booksellers Association will now vote for the winners in each category.
Fiction:
North Woods by Daniel Mason (Random House)
Rainbow Black by Maggie Thrash (Harper Perennial)
Fire Exit by Morgan Talty (Tin House)
Sandwich by Catherine Newman (HarperCollins)
Swift River by Essie Chambers (Simon & Schuster)
Nonfiction:
Of Time and Turtles by Sy Montgomery (Mariner Books)
Democracy Awakening by Heather Cox Richardson (Penguin)
A House Restored by Lee McColgan (Countryman Press)
Wild Girls by Tiya Miles (W.W. Norton)
God Save Benedict Arnold by Jack Kelly (St. Martin's Press)
Poetry:
The Wonder of Small Things by James Crews (Storey Publishing)
In the Cathedral of My Undoing by Kellam Ayres (Gunpowder Press)
Have You Been Long Enough at Table by Leslie Sainz (Tin House)
Auguries and Divinations by Heather Treseler (Bauhan Publishing)
Glitter Road by January Gill O'Neil (CavanKerry Press)
Picture Book:
Small Things Mended by Casey W Robinson, illustrated by Nancy Whitesides (Rocky Pond Books)
An Encyclopedia of Gardening for Colored Children by Jamaica Kincaid, illustrated by Kara Walker (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Cranky by Phuc Tran, illustrated by Pete Oswald (HarperCollins)
Life After Whale by Lynn Brunelle, illustrated by Jason Chin (Neal Porter Books)
Night Song by Mk Smith Despres, illustrated by Hyewon Yum (Enchanted Lion)
Middle Grade:
Chinese Menu by Grace Lin (Little, Brown)
Colonization and the Wampanoag Story by Linda Coombs (Crown Books)
How It All Ends by Emma Hunsinger (Greenwillow Books)
Timid by Jonathan Todd (Graphix)
The Secret Library by Kekla Magoon (Candlewick)
Young Adult:
The Fall of Whit Rivera by Crystal Maldonado (Holiday House)
Gather by Kenneth Cadow (Candlewick)
Practical Rules for Cursed Witches by Kayla Cottingham (Delacorte Press)
Four Eids and a Funeral by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé, Adiba Jaigirdar (Feiwel & Friends)
Mysterious Ways: A Novel by Wendy Wunder (Wednesday Books)
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The winners of the 2024 Theakston Old Peculier Crime Awards, presented at the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate, England, are:
In the Blink of an Eye by Jo Callaghan has won the 2024 Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year. Organizers said the book "introduces an intriguing detective double act as bereaved DCS Kat Frank is chosen to lead a pilot programme that sees her paired with AI colleague Lock, as human experience combines with logic to solve a complex missing persons case."
Deadly Animals by Marie Tierney has won the inaugural McDermid Debut Award, named for crime writer Val McDermid. The book "features road-kill obsessed teenager Ava Bonney, who discovers the mauled body of a schoolmate and embarks on a daring quest to unravel the truth behind the string of chilling deaths plaguing her Birmingham community."
And Martina Cole won the Theakston Old Peculier Outstanding Contribution Award in recognition of her "impressive writing career," which includes the publication of 27 novels, many of which have been made into TV series.