Oxblood: Winner of the Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer of the Year Award

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So, Ian as a love interest irritated me but Ian as a spy was ultra-cool. And, I wish there had been more of Claudia. She was incredibly intriguing and I would have enjoyed seeing her interact with Vic more than they did. My only disappointment was with how much was left unexplained at the end. In the finale, one character was not where he was supposed to be, but we never find out why. Another was essentially captured but somehow still got away. Okay, but how? I read the Advanced Reader (unfinished) version of the book, so maybe the final version fills in these blanks. Over the course of a few days, Nedra, Carol and Jan must each confront the true legacy of the men who have defined their lives; and seize the opportunity to break the cycle for good.

Administered by the Society of Authors, the Young Writer of the Year Award works with a growing network of partners, including retail partner Waterstones and our overseas partner the British Council, to provide a critical support system to the very best talent at work right now. He could have studied his ass off in Miami and pursued his mission there. But clearly, we Asher kids don't take the easy way. When we're in, we're all in."

Oxblood shows us that there are few places literature can't take us, if the writer is brave enough, and gifted enough' -- FRANCIS SPUFFORD I’ve been a pilgrim for art and film: visiting Den Bosch for Bosch’s paintings, and Poulsbo and North Bend [in] Washington for Twin Peaks. I’d love to reach Oxford, Mississippi, for a Faulkner pilgrimage. What is the best writing advice you have heard? The Barrows were not as steeped in crime as the Dodds - but I can hear the echoes of my own childhood.

From Mary Gaitskill’s courageously nuanced personal essay, The Trouble with Following the Rules: “The truth may hurt, but in art, anyway, it also helps, sometimes profoundly.” A book to make me laugh? I went into this book with no expectations, I had never read anything by this author before and wasn’t exactly sure what to expect. I am so glad I did it this way. The prologue hooked me immediately I needed to know why she was in this situation and how in the world she was going to get out of it. You’ve written a short horror film, Real Gods Require Blood, and are associated with northern noir. Do these genres help define you as a writer?The gangland novel you have never read before, the one that gets inside the minds of three generations of women whose lives are bound to the crime lords of Wythenshawe by blood, flesh, fear, desire and a hunger for possession that cannot be contained in one lifetime. In a place where Mean Streets meets Most Haunted, with his hyper-intense, hallucinogenic prose, Benn will make you believe in ghosts' -- CATHI UNSWORTH Victoria Asher is coming to terms with the loss of her parents in a plane crash. The only family she has left is her brother, Gil. If I read a better novel than Oxblood in 2022, it'll be a blinding year for fiction. Tom Benn, please take a bow. Everybody else, please take note' -- JOSEPH KNOX

One of those rare books where place and time are conjured so effortlessly, the cast of characters drawn with so much ease and grace' -- MONA ARSHIMuch of my poetry has been inspired or provoked by the blues’ ] Have you ever made a literary pilgrimage? The Dodds family once ruled Manchester's underworld; now the men are dead, leaving three generations of women trapped in a house haunted by violence, harbouring an unregistered baby.