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This year’s varied and remarkably strong shortlist for the YA Book Prize features two titles by FBA authors: First Day of My Life by Lisa Williamson (David Fickling Books, 2021) and House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland (Hot Key Books, 2021).

Launched in 2014 by The Bookseller, the YA Book Prize celebrates great books for teenagers and young adults and aims to get more teens reading and buying books. It is the first prize in the UK and Ireland to specifically focus on fiction for young adults. Previous winners of the prize include Sara Barnard’s Goodbye, Perfect (2019), Juno Dawson’s Meat Market (2020) and Alice Oseman’s Loveless (2021).

The 2022 winner will be chosen by a panel led by Caroline Carpenter, The Bookseller’s children’s editor and deputy features editor. Judging alongside her will be Rachel Fox, Edinburgh International Book Festival’s children and schools programme director, award-winning children’s author and advocate for better representation of neurodiversity in publishing, Elle McNicoll; Wales-based content creator and speculative fiction writer Joel Rochester; and Irish children’s writer, events programmer, bookseller and reviewer Sarah Webb. The final judging will also include input from teenage judges from schools based in London, Hereford, Bradford and Edinburgh.

Described by the Guardian as “a gorgeous, grisly modern fairytale”, House of Hollow is a Gothic fantasy that centres on the mysterious disappearance, and even more mysterious reappearance, of the seductively glamorous Hollow sisters. It was a New York Times Bestseller in the US and FBA negotiated Sutherland’s UK publishing deal with Hot Key on behalf of Inkwell Management. Also on the shortlist is Lisa Williamson’s First Day of My Life. Following on from the spectacular success of The Art of Being Normal, First Day of My Life is a contemporary story in which Frankie goes on a road trip with her ex-boyfriend Ram to find her best friend Jojo after she goes missing on GCSE results day.  The novel was chosen as a Sunday Times Children’s Book of the Week and praised as “a compelling family drama.”

This year’s nominated authors for the YA Book Prize will appear on panels as part of The Edinburgh International Book Festival’s schools programme, which will give every pupil on site a free copy of one of the shortlisted books to take home. The winner of the £2,000 prize will be announced live at the festival on Thursday 25th August and you can find out more about how you can stream it for free here.