The finalists for the 2021 Costa Book Awards, a UK literary prize sponsored by a coffee company, have been announced.

The prize has five categories – First Novel, Novel, Biography, Poetry and Children’s Book. The winner of each receives £5,000. The Costa Book of the Year will be chosen from among them, and get £30,000 prize. The category winners will be announced January 4, and the overall winner on February 1.

Below are the works of genre interest. The complete shortlists are here.

FIRST NOVEL

The Stranding by Kate Sawyer, set in a post-apocalyptic New Zealand.

(Also shortlisted is the non-genre Manningtree Witches by A. K. Blakemore, so titled for a story drawing on persecutions during the English Civil War era.)

NOVEL

The High House by Jessie Greengrass is set in a world beset by climate-change-induced flooding, so to that degree is genre-related.

CHILDREN’S BOOK

Maggie Blue and the Dark World by Anna Goodall includes adventure in a parallel world and a teacher’s transformation to a wolf.

The Midnight Guardians by Ross Montgomery is a fantasy set in Blitz-bombed London.

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