Costa Book Awards: Tasha Kavanagh's 'new Gone Girl' in the running for best debut as shortlists are revealed

First novel from former film editor who worked on 'The Talented Mr Ripley' among 20 nominees across five categories

Tasha Kavanagh’s debut is a tale of loneliness and teenage obsession

The first novel by a former film editor who worked on The Talented Mr Ripley, which has been dubbed “the new Gone Girl,” is in the running for best debut at the Costa Book Awards.

Things We Have in Common by Tasha Kavanagh, who has written nine picture books for children under her maiden name, is on the four-strong shortlist for the first novel award. She was one of 20 nominees across five categories for the Costa Book Awards.

Heavyweight authors Kate Atkinson and Anne Enright are on the shortlist for best novel, while books about Lewis Carroll, Alexander Humboldt and John Aubrey are vying for the biography award.

The poetry category includes Costa winner Don Paterson’s latest collection 40 Sonnets which is up against two debut collections by Andrew McMillan and Kate Miller.

The children’s book category includes Victorian melodrama The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge and Sophie Someone by Hayley Long inspired by former Costa winner Maggot Moon.

The winners of the five categories, announced on January 4, will each receive £5,000, with the overall winner, announced later that month, receiving £30,000. Last year book of the year was H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald.

Separately, Katherine Soper, who currently works in a perfumery on Regent Street in London has won Europe’s biggest playwriting prize. Her play Wish List has won her £16,000 and a residency at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester.

Costa Book Awards 2015 shortlists

2015 Costa Novel Award shortlist

• Kate Atkinson for A God in Ruins (Doubleday)
• Anne Enright The Green Road (Jonathan Cape)
• Patrick Gale for A Place Called Winter (Tinder Press)
• Melissa Harrison for At Hawthorn Time (Bloomsbury)

2015 Costa First Novel Award shortlist

• Sara Baume for Spill Simmer Falter Wither (Windmill Books)
• Kate Hamer for The Girl in the Red Coat (Faber & Faber)
• Andrew Michael Hurley for The Loney (John Murray)
• Tasha Kavanagh for Things We Have in Common (Canongate)

2015 Costa Biography Award shortlist

• Robert Douglas-Fairhurst for The Story of Alice: Lewis Carroll and the Secret History of Wonderland (Harvill Secker)
• Thomas Harding for The House by the Lake (William Heinemann)
• Ruth Scurr for John Aubrey: My Own Life (Chatto & Windus)
• Andrea Wulf for The Invention of Nature: The Adventures of Alexander Humboldt, the Lost Hero of Science (John Murray)

2015 Costa Poetry Award shortlist

• Andrew McMillan for Physical (Jonathan Cape)
• Kate Miller for The Observances (Carcanet)
• Don Paterson for 40 Sonnets (Faber & Faber)
• Neil Rollinson for Talking Dead (Jonathan Cape)

2015 Costa Children’s Book Award shortlist

• Frances Hardinge for The Lie Tree (Macmillan Children’s Books)
• Hayley Long for Sophie Someone (Hot Key Books)
• Sally Nicholls for An Island of Our Own (Scholastic)
• Andrew Norriss for Jessica’s Ghost (David Fickling Books)