The Nero Book Awards, in association with Brunel University of London, has announced its four winners for 2025, recognising the best books from the last 12 months across fiction, non-fiction, debut fiction and children’s fiction. These books represent the very best in literary craft and storytelling, offering readers a wide range of voices and genres.
As the only multi-category awards exclusively for writers based in the UK and Ireland, the Nero Book Awards has quickly become one of the most prestigious fixtures in the literary calendar. Since launching in 2023, they have established themselves as one of the most respected prizes, championing outstanding writing and readability.
From hundreds of submissions, judges chose the following winners in each category:
- Fiction winner – Seascraper by Benjamin Wood (Viking)
- Non-Fiction winner – Death of an Ordinary Man by Sarah Perry (Jonathan Cape)
- Debut Fiction winner – A Family Matter by Claire Lynch (Chatto & Windus)
- Children’s Fiction winner – My Soul, A Shining Tree by Jamila Gavin (Farshore)
These four books represent the highest quality of writing and craftsmanship in literature, offering something for all readers: a novel set in Merseyside following the life of a shanker; a personal account of the death of an ordinary yet extraordinary man; a debut novel about a family torn apart by prejudice; and a children’s novel chronicling the shared human experience of those affected by WWI.
Each winner receives £5,000 and is now in the running for the Nero Gold Prize, Book of the Year 2025. The winner will be selected by a final judging panel led by bestselling author Nick Hornby, best known for his memoir, Fever Pitch and his novel, About a Boy, both of which were adapted into feature films. Hornby will be joined by BBC correspondent Reeta Chakrabarti, a regular presenter on BBC News. Completing the panel is the screenwriter Daisy Goodwin, the New York Times bestselling novelist and creator of the ITV show Victoria. They will decide the overall winner which will be announced at a ceremony hosted by Sarah Montague on 4th March. Previous winners of the Nero Gold Prize have included The Bee Sting by Paul Murray, which was the winner of the 2023 Fiction award, and Maurice and Maralyn by Sophie Elmhirst, winner of the Non-Fiction category in 2024. Winning the Nero Gold Prize propelled both authors to new audiences and chart success.
The winners from each category were chosen by expert judging panels made up of authors, booksellers and journalists who, together, selected their best books of the year from writers based in the UK and Ireland. The full list of judges can be found here.
Gerry Ford, Founder and Group CEO of Caffè Nero commented: “The Nero Book Awards have gone from strength to strength in the past two years and our winners for 2025 are of incredible quality. The judges had a difficult job deciding on the best in each category, with so many fantastic books published this year. Their selection epitomises what we look for with the Nero Book Awards – outstanding writing, incredible storytelling, and the books you most want to press into the hands of others. Caffè Nero has been a proud supporter of the arts for many years and I look forward to celebrating all four writers and announcing our Nero Gold Prize winner in March.”
The winner of the Fiction category is the ‘immersive’ Seascraper by Benjamin Wood, which tells the story of Thomas, who lives a slow life with his mother in Longferry as a shanker before a striking new visitor turns up, promising Hollywood charm. Thomas begins to imagine a different future for himself, but how much of what the American claims is true and how far can his inspiration carry Thomas? The judges described the book as an ‘utterly immersive read, steeped in atmosphere, that explores what constitutes a well-lived life.’ Benjamin Wood grew up in Merseyside and Seascraper is his fifth novel. His books have been nominated for numerous awards including the Booker Prize and Costa First Novel Award. He is a recipient of both The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award and the European Union Prize for Literature. In 2014, Wood won France's Prix du Roman Fnac. He is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at King's College, London, and lives in Surrey with his wife and sons.
Sarah Perry’s personal account of the death of her father-in-law, Death of an Ordinary Man, is the 2025 Non-Fiction winner. David died in the autumn of 2022, just nine days after a cancer diagnosis. Until then, he had been a healthy and happy man who loved stamp collecting, comic novels and Antiques Roadshow. He was in some ways a very ordinary man, but as he began to die, it became clear just how extraordinary was. The judges said, ‘Perry’s honest, revealing and generous account of a deeply personal situation, rendered with precision and delicacy, turns the death of one ordinary man into a narrative that is as heart-wrenching as it is universal…This is a book for everyone.’ Sarah Perry is the internationally bestselling author of novels including The Essex Serpent. She is a winner of the Waterstones Book of the Year Award and the British Book of the Year Award. Her books have been nominated for a number of other major literary prizes including the Booker Prize, Women’s Prize for Fiction, the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Folio Prize and the Costa Novel Award. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
The Debut Fiction category winner is A Family Matter by literature professor Claire Lynch. Lynch’s novel tells the story of a family torn apart by secrets through two different generations. In 1982, Dawn is a young wife and mother hemmed in by village life before Hazel appears like a torch in the dark. Their attraction is instant and suddenly Dawn’s world becomes more joyful and complicated than she expected. Three decades later, Maggie has always lived her life with the absence of her mother – her father never speaks of her, and it feels impossible to ask. Then an official letter arrives with news from the past and Maggie must face a truth far bigger than just her family’s secret. This humane story tackles the deep-rooted prejudices of recent history and shows how far - or not - we have come in the decades since. The judges described it as ‘a delicately written yet powerful story of injustice…exploring the fallout when buried secrets come to light. Raw, vivid and ultimately hopeful, this novel is a perfect example of how to write trauma authentically.’ Claire Lynch has spent her career teaching literature in universities. She is the author of the non-fiction book, Small: On Motherhoods, and lives in Windsor with her wife and three daughters.
In Children’s Fiction, Jamila Gavin MBE is the winner with My Soul, A Shining Tree. Based on the true story of an Indian World War One gunner, Khudadad Khan, the novel is told from four perspectives: Lotte, a Belgian farmgirl whose village is the flashpoint for a battle; Ernst, a German teenage cavalry soldier whose grandiose dreams of war lie in tatters; Khudadad Khan, the gunner fighting with the British Army; and a wild walnut tree. As their stories converge, in the process their shared humanity emerges as a light in the darkness of war. The judges described the book as an ‘exceptionally powerful story…Only a writer of genius could tell a story on this scale in fewer than 200 pages, with such vivid prose it has the quality of poetry.’ Gavin is a British-Indian writer, born in the foothills of the Himalayas. After the war, her family relocated to England and her experiences in both countries have inspired her writing. She studied music and worked for the BBC before having a family of her own and becoming a children’s writer. She has written numerous award-winning children’s novels including the Children’s Whitbread Prize for Coram Boy.
To be eligible for the 2025 Nero Book Awards, books must have been first published in English in the UK or Ireland between the 1st of December 2024 and 30th of November 2025. At the time of entry, authors must have been alive and resident in the UK or Ireland for the past three years. The Nero Gold Prize winner will receive £30,000, whilst the other category winners will each receive £5,000.
The Nero Book Awards are run as not for profit by independent, family-owned coffee house group Caffè Nero, in partnership with The Booksellers Association and Brunel University of London. The Awards form part of the premium coffee house’s long-standing commitment to supporting the arts, recognising notable talent in a particular craft and fostering a love of reading in communities across the UK and Ireland.
For full details of the category winning titles, visit: nerobookawards.com. For additional information follow Nero Book Awards on X and Instagram.
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