YA Book Prize 2025 Announces 2025 Shortlist

This morning, The Bookseller revealed the shortlist for the 2025 YA Book Prize, featuring a mix of fresh and familiar voices. Four debut authors have been nominated alongside six established writers, including previous winners Sarah Crossan, Adiba Jaigirdar, and Danielle Jawando.

Faber returns to the shortlist for the first time since 2017 with two debut titles: Glasgow Boys by Margaret McDonald and Songlight by Moira Buffini.

A LoveReading4Kids Star Book Glasgow Boys follows Finlay and Banjo, two teenagers raised in the care system. Finlay is pursuing a nursing degree with no support network, while Banjo grapples with his anger as he adjusts to a new foster home and tries to finish school. The novel is also shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal for Writing and the Branford Boase Award. It's an astonishing debut that shows love can be so much more than blood, and even from darkest places hope can and does exist.

Songlight, the first in a trilogy by screenwriter Buffini, is set in a post-apocalyptic world where telepathic teens Lark and Nightingale are hunted by the authoritarian regime.

Also exploring a post-apocalyptic setting - but in a wildly different tone - is OR Sorrel’s dark comedy Apocalypse Cow, acquired by Guppy Books through its open submissions process. Another LoveReading4Kids Star Book this is a brilliantly unexpected, acutely comic YA melange of the Walking Dead and sapphic romance.

The novel centers on Mel, the only out lesbian at her school, who’s already juggling bullies and a dull weekend job when suddenly domestic animals begin attacking humans - and her love life gets even more complicated.

HarperFire’s Lover Birds by Leon Egan, a LoveReading4Kids Debut of the Month on publication, is the final debut on the list. A queer romcom, it charts the turbulent relationship between students Isabel and Eloise, whose mutual disdain slowly evolves into reluctant attraction. But their budding romance must confront class barriers, hidden truths, and lingering distrust. Passionate, warm and very funny, this roller-coaster love story with a fabulous backdrop of the best sights of Liverpool, races through the complexities of a relationship that starts in distrust and anger and moves in utterly convincing jerky steps to happiness.

Among the returning nominees is Sarah Crossan, who won the 2016 prize for One. She’s shortlisted this year for Where the Heart Should Be, a verse novel set during Ireland’s Great Hunger in 1846, focusing on scullery maid Nell and her complicated relationship with Johnny, the nephew of her wealthy employer. A LoveReading4Kids Star Book this is a powerful exploration of love in all its forms and a profound and eloquent evocation of a devastating period in Ireland's history.

Adiba Jaigirdar, who won in 2022 with Hani and Ishu’s Guide to Fake Dating, is nominated again for Four Eids and a Funeral, co-written with Ace of Spades author Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé. The story reunites former best friends and now enemies Said and Tiwa as they deal with a family funeral and a devastating fire at their local Islamic Centre. It's a dual narrative rom-com brimming with authentic representation as well as heart and humour.

Danielle Jawando, who won the 2023 prize for When Our Worlds Collided, is back with If My Words Had Wings. The novel follows Tyrell, a young man determined to rebuild his life after a stint in a young offenders' institution, finding his voice through spoken word and confronting systemic injustice. It's a life affirming story of rehabilitation and hope after prison.

Also from Simon & Schuster is Catherine Doyle’s The Dagger and the Flame, a romantasy tale of rival assassins Seraphine and Ransom. Locked in a deadly feud, the two slowly begin to fall for each other in a high-stakes game of vengeance and betrayal.

Rounding out the shortlist are two titles from past nominees:

The End Crowns All by Bea Fitzgerald reimagines the myth of Cassandra and Helen of Troy through a feminist lens, placing them in the heart of the political intrigue at the Trojan court.

Holly Jackson’s The Reappearance of Rachel Price follows Bel, whose mother mysteriously vanished years ago. When the family agrees to be featured in a true-crime documentary, Rachel suddenly returns, reopening old wounds and unanswered questions.

What is the YA Book Prize?

The YA Book Prize, now in its 11th year, is run by The Bookseller in partnership with Edinburgh International Book Festival (EIBF) and celebrates the best YA fiction titles from the UK and Ireland. All of the shortlisted authors will be invited to speak on panels at EIBF on 21st August as part of the festival’s school programme, with the winner of the £2,000 award to be announced in a ceremony hosted by writer and activist Laura Bates.

The Bookseller’s Children’s and Deputy Features Editor, Caroline Carpenter, who chairs the YA Book Prize, said: “As the prize enters its second decade, it’s heartening to see that children’s publishers are still nurturing new writing talent from the UK and Ireland, as well as investing in developing long-term careers for YA authors. As ever, the 10 brilliant books on this year’s shortlist cover a wide range of genres, themes and perspectives. Many of them spotlight regional voices and characters that are under-represented in books – from young people experiencing the care and prison systems to teenagers from the LGBTQ+ and Muslim communities falling in love – and they are all engaging, empathetic and entertaining.”

Carpenter will lead a judging panel that also features award-winning children’s and YA author David Almond OBE, fellow author and BookToker Busayo Matuluko, Booka Bookshop’s children’s bookseller Sian Wadey and EIBF’s children and schools programme director Rachel Fox. The quintet will pick the winner with input from teenage readers who have shadowed the prize. Last year’s prize went to Lex Croucher’s Arthurian romantic comedy Gwen & Art Are Not in Love (Bloomsbury YA).