A dark love story between a fisherman and a mermaid has been named book of the year.
Judges crowned The Mermaid Of Black Conch: A Love Story the winner of the 2020 Costa Book of the Year.
Trinidadian-born British writer Monique Roffey penned the story which features a mermaid, cursed for her beauty and talent, torn from the sea.
Roffey, 55, told the PA news agency that love is not always seen as a valid subject for fiction.
“Sometimes it’s not seen as enough,” she said. “And I think it is.
“I think it’s time we wrote more about love, especially in these terrible times. I think it is something that deserves to be able to be the subject of a book.”
Costa Book of the Year: Utterly original Mermaid of Black Conch wins yahoo.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from yahoo.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Sheridan is based in London and is also a screenwriter.
The prize is open to published and unpublished writers for a single, previously unpublished short story of up to 4,000 words by an author aged 18 years or over and written in English.
The winner, announced on January 26, is chosen by a public vote.
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