Innerleithen-based author and teacher Claire McFall has made the shortlist for the inaugural Scottish Teenage Book Prize.
Set up to celebrate the most popular teenage books by Scottish authors, the competition is run by Scottish Book Trust with support from Creative Scotland.
Shortlisted authors receive £500 per book, and the winning author will receive £3,000.
Claire is shortlisted for her third novel Black Cairn Point (Hot Key Books), which was released in August 2015, and it’s up against The Last Soldier by Keith Gray (Barrington Stoke) and Silver Skin by Joan Lennon (Birlinn).
Black Cairn Point is a chilling and atmospheric thriller which explores what happens when an ancient malevolent spirit is reawakened.
Claire’s first book Ferryman is a love story which retells the ancient Greek myth of Charon, the ferryman of Hades who transported souls to the underworld. The novel won the Older Readers Category of the Scottish Children’s Book Awards 2013 and was long-listed for the UKLA (UK Literary Association) Book Awards and nominated for the Carnegie Medal. Her second novel, Bombmaker, was released in 2014 and considers ideas of identity in a dystopian devolved United Kingdom.
Claire said: “I’m incredibly pleased that Black Cairn Point has been selected. This is the first year of the new Scottish Teenage Book Prize and I’m delighted to be a part of it.
“What I love best about the prize is that it is determined purely by votes from Scottish teenage readers. I’m really looking forward to connecting with young readers and sharing my story with them.”
Children aged 12-16 across the country can now vote for the winner by submitting a class vote online via the Scottish Book Trust website.
The winning book will be announced on March 1, 2017.