Lancashire Book of the Year
Lancashire Book of the Year (LBOY) is the longest running young people's regional book award in the country. The shortlist for the 2022 award will be announced on Thursday 5 May 2022.
The award remains one of the few book awards in which young people themselves are solely responsible for choosing both the shortlist and the overall winning book.
The award is voted for by Year 9 students in high schools around the county. Each school is given a collection of books, submitted by publishers as being the best books they had produced for the 12-14 age group. The young people then read and shortlist the books before choosing the overall winner.
2022 shortlist
The twelve titles were chosen and read by our young judges.
The winner will be announced on Friday 30 September 2022.
Ever since she can remember, Briseis has had power over plants. Flowers bloom in her footsteps and leaves turn to face her as though she were the sun. Inheriting an old house from her birth mother she finds she has also inherited generations of secrets; a dark goddess, a lineage of witches, and the most deadly poisonous plants on earth. And Briseis's long-departed ancestors aren't going to let her rest until she accepts her place as the keeper of the terrible power that lies at the heart of the Poison Garden.
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The monsters have known each other their whole lives. This is their final summer before college - time to hang out, fall in love and dream about the future. Until they accidentally start a forest fire which destroys their hometown and leaves death in its wake. Desperate for the truth to remain hidden, the group make a pact of silence. But the twisted secret begins to spin out of control. We know how it starts - but where does it end?
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A bag of chips. That's all sixteen-year-old Rashad is looking for. What he finds instead is a fist-happy cop, Paul, who mistakes Rashad for a shoplifter. Soon the beating is all over the news and Paul is getting threatened with accusations of prejudice and racial brutality. Quinn, a classmate of Rashad but raised by Paul, refuses to believe that the man who has basically been his saviour could possibly be guilty. But then Rashad is absent. And absent again. And again.
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Lydia has been creating her AI, Henry, for years - since before her little brother died in the accident that haunts her nightmares; since before her dad walked out, leaving her and Mum painfully alone; since before her best friend turned into her worst enemy. Now, Henry is strong, clever, loving and scarily capable, the perfect boyfriend in a hard-drive filled with lines of code. But what is Henry really - and how far is he willing to go to be everything Lydia desires?
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Evie and Lottie are twin sisters, but they couldn't be more different. Evie's sharp and funny. Lottie's a day-dreamer. Evie's the fighter, Lottie's the peace-maker. What they do have in common is their Jewishness - even though the family isn't religious. When their mother gets a high-profile job and is targeted by antisemitic trolls on social media, the girls brush it off at first - but then the threats start getting uglier. . .
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17-year-old Mina, from England, arrives in New Orleans to visit her estranged sister, Libby. Mina loves nothing more than a creepy horror movie, and it gets even better when she lands a part-time job at a horror movie mansion and meets gorgeous Jared, co-worker and fellow horror enthusiast. But the perfect summer bliss is broken when Mina stumbles upon the body of a girl with puncture marks on her neck, clutching a lock of hair that suspiciously resembles Libby's. Someone is replicating New Orleans' most brutal supernatural killings.
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In the unremarkable town of Amberside, the unthinkable has happened: Terrorists have attacked a local festival. No one knows why, and no one knows who the attackers are, but that doesn't matter. What matters first is survival. And what matters after that is survival, too. In this account of hope, humour and humanity, five ordinary teenagers are caught up in a truly extraordinary situation - a heart-pounding and gripping fight for survival as the attackers prowl the festival grounds.
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Chloe had a plan: work hard, get good grades, and attend a top-tier college, until she collapses and needs a new heart. Eight months later and everything is different, all she wants to do now is grab her surfboard and hit the waves - which is strange, because she wasn't interested in surfing before. There's also the vivid recurring nightmare about crashing a motorcycle in a tunnel. Is there something wrong with her head now, too?
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Natalie's world has turned upside down. She's lost her mum and her brother is descending further and further into anger and violence with a far-right gang who march the streets of Dover. Sammy has fled his home and family in Eritrea for the chance of a new life in Europe. Every step he takes is a step into the unknown - into a strange country and a hidden future. A twist of fate brings these two teens from opposite sides of the channel together, but will their journey end in hope or despair?
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Pip Fitz-Amobi is haunted by the way her last investigation ended. Soon she'll be leaving for Cambridge University but then another case finds her - and this time it's all about Pip. Pip is used to online death threats, but there's one that catches her eye, someone who keeps asking: who will look for you when you're the one who disappears?
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Young, brunette women are being attacked in the city of London. 16-year-old, Irish-born Niamh has just arrived for the summer, and quickly discovers that the girls being attacked look frighteningly similar to her. Determined to make it through her drama course at the Victorian Museum, there's something eerie about the place. As the two strands of present-day serial attacker and sinister Victorian history start to collide, Niamh realises that things are not as they seem. Will she be next?
Marty arrives in London with nothing but his oboe and some savings from his summer job, but he's excited to start his new life - where he's no longer the closeted, shy kid who slips under the radar and is free to explore his sexuality without his parents' disapproval. From the outside, Marty's life looks like a perfect fantasy, but Marty knows he can't keep up the façade. Will Marty be able to find a place that feels like home?
2021 winner
The winner is Ben Oliver for his novel The Loop.
Find a copy of The Loop in the library catalogue.
Watch Ben, and his cat, accepting his 2021 Lancashire Book of the Year award.
Share your reading
As well as giving a star rating or writing a review, you can join in conversations online.
Follow @LancsLibraries on Twitter for updates from us including other favourite reads. Let others know what you have been reading and what you thought about the books by using #LBOY2022 in your tweets.
Follow @lancslibraries on Facebook for updates from us including other favourite reads. Let others know what you have been reading and what you thought about the books using #LBOY2022 in your posts.