Costa Book Awards 2016 shortlist: Women dominate former Whitbread Awards

Three former winners are shortlisted again for prize

Poet and singer Kate Tempest (JEAN-FRANCOIS MONIER/AFP)

Female authors have dominated the shortlist for the Costa Book Awards, with women taking 14 out of 20 spots.

Three former winners – Sebastian Barry, Maggie O’Farrell, and Rose Tremain – have been shortlisted once again for the prize.

Singer Kate Tempest heads up an all-female shortlist in the poetry category.

The awards, the only major UK book prize which is open solely to authors living in the UK and Ireland, recognises books across five categories: first novel, novel, biography, poetry, and children's book.

But only six male authors have been shortlisted across the categories, the lowest figure since records were first compiled in 1995.

Shortlisted writers in other categories include former competitive figure skater Susan Beale for her debut novel The Good Guy.

Pop journalist Sylvia Patterson is shortlisted in the biography category for I'm Not With The Band: A Writer's Life Lost In Music, her account of being "confronted by glamour and tragedy, wisdom and lunacy, drink, drugs and disaster. And Bros".

John Guy's portrayal of the "reality" of Elizabeth I "struggling to lead Britain" has been shortlisted for the biography award.

Elizabeth: The Forgotten Years tells the story of the monarch at "50 years old, past childbearing, but with her greatest challenges – the Spanish Armada, the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots and relentless plotting among her courtiers – still to come".

The biography is billed as a "gripping and vivid portrait of her life and times, often told in her own words", revealing "a woman who is fallible, increasingly insecure, and struggling to lead Britain".

Francesca Simon, the author of the Horrid Henry series of children's books, is in the running for the children's award for The Monstrous Child, her first novel for readers aged 12 and up.

Winners in the five categories, who each receive £5,000, will be announced on 3 January.

The overall winner of the 2016 Costa Book of the Year will receive £30,000 and will be announced at the Costa Book Awards ceremony in central London on 31 January.

Press Association