Maurice and Maralyn wins Nero Gold Prize, Book of the Year 2024

In 2024, the Nero Book Awards were established to celebrate the craft of great writing and the joy of reading.

Now in its second year, we’re thrilled to share that Sophie Elmhirst’s Maurice and Maralyn has been awarded the Nero Gold Prize, Book of the Year, marking the second time in the award’s two years of existence that a Penguin Random House book has been granted the honour.

About the book

Maurice and Maralyn by Sophie Elmhirst

Bored of 1970s suburban life, Maurice and Maralyn plan their escape: sell the house, build a boat, set sail for New Zealand. Then, halfway around the world, their beloved boat is struck by a whale and the pair are cast adrift in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Alone on a tiny raft, their love is put to the test. This is a book about human connection and the human condition; about how we survive – not just at sea, but in life.

About the author

Sophie Elmhirst is a prizewinning writer for the Guardian Long Read and The Economist's 1843 magazine, and a contributing editor at the Gentlewoman and Harper's Bazaar. In 2020 she won the British Press Award for Feature Writer of the Year; she has also won a Foreign Press Award and been longlisted for the Orwell Prize. She first came across the story of Maurice and Maralyn Bailey researching a piece on our desire to escape. This is her first book. She lives in London.

About the award

Established as a not-for-profit organisation by independent coffee house group Caffè Nero, the Nero Book Awards aim ‘to point readers of all ages and interests in the direction of outstanding books and writers.’ Each year, an overall winner is crowned the Gold Prize Book of the Year, selected from four categories: Children’s Fiction, Fiction, Debut Fiction and Non-Fiction.

Books written by authors based in the UK and Ireland are eligible for the award; the Gold prize winner receives £30,000, while each of the four category winners are granted a £5,000 prize.

Last year's winner: The Bee Sting

Last year, Paul Murray won the inaugural Nero Gold Prize, Book of the Year for The Bee Sting.

The Bee Sting by Paul Murray

The Barnes family is in trouble. Dickie's once-lucrative car dealership is going under, and while his wife is frantically selling off her jewellery on eBay, he's busy building an apocalypse-proof bunker in the woods. Meanwhile their teenage daughter is veering off the rails, in thrall to a toxic friendship, and her little brother is falling into the black hole of the internet...

Where did it all go wrong? The present is in crisis but the causes lie deep in the past. How long can this unhappy family wait before they have to face the truth? And if the story has already been written, is there still time to find a happy ending?