Looking for compelling books to gift for Christmas? Through November and December, we’re continuing our weekly spotlight on some of the best books based or published in the East of England, courtesy of the East Anglian Book Awards 2022.

Now in their fifteenth year, the awards celebrate writing talent within the East of England. The East Anglian Book Awards are a partnership between Jarrold, the Eastern Daily Press, and the National Centre for Writing, supported by UEA Faculty of Arts & Humanities. The overall prize is sponsored by The PACCAR Foundation.

Fiction

Judged by Joe Williams, journalist and PhD researcher, University of East Anglia

For fans of prose poetry and fictional sports memoirs…

Your Show by Ashley Hickson-Lovence (Faber & Faber)

It’s a double celebration tonight, not that many will care about your special role. You carry the weight of the occasion on your shoulders, take it in your stride. You’ve worked hard to get here, earned these palpitations…

From Jamaica to Sheffield to the recently formed Premier League, Uri rises through the ranks as a referee, making it to the the highest level of our national game. But along the way he is confronted with tensions and prejudices, old and new, which emerge as his every move is watched, analysed and commented on.

Your Show is an extraordinary novel which charts one man’s pioneering efforts to make it, against the odds, to the very top of his profession and beyond.

Our judge described this book as:

“a work which presses at the edge of the novel, asking us to re-consider the possibilities of the form and the stories it can tell.”

For fans of historical fiction and tales of witch hunts…

The Bewitching by Jill Dawson (Hodder & Stoughton)

A dazzling, shocking novel that speaks to our times, drawing on the 16th-century case of the witches of Warboys.

Alice Samuel might be old and sharp-tongued, but she’s no fool. Visiting her new neighbours in her Fenland village, she suspects Squire Throckmorton’s household is not as God-fearing as it seems and finds the children troubled. Yet when one of the daughters accuses her of witchcraft, Alice has no inkling of how quickly matters will escalate and fails to grasp the danger she is in.

Exploring a neglected episode of English history to powerful effect, The Bewitching vividly conveys the brutal tribalism that can erupt in a closed society and how victims can be made to believe in their own wickedness.

For those searching for literary fiction based in Norfolk…

Stewkey Blues: Stories by D. J. Taylor (Salt Publishing)

Some of the characters in Stewkey Blues have lived in Norfolk all their lives. Others are short-term residents or passage migrants. Whether young or old, self-confident or ground-down, local or blow-in, all of them are reaching uneasy compromises with the world they inhabit and the landscape in which that life takes place.

Our judge said that D.J. Taylor triumphs in…

“turning literary attention to the quiet achievements and ongoing disappointments of ordinary social life.”

These books are available to buy from Jarrold, third floor, London St, Norwich NR2 1JF. You can also browse online here.

The category winners for the East Anglian Book Awards 2022 will be announced in the Eastern Daily Press in January 2022, followed by the Overall Book of the Year Award and Exceptional Contribution Award on Friday 17 February.