STAUNCH BOOK PRIZE AWARD: On the Java Ridge

Inaugural Staunch Book Prize won by Jock Serong for On the Java Ridge.

The £2,000 Staunch Book Prize was launched by screenwriter Bridget Lawless in January to find the best thriller in which no woman gets beaten, stalked, sexually exploited, raped or murdered.

From The Guardian.
A thriller in which a group of Australian surfers and a boat carrying refugees are caught in a storm off Indonesia has won the inaugural Staunch prize, which goes to a thriller “in which no woman is beaten, stalked, sexually exploited, raped or murdered”.

A reaction to the prevalence of violence against women in fiction, the £2,000 award went to Australian author Jock Serong for his third novel, On the Java Ridge. Taking on Australia’s refugee policy, the thriller sees a group Australians on holiday in Indonesia rescue shipwrecked refugees from stormy waters.

Read the rest of the Guardian article here.



Staunch Book Prize Nominees
 
The Appraisal by Anna Porter (ECW press)
East of Hounslow by Khurrum Rahman (HQ),
If I Die Tonight by A L Gaylin (PRH)
On the Java Ridge by Jock Serong( Text Publishing).
The Kennedy Moment by Peter Adamson (Myriad Editions)
Cops and Queens by Joyce Thompson (seeking publisher)